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 The newly formed California fleet promises to be one of the largest fleets for the Viper. Easy to travel, trailer and launch makes the Viper perfect for California. With the 30 minutes it takes from trailer to water, it’s the ideal sailing and one-design racing platform from San Diego and LA up through San Francisco and Lake Tahoe.
After our recent first One-Design start at Long Beach Race Week, we are off and running. 2010 will see 12 boats at the West Coast Championships in Long Beach and we’ll continue to form up as a fleet in several regattas within California such as the Sailing Anarchy Sportboat Championships where we currently have 11 boats registered.
 Filled with great people and fantastic sailors, Vipers have fulfilled everything we need as a one-design raceboat in California. Lightweight, high quality and most of all, very affordable. Strict one-design rules, one suit of sails per year and Corinthian competition (no pros) allows a broad range of sailors to be competitive. It’s commonplace to have 8-10 boats exchange top five finishes in our regattas.
We’re teaming up with our neighbor fleet, the Desert Vipers (Arizona) to add even more variety to our sailing locations. There’s a great race just a few hours away.
We have a very active schedule of demos and joyrides at just about any location you can imagine. We also have fleet deals available for budding areas saving new owners thousands of dollars.
Call or email California fleet "sparkplug" Drew Harper and come share the fun!
Life’s short . . . Sail Fast !!
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Written by Tony Chapman
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Wednesday, 27 July 2011 12:36 |
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HIGH SIERRA REGATTA – JULY 15-17, 2011 
For anyone that has never attended this Fresno Yacht Club event at Huntington Lake, in the Sierra Mountains of Central California, there are many reasons to add it to your “must-do regatta” list. For those of us in Arizona the excuse is very simple – it is a way to get out of the crazy heat. For others there are many more reasons to make the effort to attend.
The lake itself, at an elevation of 7200 feet, is spectacular, being surrounded by the tree covered mountains of the Sierra National Forest. This year it was even more spectacular as there was still snow on some of the surrounding peaks. And as usual the wind gods provided great sailing conditions by turning on great breeze each day prior to the start of racing and then promptly turning it off when we were done. Is there anything better than sailing in great winds (there were plenty of times it was white-capping) on fresh and clear water? The temperature dropped to a very cool 34 degrees the first night and from our cabin sites over-looking the lake it was so calm the following morning that I was convinced the lake had frozen over.
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Written by Rachel Ellis
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Tuesday, 28 June 2011 09:11 |
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The 2011 Long Beach Race Week was the perfect venue to kick off our EFG Pan American Pacific  West Coast Championship. We had 15 Vipers on the line and some really great competition. We had several new boats, all sporting different colors from mint, yellow and purple. I don’t know what it is about the Viper fleet or drinking, but when I mix the two, my inner Texan comes out… strong. You can ask anyone and they would say the line of the weekend was “that ain’t right!” Well there were some things that ain’t right about that weekend (too many speed bumps, etc), but our sailing was not one of them!
Friday was a light air day, which made it key to catch all the shifts. We had poor starts and were over early in the second one, but managed to claw our way to the top and finish first in both races. We had Kevin Taugher on the boat, and he was amazing at keeping us in phase all day. Tim Carter was at the helm and he kept focused on making the boat go fast. I was constantly playing the jib during the shifts and puffs to keep us in gear.
The party Friday night was at ABYC and the Viper fleet made sure to close it down. Naturally, some shenanigans went down.
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Written by Brad Milligan USA143
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Friday, 01 April 2011 10:44 |
(photos courtesy of Peter Howson-SailLog.net)
Funny you ask... 
So there we were....(as one of my crew likes to put it..) #143 Sinnerman was splashed after a short week and delivery from San Francisco to San Diego. Drew Harper had made sure the boat and I were ready to go. With only a week to prep for NOOD in San Diego we had our work cut out for us. I had been thinking of this moment for over six months. Rondar was amazing at keeping me up to date on the delivery but it could never come soon enough. I was a week out and had to figure out the boat. I had my new set of Quantum's and was ready to go.
Day one...Decent breeze and the flat water of Coronado Bay. A great combination. We made our splash in the fleet but had better downwind than upwind speed in the 8-12kts of the day. I was elated with our 2-3-3-2. Tomorrow was another story...
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Written by Tim Carter
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Tuesday, 08 March 2011 12:32 |
 (photos courtesy of Peter Howson-SailLog.net)
Team Viral got in late about 9:30 after a wet exit from Los Angeles. When we got to Mission Bay YC, it was dark except for distinct noises coming from the bar was making noise and we were not shocked to find the bar full of Snake bit types. We had superstar Al hook us up a few, and then when he finally kicked us out we moved the party to the Catalina 30 we had secured for the weekend. After everybody squeezed in, there were more lies to be told and we successfully destroyed our 1st bottle of Mount Gay. All along there was 30 kt breeze rocking the boat and intermittent rain showers.
Saturday greeted us with broken clouds, small cells, and generally 5-7kt breeze. After we all got launched we sailed out the channel to the outside course, big rollers in the jetty mouth and very confused seas outside. My lake sailing Texas girl at the front was looking a bit green but she recovered nicely. After a bit the wind filled in slightly and sort of locked in @ a SSW direction and we got to go racing.
The line was very long, pin favored and the left side was also looking good. Winnard was able to hit the pin on port and crossed the fleet; this was a harbinger of things to come. After the leeward mark we were joined by a good size pod of Dolphins who escorted up the beat to the finish. You could literally reach out and touch em’… J
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Written by Ronnie Simpson
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Thursday, 30 September 2010 11:07 |
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And here's Ronnie's report:
It must be that time of year again, because I find myself returning to San Francisco with an empty wallet, a deep sunburn, a sore body and a massive hangover. Yes, the World Championships of the World, er, International Sportboat Anarchy Festival took place this past weekend in sunny San Diego. I found myself racing a Viper 640 in a 28 boat mixed design fleet that included 14 Vipers. We had our ups and down throughout the weekend, but the weather was great, the racing close and the parties lively.
After winning the Ultimate 20 class at ISAF last year, Ullman sailmaker Ben Lakin and I decided to team up and see what we could do in the Viper class. With an old borrowed boat and Viperette Stacey Loula, we saw ourselves as somewhat of a dark horse coming into the weekend. With Chris Winnard entering the Viper class and long-time Rondar reps Drew Harper and Tim Carter in the class, plus a slew of other quick boats from all over the West Coast and Arizona, it would appear to be anyone's regatta. A productive day of practice on Thursday would allow us to fix some issues with the boat, work on boat handling and gel as a team.
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