Behind the scenes at Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week
by LBYC Race Office 15 Jun 07:47 NZST
June 20-22, 2025
Long Beach Yacht Club signal boat, 35' Mainship Loynes - Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week © Long Beach Yacht Club
To pull off not just a good but a great regatta requires both a passion for the sport but also solid knowledge of sailboat racing and a healthy appetite for fun.
Long Beach Yacht Club members Wendy Corzine and John Busch have boatloads of all of the above; Busch has been active in offshore, one design and match racing where he's often made podium, and his race management credentials cover the gamut from US Sailing National Race Officer to International Umpire. Corzine grew up sailing at Long Beach Yacht Club where she went through dinghy programs as a kid, she has fleet raced PHRF racing for years and has also done some match racing and offshore racing.
"I got into race committee when I had small kids and needed to have more stability," says Corzine. "I raced Long Beach Race Week as a competitor for at least a decade on a Tripp 40 and I've always loved the regatta so I'm excited to be a part of it again this year."
Corzine and Busch have both been involved in race management at LBYC for a long time, whether the event is match racing, Congressional Cup, Race Week, OCR, or any of the many other racing events that the club organizes. Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week just happens to be a favorite.
"I really love the event, so I don't want to give it up," Busch smiled. "We've had some really great regattas over the years, and I enjoy the races on our racecourse on the Long Beach side of things. Wendy and I, and our team, start the One Designs, the Catalina 27s, and the Random Leg boats. It's fun."
Busch added, "I think the commonality with a lot of good race officers is that they grew up sailing boats, racing, and have that gut instinct that helps with course management. I think that's real important - you have to be able to feel it."
So, what does it take to organize Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week? As soon as the regatta finishes, the organizing team, which comprises members from both LBYC and Alamitos Bay Yacht Club (ABYC) who jointly run the event, takes a short break before regrouping a month later. The team dives right into the next year's event, first figuring out what the budget will be based on how many boats the clubs think will register. Next, details are worked out; what went well, what didn't go well, what the situation is likely to be next year, and following that, the team usually meets once a month.
"ABYC has a great group we work with, such as Jennifer Kurtz who manages a lot of the budget related items; I think it's quite a unique relationship," says Busch. Our long-time title sponsor Bruce Cooper at Ullman Sails has been a partner of Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week for a long time. He does a great job with recruiting classes and advertising, which has been really helpful."
The event also enjoys a partnership with the City of Long Beach which allows the event free dockage from the LBYC side and all the slips there, and also on the ABYC side which facilitates accessibility between the two clubs.
Plenty of volunteer wrangling takes place with some 100 people helping on and off the water, between race committee, admin, and registration, and not forgetting of course, the volunteers who drive the barges back and forth between the two clubs for all the parties.
"We have a model that works so there are not a lot of changes from year to year, other than we know that this year we may be light on the bigger boats that would usually show as they're preparing for Transpac and getting into their offshore configurations," says Busch. "It always seems like there are new one-design classes that come through and others that go away, so we're constantly working through that process."
Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week is known among sailors as a regatta that really does bend over backwards for its participants and is always listening to what the different fleets want to do. Case in point, the J109 fleet reached out this year to discuss format for its fleet to encourage more of its members to participate this year.
"They were trying to do something different this year so I asked what they had in mind," explains Busch. "They wanted to do a Random Leg race on Friday and Saturday, and then Sunday finish off with two buoy races. I hadn't thought of that one before, but that's what we're going to do for the J109 class this year. I'm sure others will do that in the future. I like the idea, start them off with the Random Leg group or give them their own start - I haven't quite figured that out yet, but we'll get there!"
Many regional and national championships are sailed at the regatta, and this year the Moore 24 fleet will hold its National Championship at its Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week debut. To date, Ullman Sails LBRW has more boats registered than last year and has reached 100+ boats, upending the downward participating trend plaguing many sailing events nationwide.
"I think what's made Ullman Sails Long Beach Race Week very successful is that it is one of the premier events on the west coast," says Busch. "We've seen numbers go down across the board on a lot of the west coast events, even ours in past years, but the one thing about Long Beach is that you have the nice weather, the breeze is fairly consistent as far as velocity which is fun. And then we do a great job, you race, you party, you eat, and repeat. That's what we do and it's just a fun time. Heck, I may even have to fire up the barbeque on the signal boat this year - we have plenty of talent on our race committee and with Wendy being the race officer, I'm just her backup deputy. I might be able to run downstairs and turn over a couple sausages or something, right Wendy?"
Wendy laughs, "Oh, that would be so fun!"