2007 Aldo Alessio Regatta

After a disappointing Stone Cup, Team Scorpio looked forward to a better performance in the 2007 Aldo Alessio Perpetual Trophy Regatta.  This year, the event doubled as the 2007 US-IRC Pacific Coast Championship. 

Scorpio was launched at KKMI on July 26th and John delivered her to the StFYC on the 29th.  The crew met for an important practice session on Sunday the 30th.  Doug and John performed various cleanup chores in the morning, and the crew arrived at 1300.  Nancy volunteered to go up the rig for the obligatory hour-long rig cleaning.  It's amazing how dirty the mast and rigging get at KKMI.

We left the dock at 1430 missing Larry Peterson (vacationing in Montana) and Marcy Fleming (at home in Hawaii).  Kevin Sullivan, a recent Coast Guard Academy graduate who recently moved from Newport, RI filled in admirably.  We focused on boat handling drills in a two hour session, performing six spinnaker hoist including three gybe sets and about 13 gybes.  We sailed exclusively with the 3+ jib and the poly kite, in a very productive two hour practice session.  We sailed in winds averaging 20 knots (high of 29 and low of 11) and a medium ebb current.  We put a small tear in the spinnaker and discovered a faulty jib sheet stopper.  We think we learned a few things about what to focus on during the Aldo:  being more conservative about dousing earlier at leeward marks, hiking earlier and harder, and keeping the rail chatter down.  We hoped this practice session would contribute to a more successful Aldo regatta.

We had a serious setback the Tuesday before the Aldo, when Doug Frolich, our boat captain and main trimmer, called to let me know that his upcoming delivery commitment from Oahu to San Francisco had been moved up due to a weather problem.  Doug had been schedule to fly to Honolulu Sunday night after Aldo to deliver the Swan 45, Rancho Deluxe, but the northerly movement of the Pacific High had made it essential that they move up the trip to the Thursday before Aldo.  So, we were short a mainsail trimmer.  Fortunately, we were able to recruit former collegiate sailor, Brent Harrill, to fill in.

17 boats had signed up for the IRC division which meant a lot of competition.  The starting line for all four races was on the Aquatic Park side of Alcatraz. 

Friday's race had us rounding the lightship buoy to port and finishing off the race deck.  We gave Joy and John Buchanan the day off.  This was a 20+ mile race in light airs and a significant flood current.  These conditions are certainly not Scorpio's strength.  Nevertheless, we played the Marin shore leaving the bay and stayed with the leaders for much of the race.    We got to the lightship well behind some of the boats we thought we were ahead of.  We set our Asymmetrical spinnaker and picked off several boats on the ride home.  We saw windspeed from five to 10 knots over the entire course.  As we approached the South Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, we knew from past experience that the windspeed would increase dramatically and go forward once inside the bay.   Our dilemma was whether to attempt to carry the Akyte or peel to another spinnaker before the South Tower.  At the last minute we peeled to the .85 poly kite and quickly gybed to avoid the bridge abutment.  We had made the right call.  The windspeed doubled to 20+ for the final half mile.  We finished the race in just over 6.5 hours and corrected to sixth place, ten seconds behind Howl and 13 seconds ahead of Bustin Loose.  Given the conditions we felt fortunate to be in sixth although the Beneteau 40.7 White Dove (winner of the 2007 Stone Cup) had corrected to second.  The TP52 Mayhem won the race overall.

We began Saturday's racing with course J, a long double sausage with the windward mark and offset near Presidio Shoal and the leeward gate near the west shore of Treasure Island.  Race two consisted of five long legs with lots of opportunity for gains and losses.  After 2.5 hours of racing, Scorpio finished second to Swiftsure in this race.  We corrected 45 seconds behind them, and two seconds ahead of Mayhem.  Our main concern, White Dove, corrected 1:09 behind us.

In race 3 the race committee sent us on course H, a triple sausage with an upwind finish above the windward mark.  Fortunately, the gate for this course was positioned above the start line, so the seven legs of the course were relatively short.  By the start, the flood current had filled across the course with some relief on the City Front shore.  So, we started at the pin and won it although we barely escaped catching our keel on the pin end committee boat's anchor line.  We led the fleet to the beach trailing the three big boats in our division:  Mayhem, Swiftsure and Ocelot.  We sailed into the J105 fleet already on the course but avoided any major confrontations and rounded the windward mark in fourth place well ahead of the competitors we had some control over.  Unfortunately, the knucklehead helmsman had a mental lapse and our boom hit the offset mark.  We immediately rolled into a penalty turn, but the snafu cost us dearly as Copernicus and Astra sailed by us.  At the leeward gate we doused early hoping for a strong rounding, but found ourselves having to give way to the starting 1D-35 fleet.  We lost Animal and Howl at that mark.  Things simply weren't going our way.  But, we gritted in out and ground down the four boats we lost earlier, with superior boatspeed and solid boat handling.  Copernicus, Howl, Animal and Astra all broached on the final downwind leg as the wind built to 25 and made gybing difficult.  In the end we were surprised to learn that we had won the race despite our early race misfortune.  Scorpio likes lots of wind, and we had an abundance in races 2 and 3.  Despite our problems, we corrected 1:17 ahead of Swiftsure and two minutes ahead of White Dove.  At the conclusion of Saturday's racing we stood in second place, one point behind Mayhem and a point ahead of White Dove.  We felt very good with our position and realized we had a shot at winning the regatta and the West Coast IRC Championship. 

However, a 1930 Saturday night, Brent Harrill found me to say that his fiancé had a family emergency and they had to fly to Michigan Sunday morning.  Oh, oh!  Brent had done a great job filling in for Doug.  Fortunately, long-time Scorpio crew and friend, Geoff McDonald, convinced Matt Gregory to sail with us.  Matt, a Pro from the Midwest, was between sailing commitments and agreed to trim the main for us on Sunday.

Sunday morning arrive with dense fog.  We left the dock at 1015 to prepare for our 1100 start off Alcatraz.  The Bay Tour is just that.  The race committee posted course Q (16, 18, 8, 3, X, 7, 1, RD) - a long course with a lot of variety.  White Dove, a mere one point behind, hunted us in the prestart maneuvers and nearly drew a foul.  More important, they had a great start and forced us to sail in their bad air for 1/4 mile or so.  We eventually got free and arrived at the windward mark (16) just behind the Wylie 46 Heartbeat.  We then sailed a very good run to Blossom Rock (18), gybed onto a close spinnaker reach to mark 8.  We dropped our 3/4 oz. kite there and beat to mark 3 with the same 3+ jib we'd started the race with.  While we saw 16-20 knots near the bottom of the course, it was quite light above Alcatraz.  In retrospect, should have changed to the C3 for the long beat to mark 3.  This inflatable tetrahedron near Yellow Bluff was situated in an area of very light and shifty wind with occasional huge puffs.  We struggled to get around this mark and jib-reached across to mark X where we set the 3/4 chute again.  We ran to mark 7, doused and this time raised the C3 for the beat to mark 1.  The wind failed to build so this turned out to be a very good call.  We rounded mark 1 and set the .6 kite for the short run to the StFYC race deck.  We were well ahead of White Dove around the course, but couldn't seem to "stretch" on them - they were just too well sailed.  We finished the race in just under three hours, correcting 3:40 behind Mayhem and 48 seconds behind White Dove.

So, Mayhem won the regatta and we ended up second, beating White Dove on a tie-breaker.  It was a good regatta for Team Scorpio.  Our crew work was excellent and our boatspeed is coming back.  The boat went back to its cradle at KKMI to rest until our practice regatta on September 8-9.  Aside from some instrument calibration problems and a faulty FFD that will be replaced before the next event, the boat and sails held together nicely (although we put 6.5 hours on our new 3+ between practice and the regatta itself).  We look forward to our practice over the weekend of September 8 and hope by that time to be well prepared for Big Boat Series competition.

Race Results