A Bay Tour to the Barbary Coast

July 3, 2011

Richard Taylor, crew on Nancy Pettengill's Alerion Express 28 Maeve II, explains their winning strategy in Richmond YC's Barbary Coast Race, which, as you may guess from its name, took the fleet from Southampton Shoals for a visit to the Cityfront and back to RYC on June 18.

When we came to the end of Angel Island the mark, the Blackaller Buoy off Crissy Field, was to the southwest, and we naturally thought, “Let’s go north.” And we did. There is a little beach where pretty girls sometimes sunbathe in the altogether so I had to be in close to shore to check that out. No luck. Well, it was onward away from the mark and up close to the shore. We managed to scrape a few barnacles off the keel and continued up the windward face of Angel.

Nancy kept saying, “Bbbut the mark is behind us!” “Oh girl of little faith,” say I. “We need to go to Sausalito and have brunch.” And so we did. We anchored and swam to shore. Scoma’s has a nice brunch, and upon going in, we found the crew of Quiver (Jeff McCord's N/M 36, a bigger, faster boat) already seated. It being the Barbary Coast Race, I ordered Hard Tack and Rum. The waiter politely told me they were all out of hard tack and rum but perhaps I would like Eggs Benedict. I had to make do with that and a Bloody Mary.

We swam back to the boat and weighed anchor. Nancy was finally happier, as we were heading somewhat in the right direction. But, we were going up close to Yellow Bluff and we should fall off for the mark. “Oh, silly girl,” says I, “We will get a better view of the Golden Gate Bridge if we keep going this way.” And so we did. Finally, we cracked off a little, just enough to get more speed. Speed is fun after all, and, “The mark is way down there.” said Nancy. “Silly girl, we want to see the bridge.” Well, to make a short story even longer, the mark appeared just a little low of our course and we finally cracked off at the last minute and rounded the mark.

There were no boats around us. Either they had done a horizon job on us or we had done one on them. We rounded Alcatraz, staying out of the wind shadow, and did close to a rhumb line to the finish line. Quiver had left the restaurant before us and we thought they were ahead of us. When we got in, I went to the race room and asked if the other boats had done a horizon job on us. We were told no. We had come in almost six minutes in front of Ralf Morgan's Alerion, Ditzy. (I didn’t tell them it was Deb Clark on that boat who did all the work.)

So now you know. If you want to come in first in the fleet, you need to look for pretty girls on Angel Island, go to brunch in Sausalito and get a good look at the Golden Gate Bridge. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.

- Richard Taylor, crew on Maeve II