THE RACING This year's Jazz Cup race to Benicia had its ups and downs; SeqYC's Hannig Cup and SFYC's Leukemia Cup raised funds for good causes; the Great SF Schooner Race was as grand as it sounds; introducing BAADS' Sonar Team Alpha; Santa Barbara YC hosted the Mercury Nationals; a NorCal gal traveled east for the 49er FX Nationals; the new Race to Alaska sounds harder than the Iditarod. Plus Beer Can Box Scores and more. buoy helps to keep the sailboats away from the Richmond Long Wharf, where the big tankers dock to fill their holds. "My favorite part of the race was beating Richard vonEhrenkrook's Cal 20 Can O'Whoopass to Point Pinole," said fellow Cal 20 sailor Marcus Choy. "At the Richmond Long Wharf, he got swept into the mark in the flood. He hit it twice and had to do penalty turns. The fleet caught up to me at Point Pinole." The configuration of the finish is a box, with an inflatable leeward mark (A) and a reaching mark (B) turning the boats from their run down Carquinez Strait to an upwind finish off a wharf in Benicia. But, after the first 16 or so boats finished, the race committee noticed that Mark A had dragged up toward the Benicia Bridge. An unknown number of boats rounded the mark in its new position. Richard vonEhrenkrook said that his Can O'Whoopass was seven minutes ahead of Marcus Choy's Green Dragon going into Mark A. "Everyone was rounding the temporary, which had drifted 300 yards east. Everyone was passing or rounding both marks correctly, to port." Can rounded with a perennial Jazz Cup winner, the Kastrops' Catalina 30 Goose, but beat them to the finish by playing the shallow water on the north side of the course. The Cal parked on the second dock, where the boats in that division rafted up. After Can rounded, a crash boat came out to move the wayward mark back to its correct posi'Motorcycle Irene' successfully defended her Express 27 National title on tion. August 29-31. For results, see Box Scores. Marcus Choy was in the dining room at the compressed, making for a better party club when he was told about redress at the yacht club. possibly being offered. A group was gathThe course only has a few marks. ered in front of the yacht club building, A red buoy east of Alcatraz serves as a on the side away from the water. "You windward mark so that the race can begave your sail number," said Choy. "They gin with a short upwind leg. Another red
ERIK SIMONSON / WWW.PRESSURE-DROP.US
Jazz Cup Fun and Funk We'd love to be able to report that this year's Jazz Cup was nothing but a sun-drenched fun-fest, in which more than 100 boats were swept upstream by excellent breeze and a strong flood current to a charming destination with a bustling raft-up and hopping post-race party at the yacht club. It was all those things, for sure. But most racers might not even be aware of the dark cloud cast by a scoring controversy. The trouble all started when an inflatable mark drifted off-station. The non-spinnaker and slowest boats were the first to start August 30's race from Treasure Island to Benicia Yacht Club. The fastest boats and multihulls brought up the rear. This sort of reverse -order starting sequence is a great way to run a long-distance destination race. The slow boats have a chance to finish at a reasonable hour, and the arrivals are
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asked, 'How fast is your boat?' I have a Cal 20, so it's a slow boat. 'Where was the mark when you rounded it?' The club's boat had just picked up the buoy but hadn’t moved it yet. Richard had already rounded and made a long tack into shore. Some boats in our division would have rounded after the mark was back on station. It was because of those that I requested the redress." Milt Smith, Club Race Officer for cohost South Beach YC, confirmed that the protest committee interviewed skippers of boats seeking redress to find out where the mark was when they rounded. After he was interviewed, Marcus Choy went down to Green Dragon for a nap, then back up to the club, where he saw he’d been put in first place for Division E. He wrote a letter to Milt Smith on September 1 saying that Richard was affected but didn’t know about the redress. "I didn’t think it was fair," said Marcus. "It was almost arbitrary. I almost consider it a non-race." Most of the racers, including vonEhrenkrook, never heard about the redress until the deadline for protests had passed and the results were posted. "The Sailing Instructions put the onus on the
