March 10, 2014

March madness has begun with three races in two days on San Francisco Bay. The weekend wind forecast looked dire, and sure enough Saturday dawned to perfect kayak weather – not a wisp of breeze could be detected even by 11:00. Out on in Richmond Yacht Club's Big Daddy territory on the Berkeley Circle, the boats milled about and only one of the two courses had enough breeze to complete two races. The big boats on the Deep Water course started a race in a dying northerly, but the wind evaporated and the race was abandoned. The smaller boats and one design fleets eked out their two races and headed back to the club for the festivities.

Slo-mo racing at RYC, with the Ultimate 24 For Pete's Sake and the Melges 24 Insolent Minx. ©2014 Richmond YC

Peter Cameron consults the chart for depths aboard the Schumacher 54 Swiftsure on the so-called Deep Water course. They realized that when their depthsounder read -0.7
it wasn’t broken – they were aground. ©2014 Richmond YC

While waiting for the wind to fill, the 1D35 Kind of Blue raced 100 yards up to the leeward mark, passed three beers to a stake boat, rounded, set a kite and
sailed down to the finish line. Which took a good 15-20 minutes. ©2014 Richmond YC

Meanwhile, over in the North Bay, Tiburon YC was attempting to start the second of their three-race midwinter series. The wind never had much going and the little there was died after three 20-minutes postponements. The race chair reluctantly closed up shop and had everyone head back to the club for refreshments on the sunny deck. The series concludes on March 29.

The Catalina 35 Ka-Nina and the C&C 29 Siento el Viento sailed around in the North Bay zephyrs. ©2014 norcalsailing.com

On Saturday night, a nice, warm tropical feel to the air gave the racers planning ahead for the following day's Big Daddy pursuit race dreams of gentle breezes. Sunday dawned much better (and an hour late), as it was still warm and a bit humid. In Alameda at Island Yacht Club's final midwinter race of the season, the talk at the dock was, "Yes, it's nice, but will there be wind?"

The first port tack of IYC's Island Days on Sunday. ©2014 norcalsailing.com

By the time of the 1300 first gun a perfectly adequate 8-knot northwesterly breeze had filled and it remained steady throughout the race. The RC courageously gave the faster fleets two laps up and down the Estuary in t-shirt and shorts weather. They combined two divisions in the starts, which made for more crowding on the short line and lots of over earlies, including a general recall for the second start. In the first start, one of the over-earlies, the Merit 25 Faster Faster, went back to restart, thought they were clear, caught up and beat everyone, only to learn that they hadn't cleared the line after all.

Emile Carles' Tartan 30 Lelo Too and Ruth Summers' Cal 9.2 Popeye and I cross paths. ©2014 norcalsailing.com

The weather mark disappeared before the first rounding, apparently picked up by a rowing club in a case of mistaken identity. The RC told the racers to sail above the TV tower at KTVU before turning, then hustled out in a Whaler to set another ball. See results at www.iyc.org.

Here comes George Lythcott's Express 27 Taz!! ©2014 norcalsailing.com

The wind filled in for the Big Daddy also, and, although half the fleet couldn't finish, many had a great time in the warm breeze. It was a big boat year: John Clauser's 1D48 Bodacious+ won the pursuit race around Alcatraz and Angel Island, having chosen a clockwise course. "We're floating down the docks," said a euphoric John back at RYC. Peter Stoneberg's ProSail 40 Shadow won the multihull division. Complete results for the regatta can be found at www.richmondyc.org.

It would be an understatement to say that Bodacious+ had a better Sunday than Saturday. ©2014 Richmond YC