Sunday, November 11, 2018

J/Crews Enjoy The Great Pumpkin Race!

J/111 sailing Great Pumpkin Race (Richmond, CA)- Over the Halloween weekend, the Richmond YC hosts their annual Great Pumpkin Regatta over two days in the northeastern part of San Francisco Bay.  It is a wildly popular event, with costume parties, Halloween parties, and plenty of revelry all weekend long as it also marks the calendar as one of the premiere end-of-season sailing regattas.  The event featured one-design classes for J/70s, J/24s, J/105s, and a PHRF Pursuit fleet that included J/111s, J/120s, J/105s and so forth.

In the J/70 Class, it was Mark Thomas’ KANGAROO JOCKEY that won with all bullets, with Tom Thayer’s RAMPAGE in second and Jim Diepenbrock’s WINGMAN RACING in third.

Similarly, the J/105 class also saw a clean sweep, with Sergey Lubarsky’s RUSSIAN ROULETTE winning handily, followed by Chris Kim’s VUJA STAR in second and Larry Levit’s ARCHIMEDES in third.

J/88 sailing Great Pumpkin RaceThe J/24s had tight racing for the top five with everything depending on the outcome of the last race.  Winning was Darren Cumming’s DOWNTOWN UPROAR with 5 pts, followed by Jasper Van Vliet’s EVIL OCTOPUS in 2nd with 7 pts.  Third was determined by a tiebreaker on 10 pts each, with Paul Ravenswaay’s FERAL ROOSTER taking the bronze on countback over Val Lulevich’s infamous SHUT UP & DRIVE!  Fifth was Richard Stockdale’s FROG LIPS.

In the Sunday Pursuit Race, Zach Anderson’s J/125 VELVET HAMMER took the silver, followed by Reuben Rocci’s J/111 SWIFT NESS in third. Peter Cameron’s J/70 KANGAROO JOCKEY took 10th as the top small boat and Dave Britt’s J/88 SPLIT WATER placed 12th; a great showing for these four boats in a fleet of 138 boats!  For more The Great Pumpkin Regatta sailing information Add to Flipboard Magazine.