BOTH PHOTOS ERIK SIMONSON / WWW.PRESSURE-DROP.US
SINGLEHANDED FARALLONES —
With the GGYC clubhouse unavailable, Tom Boussie and Kristen Soetebier started the Singlehanded Farallones Race from the shore. A ladder atop the car extended the VHF range — it worked great. Brilliant!
I
n the age of pandemics and shelterin-place lockdowns, a minor miracle happened. There was an organized official race around the Farallones. The Singlehanded Sailing Society's annual Singlehanded Farallones Race was bumped from its original date of May 16 twice, but finally landed on Saturday, June 27. The behind-the-scenes players sending emails and talking with the Coast Guard and multiple counties were Don Martin, commodore of the SSS and Laura Muñoz, executive director of the Yacht Racing Association. "The SSS Farallones was the first of the special permit events to try to get approval," said Laura. "The process went fairly smoothly, and not much differently than it has in the past. I've been working closely with the USCG over the past few months on preparing to resume racing, which definitely helped the process along. "My main contact at the USCG is MST1 David Robey, the Marine Event Coordinator in Waterways," she added. "He's done a great job keeping the communication going and helping me Page 76 •
Latitude 38
• August, 2020
navigate through all this, and was a huge help getting the blanket permit reinstated." Don noted that the coordination among all the players was key. "I worked with Laura at YRA. Ten days before the race she felt that the Coast Guard would change its policy of getting approval from each county and issue the blanket permit. That's when we started planning for the race. When the blanket permit was issued, there was an exception for offshore races. The offshore permit was awaiting signature, and we didn't get approval until Thursday, the day of our skippers' meeting. Many thanks to Laura and the Coast Guard." With the headwinds of the permit process behind them, all the SSS had to do was run a race. Normally the SSS uses the Golden Gate Yacht Club race deck along the San Francisco Cityfront for the start and finish. With the clubhouse closed due to COVID, the SSS needed to make do without it. Race chair Tom Boussie and treasurer Kristen Soetebier were able to improvise a race deck on wheels by parking a car with a VHF antenna on top in front of GGYC. "The RC from the breakwater was fine," said Tom. "I have my boat in the San Francisco Marina, so after the starts I could use that as a base to monitor the race throughout the day and night."
Jeff Mulvihill on the Olson 30 'Werewolf', Scott Owens aboard the Wilderness 30 'Beyond' (ex-'Nightmare'), and Chris Jordan on the Express 27 'The Pork Chop Express' start in the Sportboat division.
T
hree multihulls and 22 monohulls showed up on the line for the first 'gun' at 8 a.m. in what was predicted to be a nice, light southwesterly breeze offshore for the beat, clocking to the northwest for the run. "I expected to spend a lot of time on port tack, maybe all the way to the island," said Bob Johnston of the Alerion 38 Surprise! "The forecast looked like it
"That had been my plan, but…let's just say I got greedy." would be correct at the start, but as we approached the bridge it was clear there was more westerly in the breeze. Port was the favored tack, but if you couldn't point well you were headed for Duxbury." Like the effort to run the race in the first place, the race itself would mirror the uphill battle. "It looked like the predicted southwest wind direction was wrong and it was going to be dead upwind to the island," added Bob. Always a very competitive race, the
