February 26, 2014

On Saturday, February 22, the fourth Redwood Cup pursuit race took place on a beautiful, sunny day with more wind than any of the previous races. Twenty-one boats started the 8.87-mile course, two retired early, and the remaining 19 finished before the time limit.

Primordial Sloop, Henry Kleinberg's Express 37, beats out to the channel. ©2014 Tim Petersen

Starting just an hour after low tide and going into a flood tide, racers hugged the edge of the channel to stay out of the current. That proved costly to several boats which pushed the limits right into the mud. Most of the mudders got back in the flow quickly, with only Mistral, skippered by Peter Blackmore, grounded solidly enough to force an early retirement.

Reaching to the windward mark in moderate breeze. ©2014 Cathy Moyer

Charlie Watt's Antrim 27 Head Rush, the overall Redwood Cup series leader with three bullets, managed to find the mud twice, but they fought back hard to come in fifth, just behind Tracy Rogers on the J/92 Relentless, who started this race in second place overall. Mike Reed on the Express 27 Magic took first place honors. Rich Butts on his J/105 Melilani took second, with Alex Huang's J/29 L2O following closely in third place.

The windward mark rounding. ©2014 Tim Petersen

The top two spots in the series standings held steady: Head Rush in the lead with 8 points followed by Relentless in second place with 11 points. Magic moved into third place with 13 points. One race race remains, on March 29.

Magic returning to the finish. ©2014 Cathy Moyer

You can watch the maneuvering and follow the action on the race replay posted by the race committee here. More boats' tracks will be added as we get them!

– Cathy Moyer and Kathy Conte, Fleet Captains, SeqYC

You can find complete results, standings and more info at www.sequoiayc.org.