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| Vallejo Season Opener at Vallejo Yacht Club | May 3 - 4 |
| Story |
| Jason, here's how the Vallejo race looked from the Magic Bus, if you wan to send it around in continuance of the recap tradition that you started...
After waiting for wind on Saturday morning under gray skies, racing got underway and Magic Bus found itself struggling to make the starting line in light airs and against a strong flood. We were slow off the line and ended up in the middle/rear of the fleet on the short beat up to Blunt buoy. The race got interesting for us between the Richmond / San Rafael bridge and the Brothers. The air became light and fluky as we were close reaching in the channel, but nearer the Richmond side. Peaches and Wile E. Coyote were aways ahead of us and closer to the Richmond shore, Maximus was right in front of us, as I think were Exocet and Opus, all a little closer to shore. I think we were ahead of maybe Chimo, True Grit and Strega as we passed under the bridge, can't really remember exactly. Bobs was in there somewhere, but I also don't remember exactly where. We started seeing boats closer to the shore slowing down and attributed it to better air and stronger current in the channel, and for a while we were looking pretty good. We caught up to all the boats ahead that we could see and the boats closest to the shore ended up in dead air and south flowing current, so for a moment or two we congratulated ourselves as north flowing water further out were we were carried us past. All good things end at some point, for us it was around the when an Antrim 27 that was just ahead got its bow caught on the wrong side of a tide line, and with its rudder on the other side and no wind to speak of, did a slow 360 degree circle around us as we were desperately trying to stay on the good side of the tide line. We failed but some of the boats behind us, including most of those we had just caught up to, saw what was happening and used whatever wind they could find to get out into the channel & stay in the good tide for longer. We anchored for a short time next to Opus until a more southerly breeze filled in, and allowed boats to carry spinnakers around Point San Pablo. We were right with Opus & Peaches but behind pretty much everyone else at this point, having been passed while anchored. We could see Chimo's distinctive chute what seemed like a half mile ahead, and we also had our eye on Maximus and Exocet. The air was still light but began to get shifty and streaky as some rain cells blew through. First Maximus then Exocet went hard left towards the darkest clouds, while we stayed close to the shipping channel & most of the rest of the boats were further ahead to the right, heading up under point pinole. We focused on being where patches of wind were whenever possible, as well as keeping clear air and lanes amidst some of the larger boats around us, and it began to pay off. By the time we got past Point Pinole we had caught Exocet, Maximus Peaches and Opus for good. We continued up the middle of the course, gybing on the frequent windshifts, caught up to with True Grit, Bobs and Wile Coyote, and entered the mouth of the river with Chimo and Strega. Brad on Chimo taught us a lesson in this part of the race last year, so this time we kept a close eye on him and went to the left shore early just behind him. I think we were on port and more or less by the lee under spinnaker, possibly on chimo's air to some extent, when they gybed away on starboard to a position in front of Strega a little further out, before gybing back this time off our stern quarter. We had passed them, and we held them off on a tense run, with Chimo threatening high on the inside before sailing low outside of us, at one point actually regaining the lead clear ahead about 5 lengths from the turning mark. We re-established our overlap however, hardened up on port around the mark and continued up the channel to finish. We wondered what had happend to a couple of the boats that had started near but ahead of us, and that we'd lost track of, and sure enough Mirage, Dianne and Xena were tied up and put away when we got in. We're not sure, but think they made it around point san pablo before the air faded and the flood got funky in the strait there, and really extended on the rest of the fleet. We were fourth, about an hour and a half behind first place for the day. On Sunday, in moderate wind, we got off to a so-so start in the channel, slightly late behind Chimo and to leeward of Peaches and Exocet. We kept to the Richmond side of the channel initially, thinking the breeze would be more consistent and that it would help us maintain a lane among the bigger boats, and by the time we could see boats turning at the first mark out into the mouth of the river, we were behind only Chimo and a little to windward of them. We started to sail higher as we approached the mark in order to keep our air clear and to help us set up for the beat out the river and into san pablo bay. It was just past slack tide, and the adverse flood was building. We saw a gray Olson 30 maybe 200-300 yards ahead of us get caught in some water that carried it from a position slightly to weather, across our bow and behind the jib to leeward, so we really started to pinch hoping to stay out of it, which we managed to do. Chimo was to leeward and ahead and I think they got caught in the same current. We rounded the mark ahead of them (and the Olson) and by the time they got around we had opened up a good lead. Over the rest of the beat back across San Pablo Bay to the finish we played the middle of the course, watching where the boats behind us were, trying to figure out currents with the gps and playing shifts, which were frequent. A nice lift on starboard as we were approaching the brothers carried us to the first place finish. Our crew Saturday was Tait McCarthy on bow (who valiantly rallied from a late night of whisky drinking at Hobson's Choice in the Haight), Peter Mikhail (my old friend and former roommate) at secondary trim, my fiance Joma on her first racing outing on the magic bus (I was worried about the rain, but she said she'll do it again), and Paul and me trading off on helm. Crew on Sunday consisted of sister Sarah on helm, one of her former architecture professors, Ed Ahrens, who is also a former Int'l 14 competitor, Tom Sorenson (another friend of Sarah's) Paul and me. All did a great job, contributing both to our success and to the good mood on the boat. -Eric Deeds |
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