THE RACING L ate winter regattas covered herein include RYC's Big Daddy, the SSS Corinthian,, StFYC's California Dreamin' and SDYC's Women's Winter Invitational. Midwinter Series wrap up with reports and/or photos from Golden Gate, Encinal, South Beach and Sausalito YCs; Box Scores sum up many others. We end with a tidy trio of Race Notes. showed up. The Farr 40 Twisted started Race 1 and just kept right on going, past the windward mark, to their homeport, Oakland YC. The ranks of PHRF A on the Deep Water course were thus reduced until Buzz Blackett's Antrim Class 40 California Condor was match-racing Romeo Uriarte's Landmark 43 Destin. After Condor snagged the weather mark, it was no longer a fair fight. "In the second race, our keel bulb hooked the anchor rode for the windward mark," said Condor's skipper. "We dragged the rode, anchor and mark around the offset mark (hooking it too), jibe-set the kite, and then looked back to see both marks chasing us about 40 feet away. As we began to drop the kite to be able to stop the boat, the weather mark came loose from its rode. The weather mark and the offset mark floated away, and we carried on with the race. "We discovered only after Sunday's race that the rode, chain and anchor were still on our keel bulb, which shed some light on why we couldn't get the boat going very well during races 2 and 3 on Saturday and the pursuit race on Sunday. Pretty weird that the anchor didn't set and the ground tackle didn't fall off during all the sailing and maneuvers both days." The windward mark boat filled in for the weather mark on the Winning helmspeople aboard 'Golden Moon' included RYC juniors Deep Water course. Aiko Wentworth (7), Sadie Paulling (9) and William Wentworth (9). Conditions improved for Race 2 and lightened up for Race 3, with their headsail. Joan Byrne's Olson 911S even the sea state ameliorating. Heart of Gold had engine trouble and Back at RYC, the sailors warmed up took in 40 gallons of water. with hot beverages and spirited converThe forecast had called for high teens sation. Most of the latter revolved around with gusts to 25. What transpired was a the weather forecasts. Predictions for steady 25 with gusts to 31. "The sea state Sunday's pursuit race included winds was foul," said Richard vonEhrenkrook from 5 to 8 knots. SailFlow had 6-10 of the Cal 20 Can O'Whoopass. "The deknots until noon, dropping to 1 knot. livery over was even worse, with heavy It was supposed to be flooding all day, rain." On the Southampton Shoal course but water releases upstream fooled with (one of three racing areas), Richard put that prediction. On Sunday morning, up the single index finger, requesting a Windyty showed 3 knots all day, first single-lap course, before each race, for from the southeast, then the north, then the Cal 20 division. Only two of them
LATITUDE / CHRIS
Big Daddy Regatta The two days of Richmond Yacht Club's Big Daddy Regatta featured different weather challenges, but one thing they had in common was unsettled conditions, with more wind than forecast. On Sunday, more wind was a good thing; on Saturday, not so much. If Saturday's forecast for a storm front didn't deter a few entries from showing up for the buoy races, the actual conditions made some think twice about going out. Others ventured out of the harbor only to return, not liking the sloppy south fetch or winds peaking at around 30 knots. Cold precipitation was one thing — most hardy racers will put up with that — but being tossed about like flotsam on the windswept waves was another. The Henderson 30 Family Hour "went in before anything broke." When Bob Harford of the Express 37 Stewball saw 31 knots he decided that wasn't worth it. The Columbia C32 Six Brothers ripped
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the northwest. The northwesterly never arrived, but neither did the dreaded 3 knots. Wind velocity mostly hovered around the 7- to 8-knot range, enough to get 92 boats around the course. Not all storm activity had passed yet, and the sailors raced under a dramatic sky. Some spotted afternoon lightning in the East Bay. Sunday's race is a pursuit, with skippers starting according to their rating and choosing which direction to round Alcatraz and Angel Island from a start line near Southampton Shoal. From the race committee's point of view, it was really hard to tell which way was going to be best. First to finish was the Express 37 Golden Moon, sailing a clockwise course — a starboard rounding of the islands. The top six monohulls went the same way. "There were good reasons to go each of the ways," said skipper Kame Richards. "We talked to Gordie [Nash] before the start — I usually do — and he said, 'I'm going to go the way that I don't plan on going.' Because he says every time he makes a plan it's wrong. "It was ebbing really hard at Southampton Shoal before the start, and the boats going into Raccoon Strait were reaching to get into the Strait. It looked like two thirds of the boats were going that way, and if you went the other way, your problem got smaller: There's a lot fewer boats you have to pass. We did not have a hard-and-fast plan. The weather forecast was for it to shut down globally all over the Bay. It didn't do that." "We found ebb shortly after Southampton," said Golden Moon crew Mike Mannix. "We had a one-tack beat, then a little reach at the end to get to Alcatraz." "We sailed pretty far left on starboard after starting before we tacked over, and boats that tacked onto port soon after the start didn't have the current that we had on the shallower part of the racecourse," explained Kame. "So we probably passed half of the boats that started before us before Alcatraz by going to that left side." "We put the spinnaker up before we turned at Alcatraz because we got swept past it," said Mike. "We flew the spinnaker from Alcatraz to Raccoon Strait, then went hard on the wind through Raccoon and most of the way across." "Sailing into Raccoon Strait we happened to be close to Charles Brochard of Baleineau. He was a Corinthian YC member," said Kame. "Those guys know that corner of the Bay really well, so wherever they went we followed them. We came out
