| Home | Events | Dues | Roster | Crew List | Messages | For Sale | Articles | Photos | Rules |
| Vallejo Race at Vallejo Yacht Club | May 6 - 7 |
| Story |
| This year's Vallejo race was a great time. The weather was fantastic on both days and the wind was pretty good. While we never got the predicted 25 knots, we never had any holes to deal with. On Saturday, Wile E Coyote sailed with myself, Mike Herbert (tactics and trim), and Eleanor Bonifacio (foredeck). The wind was blowing about 13 knots at the start and I believe all 12 Expresses sailed with their #3 for the short windward leg. We had a terrible start and rounded the windward mark near the back of the e27 pack, but not too for from the leader (Kolibri) since it was such a short leg.
The next "leg" of the race, up to the Pt. San Pablo buoy, was the most tactically challenging. Initially, we stayed East of South Hampton Shoal to avoid the Angel Island wind shadow and the core of the ebb. Because the wind seemed to be pretty filled in along the Richmond Riviera, we decided not to sail really deep initially and then heat it up later. Peaches and Silkye (a well sailed Wyliecat 30) tried going deep, but it didn't work this year as they got into lighter wind. I think our middle of the road path (and our light crew weight) worked fairly well for us as we moved up into the top half of the fleet with Kolibri, Freaks on a Leash, Desperado, and Xena. As we approached the fuel docks past Richmond, we were abeam of Xena with both us staying close to the wharf for current relief. Kolibri, Freaks on a Leash, and Desperado were no more than 200 yards to the West, but must have been in significantly worse current allowing us and Xena to move into the lead. As we headed North of the bridge, we stayed close to the shore with Xena just off our starboard beam. Evidently we were a bit too close to shore because Xena hit something with their keel which shook the boat pretty hard. After a quick left turn by both boats, we proceeded up to the wharfs by the Brothers. Our group must have brought some wind up with us because we sailed into a solid wall of big boats which all started before us. As we approached the wharf, there were three or four 30-something footers abeam of each other against the wharf. We decided to try and sail around the outside of them for better wind and Xena boldly went though the middle of the pack looking for better current relief. As we got abeam of this pack, another pack of larger boats sailed down on us blocking any wind we had. So this pack of ten or so boats somehow drifted/sailed towards the Pt. San Pablo buoy. During this melee, we were politely nudged from astern twice, had a spinnaker wrapped around our backstay, and heard at least three regattas worth of swearing. The winner of this fire drill was Kolibri, who somehow snuck inside of everyone and got around the mark in first place with Xena slightly ahead of us in second. At this point, the wind was on our beam and we somehow needed to get to windward of all of these bigger boats. Our lucky break came when a J-105 ahead of us ran aground. As all of the larger boats were turning left for deeper water, we heated it up, took some transoms, and sailed just inside the J-105 giving us a clean lane. As we sailed towards Pt Pinole we were jockeying with Xena and Kolibri and eventually managed to get ahead probably due to less crew weight. From there, the wind went forward (we even had to go to white sails for a while) which limited the passing lanes allowing us to hold our lead to the finish. For the race on Sunday, the Coyote crew was joined by Justin (who never raced before) and Russ (who never sailed before). We started in a slight ebb with about 5 knots of wind just forward of the beam. We had a good start to leeward of the pack with El Raton beside us and Desperado winning the battle for the pin. We managed to get enough ahead of El Raton to gas them a bit and must have had better wind in the middle of the channel than Desperado as we moved ahead of both boats. When we got to the Carquinez Strait, the tide seemed to be fairly slack and we decided to head towards the South side of San Pablo Bay, as did most of our fleet. I believe the only exception was Shenanigans who I think stayed towards the North breakwater (Bill correct me if I'm wrong here). When we were about halfway to Pt. Pinole, we started heading closer to the channel looking for more ebb while a lot of the boats headed far South which has worked in previous years under similar conditions. Unfortunately, I think many of those boats got stuck in some really light air. At this point, Kolibri was a bit North of us moving well, but still a bit behind so we were feeling pretty good about ourselves until one of the new guys commented on a boat ahead that looked like an Express. Sure enough, Shenanigans put a move on everyone and was about 1/3rd of a mile ahead of us. Once we got past Pt. Pinole we headed North into the channel looking for building ebb, but never found any so we turned South. When we converged with the fleet, Shenanigans was still in the lead and we managed to cross both Kolibri and Xena. Showing little gratitude for all the hard work our fleet captain puts in, we tacked right on Xena's air. Mark, in turn, footed off into Kolibri's air forcing them to tack which hurt since we were already on the layline to the finish. Shenanigans overstood a fair amount allowing us to catch up, but they held on to win by a boat length with Xena in third, Kolibri in fourth, and Archimedes in fifth. It was a fun weekend for us with some great sailing, and as the saying goes "every dog has his day." Cheers Dan Pruzan Wile E Coyote |
| Result | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| GPS Tracks |
| [ Upload a GPS Track ] |
| Regatta Message Board |