Rodney Pimentel Recaps California Offshore Race Week Win
The 2026 California Offshore Race Week (sailed in late May) featured many different boats from up and down the West Coast. The overall winner of the series was Rodney Pimentel from Encinal Yacht Club (EYC), racing with his team aboard the Cal 40 Azure.
Pimentel and team finished fifth overall in the Spinnaker Cup (from San Francisco to Monterey) and third in the Coastal Cup (Monterey to Santa Barbara), and won the SoCal 300 (Santa Barbara to San Diego).
Azure bested Ian Rogers’ J/90 Orca (RYC) by one point overall to claim the series win. He gives us his reflections on all three legs here:
Spinnaker Cup:
“[It was a] very slow start with the entire fleet taking an extra day to finish,” Pimentel tells Latitude. “We spent the night in Santa Cruz and waited for the wind to fill the next day. It was our slowest race to Monterey, but we always enjoy the town and all the sea life.”
Coastal Cup:
“[We had great winds for the entire race. This part of the coastline is known for very strong winds, up to 40 knots,” Pimentel tells us. “The highest we saw was mid-20s, so we had a very comfortable sail to Point Conception. The sail from Conception to SBYC can be a bit tricky, known for light winds. This year we had 30 knots in the middle of Santa Barbara Channel, so we were able to sail a rhumb-line course. A virtual finish offshore ensured everyone would finish where there was breeze. Santa Barbara Yacht Club puts on a luau on the beach for the awards ceremony with a band and tiki bar — lots of fun.”
SoCal 300:
“SBYC organized the start. with the finish at San Diego Yacht Club,” Pimentel explains. “Another light start left most of the fleet spending the night between Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz Island. The next day the breeze started to fill in and gradually build from the north.”
“Being the slowest boat in the fleet has its advantages when the wind builds from behind,” he continues. “We had a great sail outside the island to the weather buoy 100 kilometers [55 miles] off San Diego. From the weather buoy to San Diego, the wind continued to build as we made our way to the finish line. I have raced down the coast a bunch of times and sailed by whales, turtles, sunfish, etc., but never hit anything. That all changed at 2:00 a.m. on the last leg. We hit something hard that stopped the boat. Thankfully, whatever it was went by without damaging the rudder. Every sailor’s worst nightmare is hitting something at night; luckily we came out pretty well.”