On Sunday, the second day of planned racing in the St. Francis Yacht Club Spring One Design Series for J/120s, J/105s and Express 27s, the National Weather Service posted Small Craft Advisories with Gale Force Gusts.

‘Small Crafts’ don’t usually trouble the small craft that race under sail on the San Francisco Bay too much. But the StFYC race committee had a terrible time with the inflatable marks they were trying to set out in the Slot just before the 1100 first gun. The northerly put the windward-leeward drop mark course right in the path of ship traffic. The winds were wild, going from a steady 29 knots, to gusts of up to 34-38 knots, then suddenly dropping to 12-13 knots, and were predicted to build in the afternoon. The water was whipped into a frothy frenzy, with big breakers on shore. At 1100, the RC radioed the fleet that there would be no racing that day, and most of the race boats headed back into the shelter of the San Francisco Marina.

We overheard a sailor entering the clubhouse joke that he was going to file a complaint with the Chamber of Commerce: “This is New Hampshire weather!” The northerly sure was brisk, even for a San Francisco wind.

A J/105 crew said, “Here’s your quote of the day: Sailmakers and riggers not happy. Boat owners happy.” “Insurance companies happy too.”

We’d put cameras on the Express 37 Golden Moon and the J/120 Mr. Magoo in the hopes of some gnarly action shots. Back at the dock, the J/120 crew observed, “You would have had pictures of the crew refusing to set. ‘No. Sorry.’” “They would have been bichromatic shots: blue for water, red for blood.” Some of the crowd on the dock speculated that the RC was setting the course very short on purpose to discourage the use of spinnakers. “The J/120 would have made it in three to four minutes.”

The NWS buoy forecast at San Francisco Bay Buoy (the ‘Lightship’) called for 21-41 knots of wind with 12-ft waves at eight-second intervals. We’d guess that if those had been the conditions on Saturday, the Lightship race would not have been run.

Fortunately for the competitors, they got in three good races on Saturday. Bartz Schneider’s Expeditious topped the Express 37s, John Wimer’s Desdemona won the J/120s, and Adam Spiegel’s Jam Session, apparently recovered from an unfortunate collision last weekend in the Big Daddy, topped the 24 J/105s with two bullets. See all the results at www.stfyc.com.

Thanks to Erik Simonson for providing us with some photos of actual racing! You can see more of Erik’s shots at www.h2oshots.com. Thanks also to the crews of Mr. Magoo and Golden Moon for trying - we’ll catch you next time!