Rites of Spring

Competed in the 2013 ROS race, hosted by the Oakland Yacht Club, with James as crew. James is a fellow Wharramite having built a Hitia 17, and is also a regular sail race competitor on his Santana 22. The race started just off the Berkeley Pier, and we were the first boat in our allocated class over the line at the pin end (double-handed non-spin phrf > 141). Conditions on the first leg to the windward mark (the Southhampton Shoal Structure) were anti-Wharram with light winds on the nose and against a 2-3 knot ebb current. We messed up a bit by tacking too short on the approach to the weather mark - if we had taken longer tacks we would not have been caught under the mark. We lost lots of ground and most of the fleet went past us! However, after rounding the mark the run with the tide turned into a reach and we started to pick a few boats off. After rounding the bottom mark we continued to give chase to the third mark between Angel Island and the Berkeley Pier, this was another reach and we closed with more boats averaging 6-7 knots. Round the third mark, we headed towards the last mark as the wind freshened on a beam reach. With James on the tiller and me trimming the genoa, we hit 10 knots as we overtook a bunch of boats, and we averaged 9.5 knots* over the last half-mile to the mark against the outgoing tide! Round the last mark and had to put in two more tacks to cross the finish line, still tailing the Telstar 28 we had been chasing the whole race.

The wind had now really freshened and we put in reefs on the main and jib to cross the breezy shipping channel - got very wet putting in the jib reefs in the short chop in the tidal race of Pt Blunt. No pictures - too much fun racing. Great day - 32 NM in total.

Update. The results came out and, despite our troubles, we were first on corrected time in our original class of nine boats (double-handed non-spin phrf >141). We were then moved to a new class of multis phrf >100 which we also led, but there was only one other boat (the Telstar 28). This is all great but shows that our provisional 216 phrf is way to high.
*GPSAR gps software

Further update. The nice people organizing the race sent pictures of the regata - see below.

First over the start at the pin - Telstar bearing down

Crossing the finish line