February 7, 2014

With the start of the new season, Sequoia Yacht Club reinvented the Singlehanded Series. Now, a doublehanded division has been introduced to the format to give more racers the opportunity to compete. Last Saturday's prediction of 6-12 knot wind led the race committee to choose a medium length course of about six miles. Yet, chance had a hand in this winter race, and weather conditions turned out to be much lighter.

The start sequence was completed as planned at 12:30, and 17 boats went on their way around the race course. Light winds prevailed for the first two hours of the race. Unfortunately, two entries coming from further away got demoralized by these wind conditions, assuming they would not be able to finish in time, and they left the race not knowing that the wind had an ace up its sleeve. As the first boats finished their course, the wind picked up and allowed the rest of the fleet, especially the boats without a spinnaker, to finish as well.

David Kautz's Capri 26 Zoe returned to Redwood City wing on wing. ©2014 Tim Petersen

The winner of the first race in this series for the singlehanded fleet was Brian Boschma on the Olson 34 Redsky in first place. George Sutton on the Olson 25 Knot to Worry came in second, and Peter Blackmore on the Alerion 28 Mistral finished third. The well-attended doublehanded fleet was dominated by Tim Anto on the Melges 24 Daredevil, followed by Peter Weigt on the Antrim 27 Head Rush and Dan Doud with the Wyliecat 30 Polecat in third place.

Daredevil. ©2014 Tim Petersen

Head Rush. ©2014 Tim Petersen

For more info, see www.sequoiayc.org.

– Peter Weigt and Anja Bog, Race Series Fleet Captains, SeqYC