THE GREAT VALLEJO RACE —
E
veryone knows that the YRA weekend regatta formerly known as the Season Opener, a Saturday race to Vallejo and a Sunday race back to San Francisco Bay, is 'Great'. But could it be made even greater? Some tinkering with the course has had mostly favorable results. One way to improve the course was to move the finish away from the silted shoal that formed near the old finish at the entrance to the San Rafael Channel, where multiple boats ran aground two years ago. In 2017, the finish was moved south of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to the waters east of Paradise Cay, where the mid- to late-afternoon finishers were slammed by 30-knot gusts roaring through a gap in the ridge that forms the spine of the Tiburon Peninsula. What's a race committee to do?! Perhaps taking a page from the playbook of the Singlehanded Sailing Society, the YRA moved the finish to a line between the Richmond Yacht Club race platform and the Richmond Channel buoy #7 (known to RYC members as Killer Green). This line is the traditional finish of the SSS Vallejo 2 Race in the fall, and the SSS finished 90 Round the Rocks boats there in mid-April, just two weeks before the Great Vallejo Race. What could possibly go wrong? Apparently, not much. The end of the race offered an opportunity to set spinnakers one more time to get an edge on the competition. We liked the new finish and hope the YRA keeps it.
The other course change had tactical
implications. In a more adamant effort to keep the racers away from the Richmond Long Wharf, where ships fill their tanks with fuel, nearby Red Rock was added as a mark on the course, to be kept to starboard on the way to Vallejo and to port on the return. In 'normal' years, some crews would set spinnakers right at the windward turning mark near the Berkeley Circle, early in Saturday's race, while others would choose to stay high, the wind forward of the beam, before dipping down and setting. Some would dive down to the East Bay shoreline to stay out of the wind shadow of Angel Island or to minimize the effect of ebb current. That was not an option this year. Everyone headed for Red Rock on the same white-sail reach in what amounted to a drag race. But not everyone got the message (or read the Sailing Instructions). Some racers blatantly missed the Red Rock mark and/or sailed inside the 100-yard forbidden zone at the Long Wharf or the Phillips wharf at Davis Point in Rodeo. Others were confused by the quoted Coast Guard restrictions and thought they had to stay 100 yards from shore throughout San Pablo Bay. Admonitions to avoid unrelated restricted areas far beyond the racing area, in Suisun Bay and on upstream, added to the confusion.
W
ith a decent breeze and a well-run race committee, the starts went off like
clockwork on both days. Currents were mostly adverse on April 28-29, but finding lanes of water going your way, or at least not pushing you back, was part of the challenge and the fun — and kept crews busy with extra jibes and tacks. The wind was functional, not wild and woolly like we've seen in May, nor too weak to properly propel sailboats. The most fun for our money was the puffy, shifty reach up Mare Island Strait, the last leg to the finish on Saturday. It's a fine edge to sail on a close reach, staying in clear air, keeping away from the shallows, and avoiding the need to tack, while trimming the sails in and out with each puff and shift. That last leg is like dessert at the end of a delicious meal.
D
uring Sunday's race, you could tuck into the vast plain of shallow water in San Pablo Bay to get out of the flood, but not so far in that you ran aground, as at least one boat did. A wind hole at Red Rock prefaced a fresh breeze that carried the sailors into Richmond Harbor. By that time, the current had turned to ebb, which splits to go around Red Rock, so it was important to stay to the right side when the wind went light. Double scoring was used once again; to check Saturday's results using downwind ratings, go to www.jibeset.net. We're printing the results using standard PHRF in the pages that follow. — latitude/chris
