February 4, 2014

Pat Broderick of the Sausalito-based Wyliecat 30 Nancy reports on SYC's latest midwinter race. "Gnarly" was his word for it!

As the cliche goes, "It was a dark and stormy night…" But wait! Substitute "Sunday morning" for "night" and you have Sunday's Sausalito Yacht Club Midwinter race pretty well nailed. My crew, Linda Hynes and Dennis Hunt, and I arrived at Clipper Yacht Harbor to the sound of rigging slapping, wind whistling, and water lapping at floats. Lapping enough that the floats were wet. The wind was coming directly out of the southwest, right up Richardson Bay.

We began to get the boat ready and when Randy Grenier showed up on his Newport 30 next door, we decided to call in to check if the race was going to happen. We'd been listening to some chatter between various SYC race folks, but weren't certain. The response was, "Weren't certain, but we're going out." The wind was a steady 25 knots, with gusts up near 30 – with the boat in the berth! Randy and his crew took off. The three of us on Nancy voted, and "stone covers rock" so we shoved off. Getting out of the berth wasn't a problem: Cast off the bow lines and quickly begin turning so we weren't blown into the empty slips across the fairway. At the end of the fairway, Richardson Bay looked gnarly. Really gnarly.

And it was. Richardson Bay was filled with chop – up to 3 feet or so some of the time. The apparent wind speed hovered around 27 knots on the nose. Progress was in the 2-knot range, and twice near the Spinnaker Restaurant we lost way and had to motor off to gain some speed. It took us almost 40 minutes instead of the usual 10 to get down to the Sausalito ferry landing. It was asking a lot of a 6 hp outboard at top speed to push three tons of boat through that mess.

Cathy Stierhoff on the Santana 22 Tackful had been talking with us on the VHF and finally decided to head back. Tackful left a wake as Cathy steered downwind under her working jib. We very nearly did the same, since getting swept down into the anchor-out settlement in Richardson Bay isn't a very good option, especially while there's a Coast Guard cutter nosing around, checking the ground tackle on those tired looking boats.

By the ferry terminal the water flattened out a little, so we hoisted the sail and began sailing. Things got better immediately, as did the boat speed. We broke the Richardson Bay 5-knot speed limit by several digits as we reached off toward Angel Island. In the meantime we could see sails out near Little Harding, where the SYC committee boat Mercury awaited us. They looked "well heeled" to say the least.

Once we got over toward Angel Island the water smoothed out some, but we had tested our foul weather gear for a few minutes before that happened. I remembered too late it's important to zip my jacket all the way up before that wave breaks! I guess that's what happens when you sail in Marina del Rey weather for months.

Then the Race Committee postponed to allow late comers a chance to get out. We guessed that sitting in the cabin in the berth, enjoying a latte while listening for information about whether the race was going to happened trumped sailing around for 40 minutes in 25-knot wind and uncomfortable, choppy sea conditions, getting wet and cold.

By the time they got things going the wind was down in the low 20s. Since it remained out of the south-southwest, the course chosen was over to YRA #6 (Fort Mason) and back, about 5 miles. Only about half the registered boats showed up and only one of the smaller non-spinnaker entries, Homus, an Ericson 27. Everyone got started without incident across a very short start line set 30º off the wind at an angle to the incoming flood.

Almost immediately everyone flopped onto port tack, assuming that the 3.6-knot flood would sweep us down to #6 as we sailed across. It didn't, but that's on the other side. Before we got there the wind began to back down and oscillate between south and southwest. The result was most boats hit the San Francisco shoreline around Gas House Cove or Golden Gate YC, which meant a tack up to Fort Mason before the rounding. Make that two tacks if you didn't judge things right.

Not everyone set their chute on the way back to the finish line near Little Harding. On the Wyliecat we began the straight shot back, hitting 9 knots some of the time. It was a quick ride, but as we were halfway across the wind speed really began to go down. The finish wasn't a drifter, but it was certainly different from the start an hour earlier.

There had been a few short rain squalls prior to the start and on the way over, but on the run to the finish it was time to unzip the foul weather jacket and give the fleece a chance to dry out.

By the time we motored into Clipper Yacht Harbor, the fairway was absolutely flat and there was about 10 knots of wind at the masthead. The float was level with the landing as we walked up to the parking lot. A lot of water had flooded in during our absence. The SYC clubhouse was set up for Super Bowl Sunday, so we enjoyed a complimentary bowl of Super Bowl Chili while waiting for results. We came in third out of the four boats that showed up in Division C. Not as good as we'd hoped, but much better than the Broncos were doing as we left for the drive back to Santa Rosa.

– Pat Broderick, Nancy, Wyliecat 30

You can see complete results here: www.sausalitoyachtclub.org.