October 24, 2013

The temperature was warm on the Berkeley Circle Saturday – so warm, a person might be confused about the time of year. The hint was that San Francisco Bay is rarely that warm and by the way, isn’t it supposed to always be windy?

Hanging around the FOC mark around 10:00 in the morning that fine day were 11 winners of the summer’s YRA racing – all waiting to prove who was to be the fastest of all. Joining them were a new group of Portsmouth-rated sportoats, eager to strut their stuff. Three races were planned.

The wind gods decreed otherwise. The first race, a 4.2-mile event held in extremely light northwesterly winds took over an hour for most of the boats.  Then, as is frequently the case in the fall and winter, this little breeze shut down. After a pleasant hour and a half of warm drifting about, the Berkeley YC race committee started a second race in 8+ knots of building westerly breeze. When done, the group almost unanimously felt that since this is Oktoberfest time, beer imbibing at the yacht club was the next event.

The two Champion of Champions groups were divided by handicap. Golden Moon, Kame Richard’s Express 37, won in the faster rated group, PHRF to 111. Second was Mintaka 4, Gerry Brown’s Farr 38, and third was For Pete’s Sake, Peter Cook’s Ultimate 24. Oreo, Garth Copenhaver’s Santana 22, won the PHRF 2 group, rating 114 and up, and Shameless, George Ellison’s Schumacher 30, took second place. These two actually tied, but Oreo won the second race and thus broke the tie. Third in this division was Ahi, Andy Newell’s Santana 35.

Gerry Brown's Mintaka 4. ©2013 Patrick Hind-Smith

The new Sportboat division had but three boats, but they managed to mix it up and also had a tie for first. Steve Cameron and his Rondar K6 6-PAC got race 2 to break the tie with Rustler, Tom Hutton’s Esse 850. Third place went to Brad Cameron and his Thompson T590 Aquaholic.

Meanwhile, the 6th annual Oktoberfest pursuit race started at noon from XOC. Fourteen monohulls ranging from PHRF 252 to 54 started at calculated times designed to have all boats show up together at the finish. The 11.3-mile course went from XOC, around Alcatraz (skipper’s choice of direction), and finished at the deck of Berkeley YC. Fabio Mario’s Centomiglia, a Flying Tiger 10, won this race, followed by Tartanic, Robert Lanzafame’s Tartan Ten. Third went to Falk Meissner’s Olson 25, Shark on Bluegrass. The first non-spinnaker boat was also fourth to finish: Roxanne, a Tartan 4100 skippered by Michael Mitchell, slid in after ‘only’ 3 hours, 17 minutes and 25 seconds.

No matter the slowness of the racing.  All the pursuit racers were then joined by the above mentioned Championship and Sportboat group to taste-test some fine German beer and enjoy barbequed bratwurst and other great German ‘comfort’ food.

More food, Bavarian dancers, more beer and the greatest sunset on the Bay finished up the fun day. Complete results for the Championship and sportboats can be found at www.yra.org and check out www.berkeleyyc.org  for the pursuit race results.

– Bobbi Tosse, BYC race person