2009 Sausalito Yacht Club IRC Regatta - Race Notes

12 boats entered the third IRC series event of 2009.  The local IRC Governing Board elected to race in one 12 boat division.  This made it somewhat difficult for the race committee since they had a very fast boat, TP 52 Mayhem competing against 11 much slower boats, including the Farr 38 Mintaka 4 and the Sabre 386 Kuai.  As an example of the speed (time) differences, Kuai finished race 1, a 12.7 nm course, in 2:16:29 compared with Mayhem's finish time of 1:28:43.  This necessitated very long courses for the slower boats.  Although there was a mixture of flood and ebb currents, judging by the scores, this decision clearly favored the faster boats.  Nevertheless the Sausalito Yacht Club put on a great regatta and Mother Nature cooperated with sunny weather and very breezy conditions.  It was great fun for all!

Team Scorpio was very late leaving the StFYC guest dock Saturday morning.  Our original plan was to follow Scorpio to Sausalito Yacht Club in the Protector.  Leave the Rib there for the day, leave Scorpio there overnight, and use the Protector to get the crew back to the StFYC after racing and socializing.  Because of this plan, we agreed to pick up George Wheeler in Sausalito to ease his commute from the North Bay.  Three of us sped off in the Protector with Scorpio following.  As we picked up George it was clear we'd never make the start if we stuck with our plan.  So, we diverted Scorpio by VHF to go straight to the starting area off the end of the Berkeley Pier, and we sped there in the Protector and anchored several hundred yards below the start line.  By the time Scorpio arrived and we got aboard, we were nearly in our starting sequence.

The starts and tactics for all four races were basically identical.  We started races 1 and 3 in late ebb and had fairly neutral water for the starts of races 2 and 4.  The plan was the same all four days.  The fleet went right all four races, banged Point Blunt and tacked to the windward mark.  The downwind legs were also pretty much the same.  We hoisted, sailed deep, gybed early, and enjoyed a shove by the north to south current which got us to the mark with virtually no course changes.  This early gybe was tactically a "big gainer" for us as the boats who gybed later (Soozal and TNT in particular) sailed a longer course. 

In all four races, Mayhem was gone - we almost never saw them.  TNT and Soozal were quite a bit faster upwind, and we were faster than Astra and Recidivist, so we basically sailed alone for most of the regatta.  The remaining 7 boats were far enough behind that we rarely saw them.

Race 1 - Course 2:  W, L, W, DF

After a good start, we sailed the first leg with our L3 in fairly light breeze ranging from 10-18 knots.  We set the .75, sailed to the leeward mark, took the kite down to windward, and began our second beat.  By this time we'd changed to the 3+ as the wind had built to 15-20 knots.  We set the .75 and basically repeated our first downwind leg.  We finished second to Mayhem after 1:57:37 hours and ended up correcting on Soozal by 13 seconds and TNT by 2:32.  Tupelo Honey, Phantom Mist, Recidivist, Hawkeye, Astra, Mintaka 4, and Kuai followed on corrected time.

We had made a couple of important changes to Scorpio since the Spinnaker Cup.  First, Bren modified our mast jack system so that we could keep it in place for quick rig adjustments between races.  Although we never changed our mast settings during the regatta, it was assuring that we could do so in a minute's time.  Second, those who've sailed on Scorpio will probably recall the difficulty we have maintaining jib halyard tension.  We went to a larger halyard winch over the winter, but soon found that we were lifting the deck each time we attempted to grind the halyard while sailing upwind.  To address this problem Doug added a floating jib tack system, where the mainsail trimmer can pull the halyard tack down while sitting in place.  He did this with a 40:1 below-deck system with 1/4" spectra, and corresponding blocks and cleats.  Leading this jib tack line back to the mainsail trimmer proved to be a very effective way to control the jib sail draft without the use of winches and crew that would be otherwise hiking.  It worked great throughout the regatta.

We did have one significant problem in this race.  On the first (windward) douse, the leeward spinnaker sheet and guy ended up under the bow.  The bow team removed the shackle and the sheet ended up jammed between the hull and rudder.  We were able to free the guy, but not the sheet.  After finishing the race, we sailed to the lee of Treasure Island and attempted to clear the wedged sheet, but to no avail.  We did manage to get both sheet ends back in the boat, but we sailed the rest of the day with the sheet jammed in the rudder.  Fortunately it didn't affect steering.  We finally cleared the situation at the dock later that night in the Sausalito Yacht Harbor.

Race 2 - Course 4:  Point Bonita Buoy, L, WF

We had another great start to this distance (20.22 nm) course.  We played the south side of Angel Island with the 3+ and then sailed straight to Yellow Bluff.  We short tacked to and around the GG Bridge North Tower.  Outside the gate, the wind dropped to 6-7 knots.  We peeled to the L3.  We were now facing significant flood current and it took us about an hour to get from the bridge to Point Bonita.

We finally rounded with Astra, well behind Soozal and TNT.  We set our .6 spinnaker and sailed to the middle of the flood.  We peeled to the .75 just outside the gate and the wind quickly built to 25 knots.  We sailed straight to the leeward mark rounding ahead of Astra.  We stayed right on our final beat to the windward finish off Little Harding.  After finishing in 3:24:43, we sailed back downwind to retrieve the Protector.  Bren and Toby, with evening plans, jumped on the Protector with me to the StFYC.  I then took the Protector back to Sausalito where we picked up the crew at the yacht harbor and headed to the Sausalito Yacht Club.  We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours at the outside bar at SYC before heading back to the StFYC to our cars.

In race 2, we ended up correcting a distant third (12 minutes behind Soozal and 5 behind TNT).  Mayhem had withdrawn from the race with a broken outhaul, which left Soozal, TNT, and Scorpio one-two-three.  So, our standings after two races were Soozal, Scorpio, and TNT with 4, 5, and 6 points respectively.  This had the potential of a tremendous dog fight on Sunday.

Race 3 - Course 2:  W, L, W, DF

Sunday morning after a quick Protector ride, we piled onto Scorpio and headed to the starting area.  We left SYC at a reasonable time and set the .85 recently tweaked spinnaker to run to the starting area.  The sail looked better than at Stone Cup, but still needs more shape at the top.  We had a good start in middle of line.  It was windy and we sailed with the 3+ following the same strategy as our other starts.  We tacked right and headed toward Blunt.  We set and spent 15 seconds clearing a wrap.  We gybed early and once again gained a lot on TNT and Soozal.  We somehow had another wrap 1/3 way down the course.  We had a good rounding, and basically sailed the same on our next two legs.  We finished in 1:36:13, 2:59 behind Soozal.  Our rough calculations made us think we'd beaten them by 10 seconds, but unfortunately we lost on corrected time by 28 seconds.  We were sailing very well, but so was Soozal and we couldn't seem to catch them.

Race 4 - Course 3:  W, L, W, L, WF

It was windy and getting windier.  We were now seeing a solid 25 knots with gusts to 28.  We had perhaps our best start of the series.  Actually we had four great starts, but this one was best.  We forced Soozal to the right in the prestart and they parked in irons as we won the start.  After tacking we were quickly rolled by TNT and had to take a clearing tack.  Soozal eventually worked above TNT.  As we approached Point Blunt we watched as TNT's mast broke at the hounds.  We've all seen this scene many times, but it's always disturbing to watch.  TNT was out of the regatta.  We sailed a very good race in all respects and  finished in 2:28:01, 4:18 behind Soozal.  We ended up losing to Soozal by 23 seconds.

In summary, as was the case in Stone Cup, we were second to Soozal.  As well as we sailed, they simply sailed a little better.  We look forward to our next opportunity at the Aldo Alessio.  Interestingly, we beat Soozal in one race and lost to them three times.  We beat them in light-to-medium conditions, and lost in heavy air.  This is a switch for Scorpio.

We were fortunately to have three very able fill-ins for this regatta.  Henry Nieuwstad filled in again as he did on Sunday of the Stone Cup.  He continues to do a great job for us.  Susan Ruhne, an alum from the early 2000s rejoined us as replacement for Marcy Fleming.  She picked up in the pit where she left off several years ago.  Finally, George Santori, a young sailor from Cal Maritime Academy joined us on short notice.  He was a bit bored on Saturday, but we worked him hard on Sunday.  All three were very able stand-ins and we hope to see them on the boat in the future.