CHANCE Trumps J/120 Class(San Francisco, CA)- The San Francisco YC on the northern part of San Francisco Bay hosted their annual Summer Keelboat Regatta for one-design classes. Featured again this year were the J/105s and J/120s. For some perspective on how it all went down, here’s the commentary from a J/105 team that has never won a regatta before- Steve Kent and his merry bandits on-board PERSEVERANCE.
“After moving to SF a little over a year ago and buying PERSEVERANCE to race in Fleet 1, we won our first regatta at the SFYC Summer Keelboat event this past weekend. Without a doubt this is one of the most competitive fleets I've had a chance to sail in.
As we expected, over the last year we struggled to learn the boat, assemble a team, figure out the rig, etc. We tore up some gear making the transition from SoCal relatively light air sailing to the breeze on The Bay. What a great experience!!! Guys from the top of the fleet like MOJO, DONKEY JACK, and ARBITRAGE were generous with advice and a new jib and main from Quantum have all helped us improve.
A couple things made all the difference this weekend. We forgot about 'winning' the start and instead focused on being at full speed with a hole to leeward anywhere on the line. We also worked hard at a 'quiet boat', not something easy for me, but Alex Steele was a great coach on this aspect.
In the end, it was a close regatta with Bruce Stone’s ARBITRAGE team just two points back (after two bullets on Sun) and Ryan Simmons’ BLACKHAWK team challenging at every mark in third.
Looking forward to the J/105 North Americans at StFYC Rolex Big Boat Series next month and a full 4 days of racing against the best! A photo of the happy team here!”
Filling out the top five was Shannon Ryan & Rolf Kaiser’s DONKEY JACK in 4th, just beating out Phil & Ken Laby’s GODOT by 3 pts, who took fifth place.
Amongst the J/120s, Barry Lewis’ CHANCE crew from St Francis YC rattled off three straight bullets to easily win their division- an amazing “lights out” performance. Taking second overall and fighting for their life to do it was Dave Halliwill’s PEREGRINE crew. Only one point back in third was Timo Bruck’s TWIST Team. For more San Francisco YC Summer Keelboat sailing information
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