Est. 1896 · Santa Barbara Channel, California
The World's Most Prestigious Slow-Moving Maritime Race
Every four years, the oil platforms of the Santa Barbara Channel race north from Newport Beach to Monterey — 350 miles of California coastline, four checkpoints, and one very good reason to care.
The Oil Rig Regatta is a celebration built around an unlikely premise. The environmental pressures on the Santa Barbara Channel are entirely real. All proceeds support the non-profits working to address them.
On March 13, a federal order issued under the Defense Production Act of 1950 directed three Regatta competitors — Platform Harmony, Platform Heritage, and Platform Hondo — to resume production. In a race scored in part on barrels produced, an order to start producing again is, in effect, an order to start scoring again. All three had been idle since 2015.
The competitive stakes are difficult to overstate. The three platforms had spent eleven years shut in, and a shut-in well does not rest quietly — pressure builds inside a sealed reservoir the longer it stays closed. Race analysts have described the pressure accumulated across the three platforms as the largest in the Channel’s recorded history. The wells are primed.
The order arrived over the objection of nearly everyone who lives with its consequences. The pipeline that will carry this oil is the one that ruptured near Refugio State Beach in 2015, spilling an estimated 120,000 gallons into the Santa Barbara Channel. The communities along this coast did not ask for it to carry crude again, and many of them said so plainly. The Channel is a migration corridor for gray and blue whales and a home for sea otters and the kelp forests that shelter hundreds of species. It is also the water this entire race is named for.
The three platforms have offered no comment, which is consistent with their general communication style.
The Haul
Between checkpoints, each competing platform undergoes "The Haul" — a multi-week tow operation where pairs of tugboats drag 30,000-ton structures up the California coast at speeds that rival continental drift. The wake is real. The progress is arguable.
The Regatta course runs north from Newport Beach — Checkpoint 1 — up through Santa Barbara, past Point Conception, through Morro Bay, and along Big Sur to the finish at Monterey Bay. Four checkpoints. Approximately 350 miles. All of it on purpose.
Four years later, the same platforms reverse the course — Monterey back to Newport — for the next edition. The platforms return to their home in the Santa Barbara Channel only after the full round trip is complete.
View the Course MapWhy We Race
The health of the Santa Barbara Channel is not a fiction. These waters are home to blue whales, sea otters, giant kelp forests, and dozens of protected species. The organizations below work year-round to keep it that way.
Every dollar raised through the Regatta goes directly to them. Root for your favorite rig. Drink beer on the beach. And please, donate.
Meet the Non-Profits →