Dean Replaces Craig; Race Notes

The St. Francis YC announced today that Robbie Dean will be taking over as the club’s Director of Racing Operations in place of John Craig who has moved on to the PRO role for America’s Cup 34.

"I have always enjoyed racing at the St. Francis Yacht Club," Dean said. "The StFYC Race Committee and Event Chairs consistently produce amazing events. I’m just going to focus on continuing the tradition of racing excellence at St. Francis YC."

The club hired Dean away from the San Diego YC, but the Southern California native has a strong Bay Area connection. He previously served as the Executive Director for the Treasure Island Sailing Center, where he and his staff garnered multiple awards and recognitions for the program. His sailing background includes extensive coaching, winning the U.S. Youth Champs in ’96, a Laser 2 World Championships, and a stint on the U.S. Olympic Development Team in the Europe Dinghy working on the mast and sail development project for the Athens Games.

Dean will have some big challenges ahead of him, not least of which is the need to hire people to replace Melanie Roberts and Mike Kalin, both of whom are going with Craig to ACRM. (correction: Kalin is joining the US Sailing Team AlphaGraphics as a coach) His first day on the job will be March 22, and one of his first projects will be to start the interview process for the positions, which are listed here, if you’re interested.

Speaking of Craig and jobs, the former met with a 40-strong group of YRA board members and club race officers at the Golden Gate YC last night. We’ll have a full report in the March issue of Latitude 38, but in the meantime, the most immediate takeaway was that America’s Cup Race Management is looking for help from the clubs in bringing together a fleet of marshall boats for the AC World series in August-September ’12, and for the main event in July-September ’13. But it was the second request that got our attention: ACRM is looking for 60 to 80 Bay Area sailors interested in paid Race Committee spots starting with the America’s Cup World Series this July, and extending on through AC 34. Craig said the jobs will likely require a minimum of 14-16 days for each World Series event and will be a fly-in, haul-ass-for-two-weeks-straight, fly-out, affair. For everyone who has been wondering about what kind of job opportunities will be available for locals, well, here it starts! If you’re interested, go to the "join our team" page on the America’s Cup website and, when you fill out the form, indicate that you want to be a race official in the drop-down menu, and prominently note "attn: John Craig" at the top of the resume you attach.

Coming up this weekend is the Richmond YC’s Big Daddy Regatta with its tried-and-true formula of three buoy races on Saturday and a pursuit race on Sunday. On the Cityfront, the St. Francis YC’s Spring Dinghy regatta will be running concurrently. Both should have some great turnouts.

In other news, Emmy-winning Bay Area producer, Snipe devotee and Fleet 12 class president Vince Casalaina is almost finished with a encyclopedic documentary about the class. Casalaina took a grass-roots approach to financing Serious Sailing, Serious Fun, Traditions Build Winners, self-financing to this point and starting a fundraising drive on www.kickstarter.com. In addition to raising $1,600 through the Snipe Class, Casalaina has raised $2,600 with the Kickstarter campaign. However, in order to get those pledges, he will need to raise another $3,300 — an averge of $200 for just 17 people, or $50 for 68. So tell all your friends there are only two weeks left to go! Long Beach sailor Jerry Thompson has put up his race-ready Snipe as a raffle prize to help fund the documentary, and you can find the details on that here.