Windy J/Fest San Francisco

Tie-breakers, Tight Racing Define Leaders For J/24s, J/105s, J/120s

(San Francisco, CA)- This year's J/Fest San Francisco with very competitive fleets of J/24s, J/105s and J/120s started out on a typically benign morning for the Bay.  A bit of fog, some sun and forecasts for a "good breeze".  For anyone of you who've ever experienced a "good breeze" in most parts of the world, that usually means something less than the Saffer-Simpson hurricane scale of I and perhaps more like the Beaufort scale of 4 (a nice 13-18 knot wind).  While the first race may have been near forecasts, the afternoon race was anything but-- more like a "gentle gale" in the 22-32+ knot range.  A report follows from Bruce Stone- one who usually sails his own J/105 ARBITRAGE, but turned it over to Nicole Breault while he suffered from pneumonia on a posh Protector RIB.

"Day One of J/Fest on San Francisco Bay started with wind in the high single digits and finished in the low 30’s, taking out quite a few boats along the way with a typical assortment of broaches, breakdowns and shrimped kites.  Bullets in the first two races were scored by Rolf Kaiser’s DONKEY JACK, who lead by impressive margins.  In the last race, BLACKHAWK, skippered by Scooter Simmons, nailed the pin, caught the relief along the shore, and led wire to wire. However, the day belonged to ARBITRAGE skippered by Nicole Breault, she scored three deuces and led by three points over Adam Spiegel’s JAM SESSION, with DONKEY JACK in third.

Day Two was completely different.  The forecast was for lighter winds, mainly high teens, with gusts ONLY hitting mid-20’s-- ya’ gotta love SF Bay!  Big problem for the racers Sunday-- the race committee called for starboard roundings, which made no sense given the tides.  Almost every boat approached windward mark from starboard, had to weave through the boats setting their kites, most of whom wanted to jibe to the flood on the shore-- so picture the route being kind of like a bow-tie.  And, it created too many opportunities for wipe-outs and collisions."

For J/105 sailor Lou Scannon, they had another report for the madding crowd. "J/Fest Day 1 was quite exciting - Race 1 - we led to the first mark both times, but lost at the finish because we went toward the wrong side of the RC and only realized it when it was at 315° or less off the bow and 200 m away.  Crash jibe and lost the kite (started the race in 8kts but it was blowing a steady 20 then) and lost 3 boats.  We would have won.  New crew - 4 new folks on-board so it was a pretty understandable mistake.  We were beating boats that did not take last year off in Taiwan and the guy we were dicin' with has a professional on board, and we had on the old sails, so I am pretty pleased with our speed and boat handling.  She's a fast boat!

At the start of Race 2 we had put up the jib and headed for the pin end for a very conservative start as we were so underweight by then (blowing 25 w/ gusts to 30+) that my goal was survival and to stay clear of everybody.  I have only once sailed in a stronger breeze on the Bay - it was nukin'.  There was a very strong ebb (all the snow melt in the Sierra) with some of the weirdest currents I have ever seen.  A new boat to the fleet decided to try a port-tack start and apparently did not see us.  I hailed starboard 3 times very loud, but they could not hear us.  At the last moment I switched from "Starboard" to "Oh crap &#$%*@--- kaboom".  I pondered heading down, but in hind-sight that would have likely been especially catastrophic as it would have likely been a very high-speed bow-to-bow and rigs might have come down and hull-deck-joins destroyed.  I headed up, tacked and we got hit in the port stern as my boat was rolling over to port in the avoidance tack.  The 3 bow guys got ejected under the lifelines (I did not see or know about it until later - they all hung on and got back on board quickly (without me knowing anything).  We flipped over to port to get the hole up off the water, dropped the jib and then called the RC.  We told them that we needed a tow as the starboard tack back the St Francis YC would have sunk us.  We got towed in and taped up the hole and covered it with the Rolex sticker.  I feel like I should have thrown a handful of Vicoden into the keel sump for the old girl."

After all the chaos and coping with nukin' conditions on the Bay, it was Jeff Litfin and John Case on their J/105 MOJO that keep their nose clean and managed to pull off a 4-5-4-2-1 record for 16 points-- starting out the day in fourth and rising to the top in the difficult conditions on day 2.  Second in the 105s was Scooter Simmons on BLACKHAWK with a 5-7-1-4-4 record, another phoenix arising from the ashes of the first day to rocket from fifth day one to silver on the podium.  Only Adam Spiegel's JAM SESSION managed to stay on the podium after the first day-- holy batman, lotsa carnage day two.  The JAM boys got 4 3rds and 9th to tie Scooter but lost on the tie-break.  Fourth was Rolf Kaiser's DONKEY JACK, after seemingly racing untouchable out of the blocks in the first two races with a 1-1, Rolf's gang must've let it get to their heads, amassing a brick-laying record of 8-7-7 to miss third by three points.  And, the luckless maiden getting the real short-end of the stick was Nicole Breault.  After sailing brilliantly on the first day when it was absolutely howling, blowing dogs off chains in the Marina, all kinds of APBs going out for "fifi la piu" the mini-poodle and fair maidens in short-shorts getting blown into the water, it was Nicole who could not overcome a head-to-wind luffing match with an out-of-control J/105 at the last windward mark when she was in third place.  Nicole's 2-2-2-6-14 record was a tough nut to swallow, "watch out", says women sailing's "Terminator", "I'll be back"!!

Having every bit as much fun as the J/105s were the fleet of J/120s that were starting in front of the J/105 madness.  Behind all of them witnessing the carnage were the J/24s.  One the first day, the J/24s had a ball, nothing if not used to the nukin conditions, the teams sailing these boats had all seen it before.  Though not a "yawner", they did manage to toss in a few broaches for a few green crews getting used to the ropes again.  Rising above the crowd day one happened to be the top three boats fighting it out with each other for braggin rights.  Basically, the top three were all TIED after the first day of two races.  Mike Whitfield's TMC RACING, Don Taylor's ON BELAY and Darren Cumming's DOWNTOWN UPROAR all had four points each.  Scores would have to be settle on the last day.  Indeed, they were.  Mike's TMC RACING team simply took off and got two bullets, scoring a 2-2-1-1 to win with 6 pts.  Second was Don's team ON BELAY with a 3-1-2-3 record for 9 pts and third was Darren's team with a 1-3-3-4 for 11 pts.

The J/120s are a remarkably tight fleet, just about all of them have won the Rolex Big Boat Series at one time or another.  Depending on conditions, crew and solar flares or karma (remember, lots of Northern Lights this past week due to a solar storm enshrouding us all), one team seems to do better than the others.  This weekend it happened to be the MR MAGOO team led by Steve Madeira from Northeast Harbor, ME.  Steve's team led by only a point after the first day, but hung tough on day two to win by four points with a 4-2-1-3-1 record.  John Wimer on DESDEMONA and Don Payan's DAYENU were tied after day one.  But it was John's DESDEMONA team that won the final tie-breaker on the last race!  They had a 5-1-2-1-6 for 15 pts, just to keep everyone on their toes!  Third was Don's DAYENU with a 1-3-4-5-2 for 15 pts.  Only 1 point back was Barry Lewis' CHANCE.   Ultimate Yacht Shots Ultimate J-Sailing photos.  Ultimate Videos/ slideshow from Ultimate YachtShots.  For more J/Fest West San Francisco Bay sailing results