distance covered on the race course – 28 nm
time on the course – 5 hr 44 min
max speed – 10 kts
average speed – 5 kts
total distance sailed today – 40 nm
tacks on the windward leg – 30
tacks required (after already reaching the mark) to round the mark – 6
spinnaker jibe attempts – 3, and those made – 2
total jibes – 4
sail changes – 4
sails twisted – 3 (including the hourglass off Pt Blunt)

injuries – 3
suggestions offered – no comment
saves – many
protests – none
collisions – none
breakage – none
hats lost – none
crew lost – none
barges banged – none
fuel shortages – none
groundings – none
docking mishaps – none (thanks to the crew)

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I joined skipper Wayne and crew of Rene, Gus, and Matt for the YRA’s Southern Cross race, which was originally scheduled to be out to the Farallones. I guess the race committee saw the weather forecast and changed the race; good call.

We had a fantastic time, I think the five of us worked really well together. We hit the start a few seconds late, quickly got into a groove, but it wasn’t until we’d had an hour under our belt that we had adjusted the headsail settings enough that we could point and keep our speed up.

The course was the southern approach buoy (“S”), the central approach buoy (“SF”), and back to the San Francisco Yacht Club start line. The first leg to S was fun, a beat the entire way with winds to 15kts, but the trip from there to SF back to the Gates was a bit muted with only 8-10kt winds.

Oh, on the way out we hit a sunfish, the stupidest fish ever, the handbrake of the ocean. It was a glancing blow and we all felt bad, but we didn’t see any blood and we continued on. We were all joking about it when from S to SF we saw his brother! Gus, who was supposed to be carefully trimming the spinny, pointed him out as he was trying to wrap himself around the keel. We dodged him. Too funny.

On the way back in as soon as we got close to the Gates everything changed – just like it always does. Winds popped up to 20kts and we started to haul ass. We gybed right under the bridge and rocketed down the stretch for the finish line. I think we topped out at 15kts, which is pretty damn fast. It felt faster than 23.5kts did on the F-27!

We had a great idea: gybe right across the finish line. We needed to gybe shortly thereafter anyway, so why not as we crossed? Well, we messed it up, broached, and drifted across the line with the boat on her side. Hahaha. I hope we don’t end up on Latitude or Sailing Anarchy. Oh well.

Wayne let Matt and I steer on the way back to Richmond. It was incredible, there was only 20-degrees where the boat could be sailed: too high and we would broach, too low and the sprited asym wouldn’t draw. We were leaving a huge wake, everyone was having a blast. Fun times.

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John and I joined Chris on his F-27 for the 5th race of the YRA Inter Club series. It was in the southbay, it was windy, and it was wet.

Two notable things on this race:

1. The fastest I’ve ever been on a sailboat. 23.5kts on a GPS with 4-second sampling time on one hair-raising spinny run. Chris and I were working really well together, steering and sheeting. We had some white-knuckle moments where the bow would start to submarine, but we were quick to depower and kept the boat upright.

2. The best spinnaker takedown I’ve ever done. We were finishing with our record-breaking spinny run and we realized we were way off course. We needed to get the spinny down, fast. With John releasing the lines, I did a leeward takedown in ~20kts of wind. It was incredible, everything went right. The spinny was down and packed in about 30 seconds. I think I even ran the tapes as I was stuffing it into the bag!

We had a great sail back down the estuary, where Chris gave John and I a chance to sail together under spinny. It’s a bummer school starts next month, I really enjoyed sailing with Chris this year.

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Sara and I joined Chris on his F-27 to race the YRA’s Second-Half Opener race, from Berkeley to Point Bonita and back down the estuary.

It was a fantastic day with only one minor scare: the port ama hatch was only closed to the ‘vent’ setting, and while beating out of the Gates we managed to completely fill the ama with about 150 gallons of water! We bailed and bailed and bailed and finally got most of the water out.

That sucked and we spent the rest of the race trying to catch up. We finished well, but the damage was done, we corrected out a few minutes behind our main competition. Bummer.

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Another enjoyable friday-evening race on John’s FT10 “Savage Beauty”.

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Sara and I went down to the St. Francis Yacht Club for the Pacific Cup final start – the big boats! StFYC is very impressive. We went up to the observation deck and watched the 50-70 footers tack back and forth before the start.

Criminal Mischief got a fantastic start, at the line driving hard less than a second after the gun, and was looking good on the beat to the bridge. Phillippe Khan’s Open 60 Pegasus was late to the line, but quickly made up for lost time by turning on the afterburners outside the gates.

These faster boats will only take 8 or 9 days to get to Hawaii! Incredible.

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Sara and I joined John and company for another friday night beer-can race aboard his FT10. We had a great start, were right behind the leaders going into the spinnaker run, and saw top speeds above 15kts downwind!

Dousing the spinny went all wrong. I on the bow pulling the clew and tack in, a puff must have caught the sail because I almost was almost yanked over. I cut up my shins on the lifelines and had to ease out the sheets. The sail touched the water and was quickly sucked under the boat. Damn!

We wrestled the big spinny back onboard and got back into the race, but the damage was done. We had wasted 5-10 minutes and we couldn’t make it up. We finished 8th (of 12), which was a bit disappointing, but everyone except the spinnaker had a great time.

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