race report
| home contact us movies galleries stories store |
 The normally nukin' New York slough was relatively tame for Saturday's Delta Ditch Run. ©2014 norcalsailing.com |
|
Laughin' All the Way to the River Bank
June 1, 2014 I bought a six pack and a bag of ice Brad Paisley could have sung those lyrics for this year's Delta Ditch Run, saving the inner tube for Sunday. A light air year, there was plenty of time for telling jokes, flirting, and quaffing cold beverages out of cans. The weather was warm but not blazing hot as in some years, with temps peaking in the 80s. The wind direction cooperated, with spinnakers going up at the start and staying up. Many boats were even able to carry past Mark 19 in the usual 'white sail reach' portion of the San Joaquin River. The current was shifting from ebb to flood as the divisions started north of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, and stayed with the fleet the whole way to Stockton.
Usually, the wind pipes up in San Pablo Bay, builds in the Carquinez Strait approaching Benicia, builds more in Suisun Bay, and really honks in New York Slough past Pittsburg and Antioch. This year, the wind softened at the Benicia Bridge and remained mellow the rest of the way.
Brendan Busch and Ian Klitza sailed the D-Class Cat Rocket 88 the last three years. This year they took Brendan's Express 27 Get Happy!! "I like one design racing," he said. "And Rocket's a lot of work." Thirteen Express 27s raced, and Get Happy!! passed Magic Bus in the last few miles to win the division.
Adam Helms, the skipper of the Columbia Challenger Captain Midnight went directly from his high school graduation on Friday to his boat at Stockton Sailing Club and motored all the way to Richmond YC, getting in around midnight in order to race – and they won their division, Heavy 3, and earned the award for top boat from SSC on corrected time.
The Delta Ditch Run is popular with road trippers, drawing trailered boats from all over the West. Eric Nelson's Henderson 30 Gardyloo came down from Washington for their first Delta Ditch. They sail out of the Corinthian YC of Tacoma. They regularly finish in the top five in their regattas at home, were getting tired of the same old races, and wanted some sunshine and a road trip. They drew out a map of California on the back of a Tecate box and chose the Delta Ditch Run, Long Beach Race Week (on a rented Catalina 37), the Trans-Tahoe, and the Double Damned in Oregon on the way home. "This was a lot of fun," said crew Tim Garchow, "We only ran aground once, just past Mark 19. We'd planned to stay in the shipping channel, but then we started following the locals who were taking shortcuts. We got off in 60 seconds. The loss of 60 seconds was worth it to cut the corners." They sailed alongside Kame Richards' Golden Moon, which started behind them and won the Express 37 division.
Malcolm Gefter's Marstrom 32 Liftoff catamaran was first to finish, and second was SmartRecruiters. Charles Froeb's Hobie Wildcat F18 Kaos vs. Control was the first multihull on corrected time. The first monohull to finish was Rufus Sjoberg's Melges 32 Rufless, coming in at 19:23:55. The top five monohulls overall were: What makes a J/22 'turbo', we wondered. "We have a masthead kite that's 56 square feet bigger," explained skipper Mike Hopper. They get a 9-second hit on their PHRF rating for the larger spinnaker. This was the first Ditch Run for all three sailors. The boat hails from Channel Islands Harbor and sails for Pierpont Bay YC in Ventura. "We want to thank everyone at RYC and SSC for their hospitality and assistance," said Mike.
Regatta Chair Tom Leuck, who raced his Hunter 40 Sir Leansalot, was pleased with the event. "This year's race was larger than last year. The band was exceptional. The club members really chipped in to get the new patio ready in time." One protest went to the room, but didn't affect the results, which can be found at www.stocktonsc.org.
If you kept a track of your race on a smart phone or GPS, you can upload it to RaceQs, and everyone can watch a replay of the race at http://raceqs.com/regattas/SSC-delta-ditch-run. Although many boats haul out after the race and hit the road almost immediately, a better plan is stick around for the party, have a laugh with your sailing buddies, loosen up the stiff muscles with a few dances, sleep it off, and get out that inner tube for a dip in the river before heading home.
|
