HL Enloe's ORMA 60 Mighty Merloe took down another course record, breaking last year's pace by over an hour with an elapsed time of 22:09:18 in the 240 mile SoCal 300 race. Last year's Mighty Merloe finish time was 23:13:12. 2017 is the third year of racing this course.

For a pair of experience ocean racers in the 2017 Coastal Cup, an overnight race from Monterey to Santa Barbara quickly turned into a challenging night of survival. With excellent support from two fellow competitors boats and the US Coast Guard, both sailors and the Moore 24 sailboat made it safely to shore the by the following day. Article courtesy of Eric Simonson, Pressure-drop.us

Encinal Yacht Club's Commodore Doug Perry's report on the communications with Snafu and Chim Chim during the Coastal Cup: "At 19:26 on Monday the Race Committee received a phone call from Chim Chim that they were about 35nm from Morro Bay with a broken rudder and were dropping out of the race. We were able to connect them with the Coast Guard and after talking with them the crew decided to continue on to Santa Barbara. At about 0830 on Tuesday they texted that they were making fine, but slow, progress. Their tracker showed them off of Point Conception and about 40 NM from Santa Barbara.

A wild ride in many respects for the 16 boats racing in the 2017 Coastal Cup. First off, the Moore 24 Snafu with Karl Robrock and Gilles Combrisson sailing doublehanded broke their mast before midnight just north of Morro Bay. Coast Guard airlifted the two sailors safely to shore, and their primary concern now is recovering the boat before more damage is done. A recovery plan is in the works, so we wish the best to the Snafu crew in their efforts. Fellow competitors Azure and Junkyard Dog were in the vicinity of Snafu and stood by in support until a rescue plan for the crew was in place. More details to come.

The 2017 edition of the Spinnaker Cup moved back and moved forward. Instead of the normal Friday 11:00 AM start as been de rigueur for some time, the normal SFYC - MPYC R/C working in conjunction with the California Offshore Race Week, moved the start to 0900 Saturday in order to compress the entirety of the events involved. 38 boats and crews lined up on this cold, grey early morning start for the 88 nm downhill slide from San Francisco to Monterey. Now, an unofficial feeder race for Transpac, the Spinnaker Cup provides an early, first step option for NorCal boats to get to SoCal in advance of the Transpac. 18 of the boats entered in Saturday's Spinnaker Cup will continue south, competing the revamped Coastal Cup, now racing from Monterey to Santa Barbara Yacht Club.

Sailonline is again partnering with the prestigious San Diego Yacht Club (SDYC) for the 2017 running of the SoCal 300 race. SDYC has been racing in the waters off San Diego for 130 years, and in 2016, was the first USA West Coast yacht club to bring virtual sailing navigation to its members and the west coast sailing community. The SoCal 300 is the third and final ocean race of this year’s California Race Week and sees the fleet race a slalom course from Santa Barbara to San Diego, starting on 1 June.

The California Offshore Race Week will return for its second year featuring the combined efforts of Encinal Yacht Club, San Francisco Yacht Club, Monterey Peninsula Yacht Club, Santa Barbara Yacht Club and San Diego Yacht Club. From May 27 to June 3, these five clubs will join forces to produce a week-long schedule of races in a tour from Northern California to Southern California with stops in Monterey and Santa Barbara. Participants will have time along the coast to relax and meet up with friends and family.

Managed by the Offshore Racing Association (ORA) in the USA, the Offshore Rating Rule (ORR) seeks to handicap different designs of keelboats to allow them to race together. Scuttlebutt editor Craig Leweck checks in with Bjorn R. Johnson, Executive Director ORA, for this update.