The mother of all Midwinters hit the Bay at the same time as a January heat wave that had local sailors saying, “Who needs Key West!” Key West Race Week has nothing on us for the Corinthian Midwinters: sun, warm temperatures, and rum and Cokes on the deck. But they do have wind. The downside to the balmy breezes on San Francisco Bay this weekend was their spottiness. On Saturday, the National Weather Service called for 5-15 knot winds with “the strongest winds near Angel Island” (host Corinthian Yacht Club must have an in at the NWS). Racers did find up to about 12 knots east of Angel, but the parking lots were much more widespread than the bits of wind.

Well over a hundred boats showed up at the startline west of Angel Island. The Corinthian race committee was tricked by a promising zephyr at noon and sent the biggest boats and the Express 37 fleet on what one Express 37 crewmember called, “INSANELY long courses - what were they thinking?” After an exciting downwind start for the big and fast boats, a 35-minute postponement allowed enough wind to fill to send the rest of the divisions on a romp to Harding Rock and then the other side of Angel Island to R8 off of Point Bluff (NE corner of Angel).

The light and fluky winds and tides made for some tough decisions on which was the best way to make it back to the finish before deadline. The Division G medium-size boats which fought their way up Raccoon from Harding to R8 then back won out big time. But how many boats figured that one out? Maybe 4 out of 19. Gordie Nash on his mod. Santana 27 Arcadia made up 15 minutes on the rest of the division. Those who went around the south side of Angel Island stalled out near Point Blunt (south end of Angel). With the first divisions given a too optimistic 11-mile course, those poor folks never had a chance.

The starts on Saturday were north to south, so most boats in the spinnaker divisions set kites as soon as they hit the startline. The littlest boats, Santana 22s and Cal 20s, started five minutes before the last division - the multihulls, and a Tuna racer described “wave after wave of giant cruising cat sailing down” on them.

The last mark of Corinthian races is an inflatable set close to the Tiburon shoreline several lengths short of the finish line. ‘Elephant Rock’ was the site of the worst convergence of the day (“a real Charlie-Foxtrot” to quote one racer). The race committee’s newsletter commends the Quanci family’s Cal 40 Green Buffalo for staying “closer to shore for the finish, cutting out the herd and gaining 40 places”. But we also observed boats like Steve Seal and John Skinner’s Wyliecat 30 Silkye approaching the dreaded Elephant Rock mark from as far left - the middle of Raccoon Strait - as possible and getting around the parking lot that way.

Once inside the C-F, hails to fellow competitors were more in the nature of “I have no way,” and “Sorry, no steerage,” than “Starboard!” One Catalina 34 appeared to have no choice but to conduct a slow-motion T-bone of another boat, and so a crewman stood ready on the bow with a fender, but the scrape was averted as the potential victim drifted by spinning in a lazy circle. Hank Easom’s 8-Meter Yucca had a quick anchor drill when they started to drift backward. The Santana 35 Breakout fired up their engine calling out to the fleet, “Hey there’s free beer back at the club!” (Foxtrot-Bravo!)

Ron Young on the IOD Youngster said the race for them was penthouse-outhouse-penthouse. At one point in the race they were ahead of boats that started 10 minutes before them - at another no one was behind them. From that position in the rear they got a good look at the pile-up at the finish and got around the mess to get the gun.

A crew on the well-sailed Beneteau 40.7 White Dove used the same penthouse-outhouse catch-phrase, only White Dove didn’t make it back up to the penthouse.

Despite the level of talent on Kame Richards’ Express 37 Golden Moon, with Liz Baylis calling tactics, neither they nor any other Express 37 was able to finish on Saturday. GM couldn’t even make it halfway around the course. No one in the first two PHRF spinnaker fleets or the J/105s finished either.

Once back at the docks sun-weary sailors enjoyed the free beer courtesy of Oceanic Yacht Sales. Racers traded stories and accused other crews of ‘sucking’, and one crewmember accused her skipper of ‘major suckage’, but these comments were all good-natured and accompanied by laughter. The band and buffet dinner started early, around sunset, and the band (Left Coast All-Stars) called it a wrap at 2100, despite a ballroom full of frenzied dancers, many of whom then moved on to pack the bar at Sam’s down the block.

Sunday’s forecast called for more of the same but with gusts to 20 knots! Of course no such thing materialized. The RC sent the starts off in the opposite direction - south to north - headed for marks on the east end of Raccoon Strait, with R8 as the windward mark for most. Great starts, plenty of wind then "Park it right here, sir," with lot B just past R8. As the lot started filling up fast, some boats attempted to go ‘around the world’ to Little Harding by heading south along Angel Island. It was the path of least resistance on the ebb, but the water was smooth as glass down there. The first four fleets were spared the double-digit courses of the day before, and were mostly able to finish.

The Santa Cruz 50 Octavia was the first to drop out, with an injury onboard. The Schumacher 30 Shameless, generally at the top of the SF 30 fleet, hit bottom on the north side of Raccoon Strait, and so had to quit during the first leg. Others wearied of drifting. Later in the afternoon, the Sabre 36 Ganesha called in on the radio to drop out, with the reason that they were running out of beer.

Surprisingly, most of the rest of the boats finished before the 1700 deadline. The last boats to finish were a trio that crossed the line with less than a minute to spare. The crowd enjoying the fine weather on CYC’s deck cheered them on and applauded when they finished.

The three were Craig McDow’s Santana 22 Sweet Reward, which finished with just seconds left, Swell Bound, Doug Perry’s Colgate 26, and Ergo, Bill Merrick’s Ericson 35. Sometimes the media mentions you when you finish first, sometimes when you finish last.

Results can be found at www.cyc.org/midwinters. The second and final weekend of this series will be February 21-22. They haven’t done it yet, but we expect the club will invite you to sign up for the second half only at a reduced price.

This was a heavily photographed event. Contributor/racer Laura Watt’s photos can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/lawatt/sets/72157612708666303. Peter Lyons has 55 pages of photos (!) posted at www.lyonsimaging.com, and Erik Simonson’s photos are available at www.h2oshots.com. Our galleries from both Saturday’s and Sunday’s racing are now online.