“It was a lovely day on the ocean,” said Jonathan Livingston, thanking the race committee as he finished the Singlehanded Farallones race on Saturday. His Wylie 38, Punk Dolphin, was the second monohull to finish, around 1830. Ahead of Punk Dolphin was Greg Nelsen’s Outsider, an Azzura 310 sportboat. And ahead of them was a trio of trimarans. More on the early finishers later.

Light air in the morning got the race off to a slow start, at 0830-0900 Saturday morning. Jeff Dunnavent sailed his Baltic 42DP True North and filed this report: “With no wind at the start, I drifted towards the bridge with much worry of clearing the south tower. But I picked up a soft breeze before the bridge and was able to position True North in the max ebb current, which we depended on to get us to the wind, approximately at the first channel buoys. Very lumpy, frustrating, and gear beating. Once we got the the wind, it built nicely to just above 20 knots as we approached the island. It was nice when we crossed out of the ebb current and the water smoothed. Most boats had to tack north to make the island.

“The trip home was a beam reach, with wind from the north,” said Jeff. “The wind started to ease at the San Francisco buoy, to less than five knots along the shipping channel markers. We depended on the flood to carry us to the breeze which filled from the south about two miles out from Mile Rock. The wind filled in nicely at the bridge and I was able to finish in a fresh breeze, just before sunset. I could not see anyone behind me, which means the wind lightened further at the main shipping channel - or everyone decided to wait and enjoy the sunset.”

John Lymberg sailed his one-and-a-half-year-old Flying Tiger 10 Savage Beauty out to the Farallones alone for the first time. He described his day: “I got sucked out over the line early but decided to go around the island anyway. I don't know of anyone else crazy enough to singlehand a Tiger, but it's doable.

“I set the chute twice, it all worked fine, but coming in under the bridge in 20 knots of wind was a little crazy. I hit 15 knots towards the finish before I wisely dowsed the spinnaker. I didn't want to quit because I didn't want the grief of hearing people say a Tiger wouldn't work.”

“My leech cord cleat wouldn't hold as the wind came up, so a vice grip was the answer,” said Stephen Buckingham on the Santana 22 Tchoupitoulas. “I held the kite from the Lightship to the finish at about 9:10, jibed, and had the nicest sail back to Richmond. I could sort of feel that there had been a heat wave but was glad to have missed it.”

The first boat to finish the race came in around 1630 hours. Stephen Marcoe’s Native led the charge of the tris.

He was followed not long after by Jeff Lebesch’s Hecla. Completing the trio of big trimarans was the yellow Acapella Humdinger, sailed by Larry Olsen. All finished the last leg on main and jib only.

It was not too much longer before Greg Nelsen called in to report that he was approaching the finish line on Outsider. “At the Gate I was doing a very serious 17-18 knots and could barely even reach the VHF to call in my finish. I made it across the finish line with the kite up - very, very satisfying - the first monohull to finish, with a big gap of five and a half minutes before Punk Dolphin.” Video from Greg’s race is now online on our movie page. Check it out!

The day before the race, the Coast Guard announced that the requested hourly radio check-ins are now mandatory. The race permit was hanging in the balance until the all the racers could be notified. To make communication more effective, a relay radio was stationed at Point Bonita on the Marin Headlands. Is this the future of coastal racing? Is there a difference between racers and daysailors going out the Gate on a nice afternoon?

Up on the cliff at Point Bonita, Tony Castruccio and Constantin Andreyev watched the ocean racers through binoculars and relayed radio reports to the race committee at Golden Gate YC. They went on station around noon, and planned to stay out until it got too dark to see the boats. Around 2030 they hailed the fleet to find out who was still out there. Clifford Shaw on Rainbow, a Crowther 10-meter catamaran, replied back that he was about three and half miles out, with five boats behind him.

Around 2045, the Hawkfarm Eyrie crossed the finish line to the sound of a gun. Skipper Synthia Petroka hailed the race committee: “That was a mistake right? You meant to give me an air horn. I anchored for an hour.”

“No mistake!” answered the RC.

Complete results can be found at the SSS website, www.sfbaysss.org.

Many thanks to Jeff Dunnavent on True North and Synthia Petroka on Eyrie for sharing their photos. You can see more of Synthia’s on Picasa.