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2008 Rolex Big Boat Series

 

The highlight of each year for Team Scorpio is the Rolex Big Boat Series.  This is by far the most prestigious regatta on the West Coast and one of the top regattas in the world.  Going in to the BBS Scorpio, held a slight lead in the SF Bay IRC Series Championship, but needed a very strong finish to hold off White Dove, Tupelo Honey, and TNT.  This year's seven-race series hosted 110 boats:  71 raced in six one design classes, and 39 raced in four IRC divisions.  We were placed in IRC-C competing against seven other boats of similar size and speed.

 

We scheduled a boat launch on Tuesday with a practice Wednesday afternoon followed by seven races over the next four days.  The skipper chose to skip the Moore 24 Nationals scheduled at the Richmond Yacht Club on the preceding weekend in order to focus on this important event.  Doug Frolich, however, accepted an opportunity to race with Bart Hackworth on Gruntled.  They were leading the 33 boat Moore fleet after two days of racing. 

 

Siegel took a phone call early Sunday morning from Doug, who, in an obviously dazed state, reported that he had an accident Saturday night, was heading home from the hospital, and wouldn't be able to finish the Moore Nationals or sail with us in the Big Boat Series.  It seems that Saturday evening on his way home from the Richmond Yacht Club, Doug decided to stop by Scorpio to pick up some halyards scheduled for replacement.  After climbing the 15' ladder to the cradled boat, Doug prepared to depart and his "flip flop" snagged the lower lifeline as he stepped over the top lifeline.  This caused him to lose his balance and his grip on the ladder.  As he began to fall backwards to the pavement below, Doug flailed out with his arm and caught the lifeline momentarily.  This straightened his body and allowed him to fall feet first, thank goodness!  As it turned out Doug severely bruised his hip and knee and fractured his left ankle.  That's how our Big Boat Series started.

 

Doug wasn't our only medical concern during the event.  Joy had been suffering with knee pain and immobility for the past couple of years, and it came to a head over the summer.  She was scheduled for a complete knee replacement the Tuesday after the regatta.  We worried that she might not hold up during the four days of racing. But she did.

 

So, Siegel picked up the boat at KKMI on Tuesday and delivered her to the StFYC that afternoon.  We were most fortunate to convince local sailor Jim Gregory (skipper of the Schumacher 50, Morpheus) to sail with us in BBS.  We rotated Jim in to as a trimmer and moved George Wheeler back to take over for Doug as the mainsail trimmer.  We met for practice midday on Wednesday.  After sending Matt up the mast for a serious cleaning, we loaded sails and prepared for a practice.  We were short two as Marcy's flight from Hawaii arrived later that afternoon and Nancy was tied up in a business meeting till 1600.  One of our goals was to check out our new poly .85 spinnaker scheduled to replace the old blue workhorse.  Unfortunately, Steve McCarthy was unable to finish the sail and it wasn't available to look at until Friday.  We agreed to permit a TV cameraman from Rolex to hop on the boat for our practice, but he didn't see much.  It was quite windy on Wednesday and as we set our old poly kite, it immediately exploded.  So, we looked at our new mainsail tack location, made some minor changes to our partner blocks, and headed back to the club to join in the customary Wednesday parties.  We were off to a pretty bad start:  first Doug, then no new spinnaker, then we blew up the old one.

   

 

                                                                         Launching the Boat on Tuesday             

 

 

                        Meet Jim Gregory                                                            Getting the Mast Partners Right

 

 

Thursday

The 11 of us left the dock at 1015 on Thursday, in order to get to the City Front race area in front of Treasure Island in plenty of time for our 1120 warning.  Although it was light we were able to practice a bit both upwind and downwind.

Currents:  0909 - 2.9F, 1211 - S, 1435 - 1.8E, 1753 - S

 

Morning Race - Course 25:  Start (TIC) - T1p - T1o - T2gate - T1p - T1o - T2gate - Finish (TI) (10.40 nm)

Thursday's conditions were somewhat to our liking.  We started at 1133 and finished at 1240 in this five lap double sausage course with an upwind finish.  We used our L3 on all beats and our .6 spinnaker on all runs.  We had a decent start and sailed well.  Nevertheless, we corrected nearly two minutes behind TKO and almost a minute ahead of third place Resolute.  Both TKO and Resolute are J122s from Southern California.  TKO won our division in last year's event and they were off to a good start this year.  Given the light winds, we were happy with our performance.

 

Afternoon Race - Course 11:  Start (A) - 1p - 1o - 18p - 1p - 1o -18p - 1p -1o - Finish (RD) (15.50 nm)

The wind built nicely throughout this race.  We started at 1425 and finished at 1638.  We sailed the entire triple sausage race with our 3+ upwind and .75 runner downwind.  With winds in the mid to high teens throughout the race, Scorpio was in her element.  We won the race easily, crushing second place Bustin Loose by over four minutes and over six minutes ahead of third place TKO.

 

We arrived at the dock at 1700 and were pleased to find ourselves in first place in division C.  We took showers, enjoyed the post-race parties, and looked forward to three more days of racing.

 

   

 

Bren Say It's Time to Gybe, Dammit!

 

Friday

Steve worked much of the night to finish our new .85 poly spinnaker.  We left the dock on time, but it was too light to accomplish much in the way of practice.

Currents:  0941 - 3.2F, 1245 - S, 1512 - 2.3E, 1835 - S

 

Morning Race   - Course 3:    Start (A) - 16s - 18s - 16s - Finish (B) (14.80 nm)

We started at 1150 and finished at 1412.  It was very light and shifty on our first beat to the Blackhaller Buoy (16).  Both TKO and Copernicus were launched at the start and played the Alcatraz cone nicely.  We followed and tacked to the beach and arrived at the top mark well behind most of the fleet.  We made up some ground on the run to Blossom Rock (18) and held our ground on the final beat after switching to the M3.  We finished the race in second to last place, but ended up correcting third.  Given the conditions, we did ok.

 

Afternoon Race - Course 32:  Start (TIC) - 9p - 5gate - 1p - 1o - Finish (RD) (12.32 nm)

We really hadn't made any mistakes in the series so far.  We quickly took care of that in Race 4.  We found ourselves well to the north of the start line as the warning signal was made.  We struggled up-current to get there and we were clearly late.  We decided to cross the line from the course side and make our start.  Things were looking good until Animal began to "bring us up".  We struggled to stay clear and were forced "head to wind" to avoid contact.  We succeeded in staying clear but we were well above the start line when the gun went off.  Mistake one.  We waited for an opportunity to restart but were held up for what seemed like minutes.  We finally bore off to the line and restarted.  Problem is, we hadn't entirely cleared the line.  Mistake two.  Once again we bore off and headed back to correctly restart.  Finally the X flag was dropped and we headed upwind.  During the pre-start fiasco the crew of Animal were yelling loudly at us.  We notice they were flying their protest flag.

 

We started at 1445 and finished at 1632.  We were well behind the fleet, but the wind was up.  We slowly began grinding our way back through the fleet.  We were last at the first mark but picked off two boats by the time we reached the gate.  On our final long beat to Presidio Shoal we passed everyone but TKO and Bustin Loose.  We ended up correcting third, but we were very concerned about the protest by Animal.  I talked to their tactician, Chris Watts, at the dock, and he felt strongly that we had fouled them.  We ended up in an arbitration hearing.  I feared we would be disqualified.  Fortunately I was able to convince the Arbitrator that I was well over the line (which we were), and sailed head to wind to avoid contact (which we did).  He believed we did all we could to stay clear, and began keeping clear when it was obvious that we needed to.  We prevailed in the room and managed two thirds for the day.  Problem was:  TKO had two bullets.  We were now in second place - three full points behind TKO.  Had we not had the problems at the start of race four, we probably would have won that race (we ended up 1:34 out of first.  However, given the light airs in race three, there was little we could have done to improve things.

 

Once again, we showered and enjoyed the evenings social activities.

 

    

 

Can't Wear Him Out - Nice to Have a 21 Year Old on the Bow  - Thanks Matt!

 

Saturday

As we motored to the starting area for the start of race five, the conditions looked very much like what we had experienced the day before.  They actually turned out worse.  It was extremely light in the morning race and moderately better in the afternoon.

Currents:  1010 - 3.4F, 1316 - S, 1548  - 2.9E

 

Morning Race   - Course 25:  Start (TIC) - T1p - T1o - T2gate - T1p - T1o - T2gate - Finish (TI) (10.40 nm)

We started race five at 1125 and finished at 1304.  We used the L3 for both upwind legs and the .6 kite downwind.  Once again we suffered upwind in the light conditions, but held our own downwind.  Problem is, we were so far behind the leaders at the top mark, we had no real opportunity to make a comeback.  We ended up beating only two boats, and corrected a dismal fifth - a full three minutes behind winner TKO.  At this point, it was clear that we were playing for second place in the regatta.

 

Afternoon Race - Course 9:   Start (A) - 1p - 1o - 2gate - 1p - 1o - Finish (RD)  (12.66 nm)

Start 1425 - Finish 1602.  We had enough wind in race six to use the M3 and .75 throughout.  We sailed a very good race throughout the double sausage course and led the entire way around the racecourse.  We did have another incident crossing  tacks with TKO where we bore off behind them and they claimed we prevented them from staying clear.  Once again, we ended up in the arbitration room.  This time I was quite confident that we'd prevail and we did. 

 

We also had an exciting moment when we blew up our halyard winch trying to tighten luff tension during a tack.  Fortunately Marcy dealt with it well and the Harken folks were able to make repairs for us at the dock that evening.

 

Saturday night is our usual crew dinner and this year, for the first time in several years, we reserved a table in the StFYC Pacific Room.  The entire crew attended plus Mindy and Gary Evans and John and Wendy Wurster who traded off driving our Protector.  It was a very nice evening enjoyed by all.  We were now a full six points behind TKO in the standings and three points ahead of third place Bustin Loose.  Barring a miracle, we had no chance at another RBBS victory.

 

 

                         

 

Perfect Trim Nancy!

 

 

Sunday

Bay Tour Race   - Course 14:  Start (A) - 16s - 17p - 3p - Xp - 7p - 1p - 1o Finish (RD) (15.44 nm)

Currents:  1038 - 3.5F, 1345 - S, 1625 - 3.5E

 

We were assigned a fairly typical Bay Tour course in fairly light airs.  To make a long story short, we finished fifth and corrected fourth (20 seconds behind third).  There's not much to say about the race.  The reaching legs greatly favored the two J122s and they responded with first and second place finishes.  Fortunately we held on to second place in our division.

 

 

Final notes:  This is the second year in a row of light airs during BBS.  We had our 3+ up only once and we won that race.  Let's hope for breezier conditions next year.

 

Many thanks again to the crew for their typical great work:  Bren, Toby, Nancy, Larry, Marcy, Matt, Joy, George, and Steve.  Special thanks to Jim Gregory for filling in for Doug throughout the event.  Thanks once again to Mindy, Gary, John, and Wendy for manning the Protector throughout the series.

 

In the end we failed to hold our position in the 2008 SF Bay IRC Series.  Both White Dove (Division D) and TNT (Division B) had their way in their respective divisions and finished first and second.  Scorpio ended up third.  See www.sfbay-irc.org for details.

 

Race Results