Phyllis Kleinman Swiftsure Regatta at St. Francis Yacht Club

Phyllis Kleinman Swiftsure Regatta © St. Francis Yacht Club

The St. Francis Yacht Club hosted their warm-up regatta last weekend for the upcoming Rolex Big Boat Series- the Phyllis Kleinman Swiftsure Regatta.

The format is modified so the StFYC race committee sets longer courses encompassing the entire city front and including a mini Bay Tour each day.

The fleet enjoyed champagne sailing conditions. Most teams didn't wear foul-weather gear all weekend! Saturday was gorgeous and warm (for San Francisco Bay) and on Sunday most of the top boats had their AP jibs for the first two races and changed to the heavy air jib for the third race.

J/105 Class

For the twenty-two boat J/105 class, it was a tight competition, enhanced by several new owners in the fleet who were highly experienced racers, and who previously owned J/105s, then took a hiatus to raise a family.

To make a long enough starting line for the J/105s, the RC had difficulty deciding where to locate the start. Ultimately, they set up near Ft. Mason and tried to not be anchored in the shipping lane. As a result, the RC put the pin too close to shore, bringing the piers and rocks into play. Given the massive flood tide, they then canted the line to favor the committee boat but overbaked it at around 20 degrees, so everyone started at the Committee Boat!! After the first general recall, the RC PRO went to "U-flag" starts, but did not change the line. This went on through several general recalls and more U-flag starts until they finally got a race off. If you do enough U flag starts you ensnare a lot of people. The RC Team was shorthanded and did not have a pin boat to help make the calls.

As a result of the skewed start line near shore, and a massive flood tide with moderate westerly breezes, it was generally short-tacking the city front and a lot of close calls. Three boats ran aground (GODOT, MAVERICK, and ZUNI BEAR)!!

On both Saturday and Sunday afternoons, the fleet enjoyed great bay tour races that included planing from Harding Rock to the Blossom Bell buoy. Most of the fleet went above Alcatraz, and others passed a lot of boats by going below and then coming into the Blossom Bell Buoy on a hotter angle.

Winning the J/105s was Ryan Simmons's BLACKHAWK with a very consistent scoreline of 7-4-1-1-3-1 for 17 pts. Second place was determined by a tiebreaker at 26 pts each to round out the podium. On countback, the silver medal went to Doug Bailey's AKULA with a 2-8-3-2-5-6 tally versus Phil Laby's GODOT 2.0 with a scoreline of 5-3-4-4-6-4. The balance of the top five included two veteran J/105 teams, with Scott Sellers's BEAST OF BURDEN in 4th and Bruce Stone's ARBITRAGE in 5th place. Just 3 points separated 4th to 7th place-- all positions determined by the final beat in the last race!

J/88 Class

The J/88 teams saw a very strong performance by Brice Dunwoodie's RAVENETTE, posting all podium finishes of four 1sts and two 2nds to finish with a mere 8 pts to win the class by a landslide. Second was Christos Karamanolis's PELAGIA with twelve points and taking the third step on the podium was Tom Thayer's SPEEDWELL with 18 pts.

More information at www.stfyc.com