15 to 2

December 10, 2012

Bobbi Tosse reports on December's Berkeley Yacht Club Midwinter Races.

Saturday:
We begin with the weather. We all have our favorite places to check it, and many of us have more than one. On December 8, 2012, I personally found at least three different options. All hinted at a northerly, but none of them indicated that we would have the 15+ knots that we saw at noon. So, with glee, we sent the 61 attendees in all of the 9 divisions off on a 9.4 mile course. We were tricked! 

The third line heading of the race results indicates wind 2 to 15. It should instead read 15 to 2. A perusal of the elapsed time column tells the story.  Most of Division A took less than 2 hours, but the last to finish took 4 hours 29 minutes and 35 seconds. Of the 61 starters, only 52 finished. A report of the 9 DNFs:

A sail ‘kerfluffle’                                                              1
A ‘too’ close encounter (sorry, no details available)      1
Lack of wind                                                                   7

For the first bunch of divisions, the racing was lovely, with some close finishes, some divisions overtaking the division in front, and some changes of position during the race. For those still stuck out on the course around 1615, the clouds lifted enough so that the setting sun streamed across the Bay, making the houses on the hills look as if the windows all had beacons shining out.

Sunday:
Not a single cloud could be seen in the sky! It was very warm (for December). Still the northerly wind, but very light. Since nothing could be seen to indicate otherwise, we started on time and sent the 27 attendees in 5 divisions off on a 6.6 mile course. This turned out to be a reasonable choice, since the wind stayed light and even looked as if we were going to have a repeat of the day before. However, the wind gods apparently took pity on all of us and a light westerly appeared around 1415. All was saved.

Complete results can be found at www.berkeleyyc.org.

- Bobbi Tosse, race person for Berkeley Yacht Club