Spinnaker Cup

The Spinnaker Cup is one of the great coastal races - short enough for it to be civilized and and windy enough to be exciting.  This year provide to be windier than ever with dangerous gale conditions offshore for the four days prior to the race.  We obsessed about this, added smaller sails, more safety equipment, and two extra crew to deal with the conditions that were expected to continue during the race.

As we left the StFYC guest dock on Friday at 1100, we observed sunny and fairly windy conditions across the Bay.  We started well and enjoyed a good lead for the first mile or so of the race.  The, we outsmarted ourselves.  We notice a bigger boat ahead having trouble getting around Mile Rock so we decided to play the Marin shore to Point Bonita.  By the time we tacked across, we had lost our early lead.  We changed down from the C3 to the L3 and enjoyed a fairly pleasant beat in a 15 knot southwesterly.  As we passed Pillar Point where we ordinarily crack off and set a spinnaker, we noted that the southerly influence continued and that the wind was lightening.  Nine hours into the race we found ourselves off Pescadero Point, well above the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.

At 2130, seeing no improvement, we pulled the plug and began motoring to Santa Cruz.  We arrived at the Santa Cruz Harbor at 0330, cleaned up the boat a bit and crashed for a few hours.  At 0630, Toby's wife 1-3, arrived to take the crew back North in the SUV we'd rented in Alameda the morning before. 

The wind never filled although it was much stronger 10-15 miles offshore.  White Dove, Aleta, and Tupelo Honey all finished between 0930 and 1230.  We didn't regret our decision to retire from the race.

Race Results