THE RACING Remember sailboat regattas? And yacht clubs you could go to for post-race socializing? Remember socializing? Aahh, the good ol' days. Here you can relive GGYC's Seaweed Soup, the SSS Corinthian, RYC's Big Daddy, EYC's Jack Frost, BYC's Champion of Champions, SYC's Chili Midwinters, DRYC's Berger Stein 2, LMSC's Robinson Midwinters, the BAYS Winter Series, the Mercury NorCals at EYC. Box Scores features some Midwinter Series final results. We end with Race Notes.
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Latitude 38
• April, 2020
to have any money, so dinner had to be $5. Manny ran the bar in the old clubhouse. Manny said, 'What can I do for $5?' So he'd go down the coast, gather a whole bunch of seaweed, put it in a huge tureen, then he would go down to Iacopi's, the butcher in North Beach. Iacopi butchered his meat on the hoof and gave Manny whatever was left over. One-day-old bread in North Beach was free, and so that was our $5." — latitude / chris LATITUDE / CHRIS
Seaweed Soup Wraps Up The long-awaited cloudbursts that broke February's drought on March 7 dampened the boats sailing in the final race of Golden Gate Yacht Club's Manuel Fagundes Seaweed Soup Regatta. However, the morning showers and afternoon sprinkles did little to dampen the spirits of race crews who made it the Cityfront. A pause in the starting sequence due to paltry breeze postponed the action for the later starting fleets. The race committee attempted to keep the courses away from St. Francis YC's California Dreamin' match race series. Unfortunately, a number of skippers, some who have been doing this series for years if not decades, forgot that the startfinish line is restricted. Had they gotten so used to triangle and quadrilateral courses that the sausage nature of the courses confused them? A few, including the J/120 Mr. Magoo and the Folkboat Rodhaette, exonerated themselves by spinning double doughnuts. Others, including a couple of PHRF entries and all of the other Folkboats, failed to do so. Thus, a spate of red flags appeared on the backstays of competitors who observed the violations. No need for anyone to file protests — the race committee observed the violations themselves and disqualified the offenders. But the biggest challenge for the racers was the powerful ebb current. The full moon in perigee attempted to pull all the water piled up in San Francisco Bay to the other side of the globe. This ripping ebb was especially apparent — and tricky — at Blossom Rock. Several of the divisions received that buoy as their leeward mark. The current was so strong that boats sailed sideways to it. Some took multiple attempts to round it. Keeping a kite flying for the jibe helped. A moderate westerly finally filled in, making quick work of the last leg. Back at the clubhouse on the San Francisco Marina, the sailors enjoyed a complimentary lunch while awaiting the awards. When John Jenkins, skipper of Narcissus, accepted the soup tureen trophy for the Knarr fleet, he told a tale: "Let me expound on Manny Fagundes. In those days, 1970-71, nobody seemed
John Jenkins with the Knarr Perpetual Seaweed Soup Tureen. He's searching for the pre-2000 results to fill in the engraved plaques on the base.
GGYC SEAWEED SOUP REGATTA (5r, 1t) PHRF 1 — 1) MadMen, J/111, Dorian McKelvy, 8 points; 2) California Condor, Antrim Class 40, Buzz Blackett, 13; 3) Zamazaan, Farr 52, Greg Mullins, 16. (12 boats) PHRF 2 — 1) Serenade, Sabre Spirit 36, Hank Easom, 5 points; 2) Mr. Magoo, J/120, Stephen Madeira, 11; 3) Bullet, Express 37, Laurence Baskin, 13. (12 boats) PHRF 3 — 1) Arcadia, Mod. Santana 27, Gordie Nash, 6 points; 2) Uno, Wyliecat 30, Bren Meyer, 10 points; 3) Salty Cat, Wyliecat 30, David Rasmussen, 10. (8 boats) PHRF 4 — 1) Youngster, IOD, Ron Young, 10 points; 2) Snafu, CS30, Maurice Quillen, 11; 3) Crew's Nest, Catalina 34, Ray Irvine, 11. (8 boats) KNARR — 1) Narcissus, John Jenkins, 4
points; 2) Pegasus, Peter Noonan, 13; 3) Knarrmageddon, Vincent Armando, 19. (9 boats) FOLKBOAT — 1) Shanty, Mark Slichter, 10 points; 2) Nordic Star, Richard Keldsen, 11; 3) Rodhaette, Laurence Chambers, 14. (9 boats) Full results at www.jibeset.net
SSS Corinthian Continues the Craze At the end of January, we wrote a story about the "craziest Three Bridge Fiasco." The second race in the Singlehanded Sailing Society season continued the craze on February 29. As Leap Day approached, anxious sailors consulted the forecasts, planning how to cope if the breeze actually arrived with the force predicted — into the high 20s and beyond. As Saturday morning neared, the highest-velocity wind appeared to be slowing its approach, not predicted to hit until evening. Boats needed all the sail area they could muster to get to the clear air south of the Tiburon Peninsula. They would soon find themselves over-canvassed in busy shipping lanes. After the slowmotion start in Belvedere Cove with a few over-earlies in the ebb and shifty zephyrs, the fleet found plenty of blustery breeze in the Slot. The ebb helped the 118-boat fleet get around the Little Harding buoy on a one-tack beat. A brutal beat in Cityfront ebb chop followed a rockin' reach in sea swell from Little Harding to the Blossom Rock buoy. By now, the current had turned to flood, prompting a short-tacking scenario up the Cityfront. (Ironically, the boats that stayed off the shore still found a trickle of ebb.) Gusts hit as high as 37 knots. This is when the real trouble started. The doublehanded Wauquiez Centurion 40S Willow T-boned the muchsmaller Alerion 28 Jewel, sailing singlehanded. Jewel is out of commission for at least a couple of months. The skipper of Willow immediately called the race committee on the VHF, taking the blame and dropping out of the race. The trimarans Lookin' Good and Hoku Honu both dropped out citing gear failure. The Hobie 33 monohull Vitesse Too broke the backstay. A Moore 24 sailor had to retrieve his buddy who'd fallen overboard. But it was David Herrigel's singlehanded Olson 29 Hedgehog that incurred the worst of the damage. While trading tacks up the Cityfront with a doublehanded boat, Herrigel was pinned on the shore near GGYC. "As I approached the Cityfront, I noted