Sausalito Yacht Club’s second Tuesday Night twilight race went off with a bang - make that three. Not guns, collisions.

Victims included Min Flicka, Nancy, Jose Cuervo and Hazardous Waste. Maybe more. Min Flicka and Jose Cuervo both retired. Hazardous Waste sustained major damage, but was already at the farthest point from home, so managed to round the buoys on the way back - and came in second despite never setting a spinnaker.

Winds were a little lighter than two weeks ago, with sustained speeds mostly in the high teens and bigger gusts coming through the Gate. All fleets were sent on a 5.7 nm course to Blackaller, Harding Rock, Knox, and back to the committee boat on station near Little Harding. This would provide for a good beat over to the City and a tactical choice in the light flood current: head out to the middle first, or over toward the Sausalito shore before crossing over. Seven J/105s were sent off first.

Four went over toward the City, while three sailed toward Sausalito. Those three, Streaker, Hazardous Waste and Jose Cuervo, converged on Blackaller almost simultaneously. Streaker had gone a bit farther before tacking for the layline and so was to windward, falling off a bit to reach the mark. HazWa had called it tight, and was set to round first. Jose Cuervo approached the mark on port tack. They would have to duck HazWa and Streaker. But something went wrong, and they didn’t fall off quickly enough, instead T-boning HazWa in the port beam, punching a big messy fiberglass hole in her hull. Jose lost (literally) her roller-furler in the process, and her forestay went, but fortunately the mast stayed up.

After a quick assessment of the situation, HazWa continued to race on white sails, rounding all marks to finish second after Streaker, which had avoided the fracas and was long gone. The four 105s which had gone out into the flood followed more than nine minutes later. The crew of the Baltic 42 True North had started 10 minutes later, and were thrilled be finishing with the second group of 105s to win the non-spinnaker division.

Full results are available at www.syconline.org/Race/resultspage.html.

Three collisions, with major damage to some of the boats, seem like a bit much for a beer can race. But the week was just getting started.