“A little hairier than expected. Thanks for racing in the sporty conditions,” comments the Oakland YC Race Committee about Saturday’s Rites of Spring race for shorthanded and women’s crews. The RC put the westerly at 10 to 35 knots. Pretty tough to make a sail choice, when the wind’s at practically zero 45 minutes before the first gun, then 10 knots at the 1230 first gun, then 20 knots by the time all had started. Apparently, gusts in the Slot reached 35 knots that afternoon. The course sent the racers around or past Alcatraz, so there was no avoiding the worst of the wind. Also unavoidable was the steep, steep chop and deep, deep troughs, as the westerly rubbed up against the ebb. Alcatraz disappeared into a low fog bank, like it had never been there.

“No photos this time,” said Jennifer McKenna, who crewed on Leah Pepe’s Santana 22 Kelly Shawn. “Too wet and windy. I was pretty much soaked and am still getting the salt out. The traveller broke along our first beat to Alcatraz - but it was just a pin that popped out and I was able to fix it - and almost lost the whisker pole overboard, but recovered from both and stuck it out. Overall and in retrospect, it was a good experience.” Jan Grygier’s Carlos won the Santana 22 division.

The one official women’s entry, the Merit 25 Bandido, confused some competitors, as it had a boatload of crew sailing with skipper Debbie Fehr. “They can’t be racing, they’ve got a full crew.” “It’s an all-women entry.” “Oh.” Other entries were all singlehanded or doublehanded.

The first boat to reach the finish behind Treasure Island was Dan Alvarez’s JS9000 JetStream. He also corrected out first in the Sportboat division. Dan filed this report:

“I had done Rites of Spring singlehanded in Travieso [Ericson 30] for the last few years, but this year I would go doublehanded with Mike Tyng on JetStream. We were pretty excited about the race; we had some good competition and friends also coming out to race. The forecast all week had been for rising temperatures and lighter winds, so as we motored out to the race course we set up for that with the spinnaker light air sheets.

“We made it to the starting area with a little time to spare so we did a few tuning runs. The breeze was beginning to fill nicely from the west to about 12 knots. We had a great setup for the start, starting leeward of the fleet, but still pretty close to the pin. The boat is moving well, a little lower than the fleet but plenty fast. Outsider [Greg Nelsen’s Azzura 310] is windward of us going a little higher and fast as well.

“We have a bit of a long way to the upwind mark from the Berkeley Circle to Little Harding. We chose the righthand side of the course and that was somewhat reinforced by the majority of the fleet also coming this way. We didn't quite clear Point Blunt so we took a short tack to clear the buoy and quickly went back to port tack to get more westing. The fog was rolling in through the center of the Bay which made finding the marks a bit difficult. But we soon got close enough to Little Harding to spot it. At this point the wind was blowing closer to 18-20 and the boat was really in its groove.

“Nearing the mark we saw two boats approaching from the Central Bay. Clearly staying closer to the middle had paid off - lesson learned. We rounded third behind a J/105 [Roxanne] and the Beneteau 40.7 [Phantom Mist] on our way to Alcatraz, our next mark. Talk about power reaching. We were reaching with our white sails in 20+ knots; we were screaming now with sustained speeds on the low teens. We were hopping up and down some reasonable chop taking a few nose dives. I don't often experience getting green water inside the Bay, but we stuffed it good behind the back of a wave, bringing a bit of water back into the cockpit. Have to remember to keep the companionway cover on in over 20 knots. We passed the Beneteau 40.7 before reaching Alcatraz, and now had the J/105 in our sights.

“We rounded Alcatraz and got ready for our spinnaker run back to the Berkeley Circle. The kite went up without a problem and we slingshot out. The boat behaves quite well in the heavy stuff. We jibed right behind the 105 and started our quest to find the the leeward mark, one of the Berkeley Circle permanent marks - little yellow marks that maybe stick up two feet from the water. With the wind and chop they are impossible to see unless you were 50 yards away. I don't know how many times I asked Mike, ‘Where is the effing mark?’ His glasses were covered with dried saltwater, so he could see less than I could.

“We eventually spotted it. We needed to do two more jibes to get around it. The jibes went very smoothly and we got set for the douse. This is when the light air spinnaker sheets came back into play. JetStream is so narrow that the safest way to douse the kite is with a windward douse. We've done dozens of them - no problem. Release the sheet, pull on the lazy sheet, bring the kite around the headsail and drop right on the deck. Except this time the kite didn't come around the headsail. Initially I thought that with the heavier conditions Mike just couldn't pull the sail around, so after a few, 'Pull harders' coming from the guy holding the tiller, I noticed that the sheet was fully tensioned and a huge knot (commonly known as 'assholes' to the sailors) was stuck in the block. Out came the knife and problem solved. Good thing Mike had his knife handy as mine was safely stored down below and out of reach. The light air sheets are the only thing that have given us problems on the boat, so they are going out. I need to find more slippery lines.

“We probably went about 50 yards past the mark before we got everything sorted out. We climbed our way around the end of the Berkeley Pier, luckily still in front of the J/105. We had another nice reach down to the finish mark, which we had to round before going to the finish line. The boat was feeling a bit sluggish (comparatively) at this point, so we figured we'd collected a few gallons of water down below. We had a great short upwind leg to the finish and were the first boat to finish from our start. At this point we see our friends taking some pictures of us - maybe they'll put us on their website norcalsailing.com again.

“After we bailed eight or so gallons of saltwater from the boat, it was nice and light again, and we had a mellow sail down the Estuary. We put our kite back up and noticed a 4x4-inch hole in it on one of the bottom panels, but we kept it up to dry it off. A trip to see Rui [Rooster Sails] on Monday will get that fixed for next weekend.

“We later joined the dock party at the OYC: smiles all around, no serious breakage, another good day!”

The J/105 Roxanne with Charles James and Panda Love was next to cross the line, followed by the first non-spinnaker boat, the Schumacher 40 Q sailed by Glen Isaacson and Joss Wilson. Q did a horizon job on the rest of the non-spinnaker boats.

In years past the finish line was the same as the start by the Olympic Circle. Because of the wind and chop giving the race committee a case of mal de mer, the finish was moved to the friendly flat waters of Treasure Island’s lee. It also makes for a nice way to end an often hard day on the water.

All the results of the Rites of Spring are available on the Oakland YC website at http://sites.google.com/site/oycracing/rites_of_spring-1.