Team Scorpio

This will be the ninth year of participation for Team Scorpio and the 11^th for Scorpio herself. The Big Boat Series is the highlight of our racing season and represents the top West Coast regatta and one of international prominence. 2006 will be a relatively light attendance year for the event with approximately 92 big (over 35’) boats participating in eight classes. See notes from February 2007 analysis.

Wednesday's short practice session was worthwhile and allowed us to get some kinks out. Malcolm and John Buchanan were unable to make it due to work commitments, and Marcy's flight from Hawaii didn't arrive until 2230. Jim Margeson filled in for Marcy and Doug's brother Brad joined us to help trim. We learned that we could achieve better upwind speed by exaggerating a "further after" jib lead position. We're hoping this may be the solution for the upwind sluggishness we've had this year.

Windy is pretty normal for San Francisco Bay, but shifty is rare. Thursday came with the predicted big wind, but the major shifts throughout the racing is not something we normally have to deal with. At 0900 in the SF Marina, it was blowing 20 knots from the West. This is pretty much what we saw most of the day, with a low of 12 and a high of 26. From the looks of the damage at the docks at the end of the day, one would think it blew 35 all day. Ocelot lost their mast and is out of the regatta. Sail makers must have been very busy overnight repairing lots of spinnakers, and a few mains and jibs. A local hospital also spend some time reattaching a dismembered finger from the crew of Kokopelli 2. This was not only a serious injury, it was a bit of a fiasco since after the crew member was transferred to a support boat and taken to a waiting ambulance, the finger was found on the deck, put on ice, but inadvertently taken to a different hospital. Let's hope they were able to successfully reattach it. Scorpio and her crew survived unscathed.

In our IRC Division B fleet, we began the day on the Treasure Island course with a start just northwest of the Berkeley pier. Minutes before the start, the race committee raised the AP flag signaling a postponement. It seems the Beneteau 40.7, Inspired Environments lost a crew member overboard and spent some time retrieving him. We started at 1131 with course 24, a triple sausage with an upwind finish above the windward mark, a course of 14.4 nautical miles.

In race 2, we moved to the City Front course starting just west of Treasure Island. There we sailed course 10, a 15.22 nautical mile course with three long beats to a temporary mark near the GG Bridge and three runs of progressively shorter distances.

We spent the entire day sailing with our 3+ jib upwind, and our .8 poly spinnaker downwind. We hadn't used the 3+ much since the very windy Waikiki regatta in 2004.

To say that Scorpio had her boatspeed back is an understatement. And crew work was excellent. We finished the day with two firsts, beating White Fang by 7:54.7 in race one with an overall corrected time of 2:15:19.4, and beating the Frers One Tonner, Jeanette by a whopping 8:57.0 in race two with an overall corrected time of 2:24:35.5. Needless to say, TeamScorpio spent a lot of time grinning at the bar Thursday evening.

It's clear and windy from the northwest as we leave to pickup sandwiches for the day's racing. It turned out to be another breezy day but much warmer with more sun. We saw winds from 12 to 28 knots, but it was far less shifty than Thursday. Race 3 started on the City Front course 4, a 14.8 nmile course from the start in front of Treasure Island, around the Blackhaller Buoy near the GG Bridge, downwind to the Blossom Rock Buoy, back to Blackhaller and finishing downwind

off the northwest tip of Treasure Island. Thanks to Bren we had another great start winning the pin and stretching our lead on every leg. We won easily correcting over White Fang by 4:59 in the two plus hour race.

Race 4 was a bit windier at the start off the Berkeley Pier. We were given course 28, a 12.32 nmile course to a temporary mark near Harding Rock, downwind to a gate near TI, around a temporary mark near Presidio Shoal, and finishing downwind off the StFYC race deck. We had another excellent start pushing Inspired Environments over the line, sailed through much of division C on the first beat, had a good downwind leg to the south gate mark, then played the middle of the course to the top mark. Our fleet was well scattered behind us and we felt we sailed conservatively by covering most of them. It seems White Fang took a flier heading to Angel Island. Frankly, we never saw them. We rounded the top mark with an apparent huge lead, had a rolly poly spinnaker run to the finish in 26 knots of breeze, nearly burying our spinnaker pole at one point. We finished in 2:09:46.4 and were surprised to learn when results were posted that White Fang corrected on us by 8.7 seconds. We learned later that near Angel Island the wind shifted dramatically to the right allowing them to lay the top mark on starboard tack from the middle of the island.

We put a lot of wear and tear on the 3+ in this regatta. We're noticing a lot of delamination on the leech and it will need some reinforcement at the sail loft tonight. It's on its last legs. We're also sending in the main to repair some damage on the luff side of the top batten pocket. The forecast is for lighter winds over the weekend, so we may not need the 3+ anymore. Interestingly, we'd sailed four races with no sail changes. We flew the 3+ and the poly kite both days.

Cumulative results for the first four races show team Scorpio in the lead with 5 points, followed by White Fang with 13 points. We remain happy with our performance and tactics, but less invincible than we felt Thursday night.

At 0800 the Bay looks less volatile as the post low frontal system has passed through. We're hoping it's not a light air day. Instead of light air, there was basically no air as we motored the three plus miles to the Treasure Island starting area.

The race committee flew the AP flag that put us into postponement mode for nearly 90 minutes. Finally the wind came in and we started race 5 in 12-14 knots, seeing as much as 18-19 at some parts of the course. We were given course 4 on the City Front course, the same as race three. As it turns out, day 3 of the RBBS was anything but uneventful. With an eight point lead, our game plan should have been conservative sailing. Instead, our competitive instincts had us "duking" it out at the start with our competitors. We actually "nailed" the start near the pin end, just above Recidivist. We stayed on starboard for about five minutes when the race committee informed us via VHF that they were abandoning the race.

On the restart of race 5 we were a bit early again with Recidivist to leeward. They forced us over the line prematurely. We tacked immediately to go back, but realized we weren't crossing the right-of-way boats behind us. We tacked back, but not soon enough. Infinity, the Holland 47, apparently had to alter course as we were bombarded with a lot of screaming and yelling. While we didn't hear the word "protest", we noted a minute later that they were flying their protest flag. Meanwhile, we finally restarted and found ourselves well behind the entire fleet. On the beat to the Blackhaller buoy, we slowly ground down our competitors and rounded just behind Recidivist and Infinity. On the downwind leg, flying our .6 spinnaker, we easily passed Infinity and sailed beside Recidivist for several minutes. We caught them napping and luffed up inside of them near the Blossom Rock buoy. It was all over. We rounded the buoy and beat back upwind to Blackhaller stretching our lead on the fleet. Throughout these three legs of the course, we debated whether we had actually fouled Infinity. We finally decided that we probably had, and displayed our Q flag, signifying that we were accepting a 20% Scoring Penalty. We finished the race at 2:20, edging White Fang by 42 seconds. The Scoring Penalty gave us two points, rather than one, for the race. We had miraculously avoided a major problem.

Race 6, from the TI Course, was course 30, a 13.2 nmile mini bay tour. This time we took a more conservative approach and started respectably, but in the second row. We beat up the bay to a temporary mark off the north tower of the GG Bridge. It was a slow leg in a fair amount of adverse current. We rounded in first, reached across the bay to X mark in front of the yacht club. We set our poly spinnaker half way across the reach, gybed at X and ran down to mark 7, below Alcatraz. We rounded 7, beat to the temporary mark off Presidio Shoal, flew a the .6 spinnaker to the finish off the race deck, and got the gun. We also won this race, correcting over White Fang by 1:37. We flew the C3 jib all day.

The problem was, it was 5:32 when we finished and we had reservations for our crew dinner at a local Italian restaurant at 6:00. We scrambled to put the boat away, took a quick shower and headed to Terzo for a wonderful four course, small plate, dinner. The six bottles of a Lebanese Cuvee Rouge and three bottles of Loire Valley Sancerre weren't bad either.

After dinner, we returned to the yacht club to confirm our position in the regatta. In IRC Division B, we're in 1st place with eight points, nine points ahead of White Fang, 17 ahead of Jeannette, etc. We've won our division with one race to go. Tomorrow will be a low pressure sail around the Bay.

It was another beautiful, sunny day as we motored to the City Front starting area. But again no wind. The race committee was forced to postpone racing for over two hours. We finally started at 1323 and headed off on course 14 which is a 15.44 mile bay tour. Given that we "sewed up" the regatta yesterday, our goal today was to sail conservatively and try to stay away from our competitors. We had a very good start and unfortunately blanketed White Fang who started ahead but quickly sagged to leeward. After five minutes we'd stretched ahead of the fleet and no longer disturbed their air.

After much deliberation we'd chosen the C3 over the L3. It turned out to be the right sail.

We had a very good windward leg, rounded the Blackhaller buoy to starboard, and set the 3/4 reacher for the reach across the bay to the Harding Rock buoy. We set the C3, dropped the kite, and rounded to port for the beat up to mark 3 near the GG Bridge north tower. We had stretched our lead as we rounded mark 3 to port and headed back across the bay to mark X off the GGYC. We reached up, raised the pole, set the reaching strut and waited till we could lay the mark. We then set the poly kite, stacked everyone on the rail and succeeded in making the mark under spinnaker. As we headed downwind toward mark 7, we peeled to the .6 spinnaker, gybed a few times and rounded mark 7 to port. It was then a long beat to the Presidio Shoal windward mark. We short-tacked up the middle of the bay in the light flood, stretched the lead again, rounded the top mark, set the 3/4 runner for the short run to the finish, and got our seventh gun of the series. We ended up correcting over Inspired Environments by 1:48.

So, Scorpio won her fourth consecutive Big Boat Series, winning in 2003 under Americap 2, and winning 2004, 2005, and 2006 under IRC. What a thrill to win again! And, what an honor to be able to participate in this great regatta. The StFYC ran seven fabulous races and thanks to Rolex, put on a first rate regatta. We were frankly shocked with our pace throughout the regatta. The boat speed woes we experienced in the Stone Cup and Aldo Alessio regatta were never evident this week. While IRC has been good to Scorpio, we would have won every race had it been scored under PHRF-TOT.

The skipper is not shocked by Scorpio's incredible crew work. The team just continues to improve and excel. Matt Vecchione (rover) and Doug Frolich (main) were great additions to crew regulars Malcolm Brown (bow), Toby Cooper (mast), Joy Siegel (sewer), Marcy Fleming (pit), John Buchanan (trimmer), Larry Peterson (trimmer), Nancy Blum (trimmer), and Bren Meyer (tactician). This crew makes the driver look way better than he is.

We were also fortunate to have Gary and Mindy Evans as the Scorpio Protector crew. This is the third year that Gary and Mindy flew in from Tucson to provide on the water support from the Protector. And, special thanks to Brad Frolich for filling in on main for brother Doug on Sunday.

It's no accident that Scorpio's success coincides with her ability to field a consistent, loyal crew. Since 2003 we've had basically the same crew aboard. Toby has been with the program since 1998, Bren since 2002, and with only a couple of exceptions the rest of the crew have been aboard since 2003. So, we all know the boat and we all know how to work together as a team. That's why Scorpio continues to win.

Having said that, there's always room for improvement. Next year Scorpio needs to improve her spinnaker hoists and douses.

February 2007 Analysis
We recently re-analyzed race results based on a rescoring had the three IRC fleets been combined in those races where they sailed identical courses. Since conditions can differ given separate starts, this analysis is far from perfect. However, it's an indication that we may not have sailed as well as previously thought. The following table indicates which courses were sailed by the IRC fleets in the seven race series:

Courses Sailed
Race	IRC A	IRC B	IRC C
1	24	24	21
2	10	10	9
3	5	4	1
4	29	28	28
5	5	4	1
6	34	30	30
7	14	14	14

Had we been combined with other divisions in the five situations where we sailed the same courses, the results would have changed as follows:

Scorpio's Scores
Race	As Scored	With A	With C
1	1	4	n/a
2	1	5	n/a
3	1	n/a	n/a
4	2	n/a	2
5	2	n/a	n/a
6	1	n/a	4
7	1	7	4

What does this mean? Very simply that we probably didn't sail all that well. When combined with IRC A in three races, we dropped from three to seven places. And when combined with IRC C, we stayed the same in race 4, but dropped three places in races 6 and 7.