Great Pumpkin Saturday

October 30, 2011

Light air and unremitting sunshine set the stage for this year's Great Pumpkin Regatta, conditions familiar to Great Pumpkin regulars. One difference this year: racing on four courses instead of three. The additional course, near Treasure Island in the Central Bay for two IRC divisions, drew only six sign-ups and two actual raceboats, the TP52s Vesper and PowerPlay, who were wrapping up their West Coast Shootout series.

The TP52s had the most wind of anyone on Saturday, but even that was not much. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

The other three drop-mark courses, Olympic Circle, Deep Water and Southampton hosted mega fleets of boats (a total of 258 entered the regatta). On the Deep Water course, wind was so light that the first race was called off with a few boats still left on the course. The race committee waited an hour and a half for a 12-knot westerly to fill in before starting the second race, and by the third race, sailors were enjoying a 15-16 knot breeze.

The Hobie 33 Akyla and the Viper 640 Viral on the Olympic Circle. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

The Tartan Ten Topgallant sailed (and drifted) in the SF 30 fleet on the Olympic Circle. ©2011 Lynn Davis/norcalsailing.com

The race committee multi-tasked during the postponement. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

Close racing in slow motion on J/24s TMC Racing and Shut Up and Drive. They took first and second in that order out of six J/24s. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

Uncle Hank Easom was guest rockstar on nephew Scott's Farr 30 Eight Ball. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

The westerly never made it as far as the Southampton Course, and the boats sailing there only finished two races. The Moore 24 Gruntled won both races in their fleet. "We started five minutes after the Express 27 division and beat all of them too," reported Simon Winer. "We asked race organizer Eric Arens if we could have the award for Express 27s too, but he seemed a bit frazzled."

Gruntled cleaned up on the Southampton course. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

Barefoot sailing on the Moore 24 Banditos. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

Racing was followed by hanging out in the sunshine at Richmond YC, then dinner and dancing. The theme this year was "Dead Head Great Pumpkin", which made for lots of hippies and skeletons wandering around the clubhouse after dark.

Grateful dancers. ©2011 Michael Rossi/norcalsailing.com

Skeleton crew. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

Party! ©2011 Michael Rossi/norcalsailing.com

Results from Saturday are available at www.richmondyc.org. Continue on to our report on Sunday's pursuit race.