Forget about being a billionaire or having pro status in order to match race. For those of us who bash around the cans in fleets of equal (and sometimes unequal) boats every weekend the idea of match racing seems far too cerebral and expensive. On Saturday and Sunday eight J/22s sailed in light then often puffy conditions off of Tiburon in what will hopefully be a recurring match race series, called the Paradise Cay Match Race, a ‘grade 5 open event’, at the Tiburon Yacht Club.

"It's hard to find an inexpensive match race format," says Kristen Lane, the originator and organizer of the event. "If you sign up for the traditional races like the Congressional Cup or Monsoon Cup you have to be both a  pro and have the money to buy in."

Match racing is mostly about using the rules to gain advantage. With two equal one design boats, getting your opponent to foul you is the main way to get ahead. While the rules are mostly the same as for fleet racing, a few little changes keeps the crews and umpires on their toes. After the racing on Saturday many small groups conducted post-mortems with the umpires and racers using visual aids to help sort out the day’s events and mishaps.

Logistically, this type of racing is a resource hog. Good, evenly matched boats are are required, plus two judging RIBs for each pair of boats, with two judges per boat, plus a pin-setting boat, top mark boat and of course the RC boat at the start line. The bottom line is that it takes a lot of stuff and people to put this kind of event together.

Kristen met Principal Race Officer Jeff Zarwell on Thursday and asked if he would help. His answer was "sure" and even with the short notice everything went smoothly. Charlie Arms of Cal Maritime Academy assembled most of the RC boats and crew. Many of the skippers came from the local J/105 fleet, including the 2009 national champion, Bruce Stone. TYC volunteered a lot of the judges and the club for a post-race conference, dinner and drinks. Everyone seemed to have a good time once the horns went off, and again afterwards at the club once the intricacies of match racing were puzzled out.

After the end of racing on Sunday, Kristen reported, “The sailing today was great! We finished seven flights in solid breeze. There was some very tight match racing. Everyone loved the venue and look forward to another event here soon. Ty Reed from Cal Maritime bested the fleet of eight skippers to take the victory. Thank you to TYC, Paradise Cay Marina, Cal Maritime, locals who donated their J/22s to the event, and the St. Francis YC for the loaning of additional supplies.”

Afterword:

This story was picked up by Scuttlebutt’s Tuesday edition (#2987) and responded to by readers the following day (edition #2988). Apparently, we created a small controversy, as Jack Jennings of Pied Piper Racing (a Midwestern organization) writes, “You quote Kristen Lane as saying that the only way to get into the Congressional Cup or the Monsoon Cup is to be a pro or buy your way in, and as a result this blocks newcomers to match racing. This is not accurate at all…” Perhaps not, technically, but that is the impression recreational sailors get from those events. Go to www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/archived_Detail.asp?key=4327 to read the rest of Jack’s arguments, plus a letter from Gregory Paul of New Zealand (scroll down to the Letters and Forum section).