THE RACING

57th Bullship Regatta Bullship Grand Admiral John Amen had a tough call to make — start, or postpone for a week or two — as boat after boat arrived at the Sausalito YC the morning of April 10. A building southwesterly preceding a front arrived earlier than forecasted and the Bay was capping by 6 a.m. Although he made the right call by any metric, Amen girded himself for any criticism and postponed for two weeks to allow for new the start/finish arrangements Max Fraser, Bullship winner. and a new Coast Guard racing permit. Amen and the rest of the El Toro faithful were rewarded for their pragmatism when, just minutes before the 9 a.m. start on April 24, the 24 sailors in the 57th Bullship got a 6-knot breeze that carried them across the Bay from Sausalito to San Francisco Marina in a little over an hour. Aptos' Max Fraser won the race for the first time, sailing the boat he grew up in, but had since sold and borrowed back for the event. "I started at the pin and headed straight across the Bay," Fraser said. "I took one short covering hitch that was maybe 100 feet. I found the relief first and sailed right out in front of them."

JOHN DUKAT/RICHMOND YC

Twenty-four sailors showed up for this year's Bullship race, despite a two-week postponement.

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• May, 2010

Gordie Nash just pipped Amen — one of the class's busiest sailmakers — for second at the post, while last year's winner, Skip Shapiro, was the top 'Clydesdale' (skipper over 200 lbs). The top maiden voyager was Butch Michel, and Vickie Gilmour was the top woman. Frank Zimmerman won the trophy for the "farthest away" after traveling 456 miles for the race. The postponement worked out great for Fraser — he wasn't able to sail on the originally scheduled weekend. For us, though, it meant missing out on something we'd been looking forward to since our maiden voyage last year! You can find complete results at www.eltoroyra.org. Newport to Cabo The 800-mile '10 Corona Del Mar to Cabo San Lucas race was a little-boat contest this year. Dr. Laura Schlessinger's J/125 Warrior won the race overall when scored on PHRF, ORR and IRC. Second overall came from the same division — Tim Fuller's J/125 Resolute — while Jim Gregory's Pt. Richmond-based Schumacher 50 Morpheus came in at third overall and first in ORR D. Gregory's crew of Richmond YC and Fleet 12 Etchells sailors including brother Bob, North Sails' Pete McCormick, Tim Parsons, Andy Hamilton, Andrew Whittome, Bob Branstad and Chris Smith were leading the race overall, according to the penultimate sked, but the J/125s just snuck by at the end. As the smallest boat in her division, Chip Megeath's Tiburon-based R/P 45 Criminal Mischief won ORR A, two spots ahead of Canadian Ashley Wolfe's Bay Area-based TP 52 Mayhem. The Criminals, with Quantum Sails SF's Jeff Thorpe navigating and Robin Jeffers, Joe Penrod, Campbell Rivers, Dan Malpas, Patrick Whitmarsh and Kevin Richards, won their division and their day, which they pretty much seem to do every time they sail a West Coast distance race. As if she weren't power ful enough already, Criminal Mischief received a square-top main over the winter, and the

ERIK SIMONSON/WWW.H2OSHOTS.COM

LATITUDE/ROB

It didn't matter whether you wanted to race inshore or offshore, shorthanded or fully-crewed, keelboat or dinghy, or all of the above, there were plenty of opportunities to race last month. We start our coverage with a look at a Bay Area institution, the Bullship, before getting a quick look at the Cabo Race. Next up is the Duxship, followed by the Doublehanded Farallones race. We come back inside the Bay for the SSS's Corinthian Race, before checking out the Laser Midwinters. After that there's a whole pile of Race Notes!

effect was pretty dramatic – the crew was fully hiked upwind in about 4.5-knots of breeze. Rivers told us that for more than 1.5 days, they sailed the boat hard, pumping on every wave in what was generally a pretty light and uneventful race. You can find complete results at www. balboayachtclub.com. Duxship The OYRA's Duxship race had breeze in the 20-plus range with seas in the 10-ft range on April 24. The 25-mile Cityfront-Duxbury Reef-Lightship-home jaunt outside the Bay brought out a quality 41-boat fleet. The elapsed-time winner, Criminal Mischief, finished in 4h, 5m, 28s, but fell to third in PHRO 1A behind Kevin Flanigan and Greg Nelsen's Fox 44 Ocelot, which itself corrected out just 22 seconds ahead of Andy Costello and Peter Krueger's J/125 Double Trouble. Overall honors went to the Shorthanded division winner, John Kernot's Moore 24