Sadie Hawkins Race

February 26, 2012

The eight female skippers in Island YC's Sadie Hawkins Race battled each other as they wove through an obstacle course of:

SF Bay Pelicans (the boats, not the birds) racing out of Grand Marina… ©2012 norcalsailing.com

A pair of dragonboats running drills, including right on the starting line… ©2012 norcalsailing.com

Finns to the left, Finns to the right… ©2012 norcalsailing.com

And Millimeters, racing in front of Encinal YC. ©2012 norcalsailing.com

The Oakland-Alameda Estuary was a busy place on Saturday.

All of the sailors had plenty of wind, with gusts to 17 knots, and it was blowing straight down the Estuary, making for a perfect windward/leeward race course. The Island YC race committee gave both divisions (Spinnaker and Non-Spinnaker) two-lap courses, with the non-spin course somewhat shorter.

Deb Fehr, Kathy Williamson, and David Ross on Faster Faster! slipped past Sparrowhawk at the final leeward mark rounding to get the gun and first place in the Spinnaker division. (Not shown: Dylan Williams.) ©2012 norcalsailing.com

A couple of factors accounted for the low turn-out this year. A lot of the skippers in the Santana 22 fleet are women, and they were busy finishing up Encinal YC's Jack Frost series, out on the Bay north of Treasure Island. The blustery wind overnight and in the morning deterred a couple of would-be skippers, one of whom just hopped on another boat.

Tom Condy, Kristen Soetebier, Bruce Ladd and Sylvia Seaberg on Sparrowhawk, which has moved to the Estuary after living on Treasure Island for eight years. (Not shown: Hennessy, the cool black cat, who was Shanghaied, but safe down below.) ©2012 norcalsailing.com

Sylvia Seaberg, skipper of the Moore 24 Sparrowhawk, commented on the breezy conditions, "Everybody's a little wind-blown. It was windy out there, but it was fun!"

A Pelican shared the course with the Santa Cruz 27 Vitesse, sailed by Susan Sonnthal. Vitesse and Faster Faster! had dueled in the first lap of the race. ©2012 norcalsailing.com

Dawn Chesney at the wheel of the Islander 30 Wuvulu. ©2012 norcalsailing.com

It was a fast race, and the competitors had their boats put away in plenty of time for the Chowder Challenge and awards back at IYC's clubhouse in the Alameda Marina.

Some of the lady skippers and crew. Front row, l-r: Dawn Chesney, Wuvulu; Nancy Mantooth, Tartan Ten Centurion's Ghost; Joan Wetherell, Starshine, Ericson 32. Middle row: Pam Krawiec, Centurion's Ghost; IYC Commodore Kristen Soetebier, Sparrowhawk; Kathy Williamson, Faster Faster! Back row: Sylvia Seaberg, Sparrowhawk; Christine Weaver, Laser 28 Stink Eye; Deb Fehr, Faster Faster! ©2012 norcalsailing.com

Prizes for second place were bottles of red wine, and the two first place finishers got bottles of Princesa Brut Nature. When Deb Fehr accepted hers, someone joked, "She's a princess and a brute!"

For complete results, see www.iyc.org/racing.html.