December 9, 2013

Golden Gate Yacht Club's Midwinters are named for a comfort food from the old days, Manny Fagundes' Seaweed Soup. On Saturday, the Cityfront waters off the clubhouse looked like soup on the boil, with a stiff 20+ knot northerly whipping up frothy white caps. Despite the rough appearance of the water, by the time the first gun was fired at 11:30, the wind had moderated to the mid-teens, and only one boat reefed the main, the Synergy 1000 Sapphire, a tender sportboat.

Sapphire shook out their reef during the second leg. ©2013 norcalsailing.com

The crowded start of PHRF 2. ©2013 norcalsailing.com

Yucca takes up the Beneteau Allegro at the start of PHRF 3, as seen from the Alerion 38 Another Girl. ©2013 Seymour Dodds

Following on the tail of Friday night's storm, the unusual wind direction made for a close reach on starboard to the windward mark, Blackaller Buoy up close to the Golden Gate Bridge. As usual, a light patch with some funky currents surrounded Blackaller, and the boats that stayed high then dipped down at the end to approach the mark fared best.

Hank Easom and crew on the 8-Meter Yucca take on another GGYC Midwinter series. ©2013 norcalsailing.com

Once around the 'windward' mark, the fleets beat on port tack to Harding Rock, where the wind softened again and a raging flood tried its best to sweep the racers into the buoy or right on past it. From there it was a run to Fort Mason. Due to the flood, you had to point the bow a good ten degrees to the right of the mark for the whole leg to keep from getting swept on down toward Fisherman's Wharf.

We don't often see so many people on the Wyliecat 30 Uno. ©2013 Seymour Dodds

The PHRF divisions were given an extra couple of legs, back to Harding Rock and Mason again, before the short one-tack beat to the finish, and the later-starting One Design divisions were sent straight to the finish off the club after just the triangle.

Brad Copper's Tripp 43 TNT starts the second lap. ©2013 norcalsailing.com

Peter Jeal's Folkboat Polperro heads for the finish. ©2013 norcalsailing.com

The first four boats finished before the wind whipped around to southwest and got all gnarly again. The wind chill factor back at GGYC's nice new docks drove the crews into the redecorated clubhouse for some much appreciated hot food (spaghetti this time; sorry, no soup).

New at GGYC: a leftover finish flag. ©2013 norcalsailing.com

The series continues on January 4. See www.ggyc.com for more info and standings.

Little kids in tiny Optis were out in the heavy weather too. The Catalina 34 Sea Spirit sailed through their fleet. ©2013 norcalsailing.com