How'd Scorpio Do in Her May Regattas?
 

KKMI, with Doug's assistance and John's prodding, did a fantastic job putting Scorpio back together after her

winter in the Northwest.  With a mere week to re-install the keel, rudder, mast, electronics, etc., it was a busy

time for all.  Kim Desenberg supervised the yard work which included fabricating new keel bolt backing plates

and Ron Romaine and Paul Altman installed the B&G system which was removed before she left KKMI in

February.  Needless to say, there was no way to "pull off" the May 13th scheduled practice.

Instead, the crew met for a brief practice Friday evening May 19th.  Marcy had flown in from Oahu for the

regatta and joined Doug and John at the StFYC guest dock, along with Joy, Geoff McDonald, Toby Cooper,

and newcomers to the boat, John Callahan and Matt Vecchione.  JC is a veteran local sailor who agreed to

join us for the weekend since his normal ride Morpheus wasn't racing, and there was no activity in the Etchells

class that weekend.  Matt joins us from the Santa Cruz Yacht Club junior program.  The brief practice went well

although the wind was light.  We accomplished the important tasks of making sure everything worked and the
sails looked OK (including the new mainsail).  It was primarily an opportunity to reacquaint the regulars with the
boat, and introduce the two new crew to the program.

The Stone Cup hosted five classes including a nine boat IRC division where we competed in four races over

Saturday and Sunday.  Bren Meyer and Larry Peterson who were unable to make the practice session, met

us at the dock on Saturday.  The IRC division consisted of an eclectic collection of 35-52 footers:  a J35, three

Beneteaus, the venerable 8 meter, Yucca, an Elan 39, a turbo Santa Cruz 52, a Schumacher 53 and Scorpio.

The two-day series had a great assortment of racing in varying wind conditions, including a very wet and windy

squall before and during the final race on Sunday.  In the end, Yucca, demolished the fleet with scores of 1-4-1-1.

Scorpio managed a solid second (3-2-3-2) beating the third place boat by five points.  It was a good regatta

and we sailed fairly well.  Speedwise we were slightly off the pace and suspect that the mast needs some retuning

as the bottom section of the main looked flat and a bit awkward.  This is odd since, only one upper was played

with, because we were able to used our mast jack to loosen the others.  More than likely this is a problem with
the arrangement of our mast partner blocks.  Sparmaker Buzz Ballenger will join us for our July 29 practice at
which time we expect to have the problem resolved.

The following Friday Scorpio participated in the annual SF-Monterey Spinnaker Cup. This is always a fun race

and we've had great success finishing 2-1-2 in large fleets over the past three years.  For this ocean race, we

sailed with a crew of eight:  John, Nancy, Doug, Geoff, Larry, Toby.  Also, joining us were longtime pro sailor,

Peter Cameron, and sailmaker Seadon Wijsen, who called tactics for us in the 2004 Waikiki Offshore Regatta.

There's always decent wind in the Spinnaker Cup, but this year's race was windier than usual, sunny, and

basically perfect.  We started in a large fleet of 28 boats and basically led the way out the gate in 20-25 knots.

We turned left a close reached toward Montara where we set our new asymmetrical spinnaker.  This is the

first time we've had an Akyte on Scorpio and it was very powerful.  We used it until we gybed for the beach

above Ano Nuevo when we changed to a symmetrical runner.  At that point we think we were winning the

race.  We gybed a couple of times including a very windy one just above Davenport.  As we crossed the

Monterey Bay, Rick Linkemyer's Olson 40 Outrageous kept getting bigger and bigger.  As it was we beat

them by just a few boatlengths, so they easily corrected on us.  However, overall division winner was Dan

Newland's custom 36 footer, Pegasus XIV.  Scorpio finished third at 21:17:19, 14 minutes behind and a

whopping 51 minutes behind Pegasus.  It was a great race.  After putting the boat away and having a few

drinks at the Monterey Peninsula Yacht Club, six of us crammed in the Yukon and drove home to SF.  Larry
stayed and helped Doug deliver Scorpio to Santa Cruz early Saturday.  Doug then headed north on Sunday
night with a delivery crew and spent the next 11 hours beating upwind in 30-39 knots of  breeze.

Scorpio is now resting on her cradle at KKMI looking forward to the Aldo Alessio and Big Boat Series.