Elise : Beer Can Races

On Monday night, I did a beer can race on Breakout (S 36) near South Beach Harbor, organized by the Bayview Boat Club and on Tuesday night, a beer can race right at the entrance of Richardson Bay, between Angel Island and the Gate, organized by Sausalito Yacht Club. It was on an Alerion 28 (what a beauty!!!), another Schumacher design. After each race, the crew went back to the Club for drinks and dinner. What a great way to spend your evening!!!

I did jib trim on Monday (including taking care of running backs, a real pain if you ask me :-)) - the race was so fast that I didn't have time to take photos...19.5 min from start to finish....It was definitely a sprint. Reaching to the mark, then upwind back to finish. Bayview Boat Club is a hell of a place :-) You can have vegetarian beef (that is beef :-)), and talk to a lot of longtime sailors. The Club is small, has two cats (with the Club membership collar) and super easy going. I loved the crew on Breakout, so easy going!!!

On Tuesday, I also did jib trim :-) And a little tactics - we came in second and got a bottle of wine. At the Sausalito Yacht Club (my second time there), there is a fabulous photo of hundreds or thousands of sailboat escorting a square rigger through the Golden Gate Yacht Club on the wall - and they showed a video of the race. Such a great idea! The menu was a bit more varied (and expensive :-))

Guillaume, the BeatSarcoma intern for the summer was on board so we have a lot more photos!

Our captain Dean

Checking out the boat

Sailing up toward the start line. Our warning was at 640pm

Meeting our neighbors, the seals!!! Look how cute they are! There were puppies too.

It was such a great day!!!

The photographers has his two feet on the ground...well, the floorboard.

Our sailing instruments

Port hole. Nice photo. This was actually on the side of the boat (not the cabin top)

Checking out the competition (always good when you have to look BACK to do that) - it was ebbing at the beginning of the race, not clear whether the pin end or the boat end of the line was favored, it seemed to vary as the wind was a little shifty which means that the RC set the line pretty good :-) We had a good start but could have had cleaner air there. We went for the left side of the course (like everyone else) to take advantage of the last bit of ebb. On our downwind, we got into slack water so currents didn't play a big role anymore.

Dean driving downwind. Once we got to the leeward mark the first time around, we had another boat close to us, (with overlap) we tacked out and back out to the left side of the course, and we captured a teeny bit of ebb as we got closer to the mark. Nice mark rounding at the windward mark as we forced the nearest boat to dip behind us as we came in on starboard tack. We called the laylines well throughout the race and usually were able to find the wind pockets (it became increasingly light as the sun went down).

It seems that the fate of the race got decided in the last few boat lengths of the last upwind, back to the finish. We headed out to the left side of the course (pin end) as there was definitely (as is visibly) more wind on that side, and we tacked as soon as we could cut across the line to minimize distance. The Catalina 29 was following us at a reasonable distance and the Merit went way down after the last leeward mark rounding, thus giving us a huge distance advantage. We had a few really nice lifts that further shortened the distance to the line for us. The Catalina had these same lifts and an unexpected huge push right before the line...

We owed them time anyway yet they finished IN FRONT of us!!! Nice sailing on their part, really nice.