March 7, 2014

The rule for the new ZYC Challenge: one person per mast. The course is either the Lightship or a Bay tour. On the last Sunday in March, heavy currents ruled in favor of a Bay tour.

The three-boat race started at Fort Mason, sailed up to Blackaller, down to XOC in the Berkeley Circle, east along Treasure Island, and finished under the Bay Bridge.

The participants were Brian Boschma on the Olson 34 Red Sky, Nathalie Criou on the Express 27 Elise, and Nathan Bossett's 46-ft liveaboard ketch Echappée.

Brian Boschma on Red Sky lightening the boat. ©2014 Sergei Zavarin/ultimate-yachtshots.smugmug.com

Nat thinking hard about which headsails to use. ©2014 Sergei Zavarin/ultimate-yachtshots.smugmug.com

Brian chooses his headsails. ©2014 Sergei Zavarin/ultimate-yachtshots.smugmug.com

Elise had a nice start on the Bay side, ready to avoid a floppy of dinghies and Red Sky had to zigzag his way around. Echappée had a slow start, hoisting one main sail at a time.

Red Sky. ©2014 Nathan Bossett

Red Sky and Elise round the windward mark in short order and hoist their spinnakers downwind for a fantastic run in about 15 knots of wind all the way to XOC. Elise thought that Red Sky had input the mark in its GPS and follows, catching up to Red Sky.

On the run to Berkeley. ©2014 Nathalie Criou

Unfortunately Red Sky did not do this, and both boats spent 10 minutes looking for the mark – both having sailed too low and must douse the kite and hit a reach to make the mark, which was hidden by a race committee boat starting an East Bay event.

The wind picked up to about 20 knots as the two boats beat upwind to pass the Berkeley Pier. Red Sky sailed too low and needed to do an extra tack. They tight-reached across to Treasure Island and a wind hole by the Coast Guard station, where the wind dropped to about 10 knots, then it was another beat up to the Bay Bridge.

Both boats finished within a few minutes of each other.

Echappée meanwhile hoisted one spinnaker and ended up doing quite a few jibes on the way to XOC and crossed the start or finish line of the event happening near XOC.

Echappée sails to the finish. ©2014 Nathalie Criou

Both Elise and Red Sky spent half an hour hove to by the Bay Bridge chatting about lunch plans by the time Echappée loomed from behind Treasure Island. Red Sky won by two minutes on corrected time and earned the ZYC trophy.

The race and trophy are named for the commodore of ZYC, Sergei Zavarin . ©2014 Nathalie Criou

The idea is that next year, we go out to the Lightship and back so there is a singlehanded race out there too.

– Nathalie Criou, Express 27 Elise