It seems like many of us are finding silver linings here and there as our lives wrestle with the dangers of the pandemic. One of these for me has been exploring the challenges of a whole new type of sailing: double-handed distance racing.
Since the announcement of the new Olympic event slated for the 2024 Games, the notion of trying this adventurous type of racing has been seeping into the sailing community. In fact, my husband Bruce has been angling for us to campaign together since last winter, even enrolling us in a Safety at Sea Seminar and applying for a J/88 charter as part of the special double-handed class that was meant to compete in this summer’s Chicago-Mac as a qualifier for the World’s in October offshore Malta.
To be honest, I’ve been quite the realist about undertaking this kind of challenge. You can’t just throw around that “O” word lightly, as anyone who’s dabbled in campaigning will attest. Not to mention that Bruce and I can be described well as fully programmed inshore buoy racers who enjoy the creature comforts of evening après-racing as much as being on familiar waters with our full crackerjack crew while duking it out with friendly competition. Let’s say we hammer down and learn the skills of short-handed sailing and sophisticated navigation, and even convert our aged bodies into athletic machines that can operate efficiently in the middle of the night while sleep-deprived, then we’d be facing off with medal-obsessed competitors who actually built a life around this kind of sailing and have track records of round-the-world, transoceanic racing that was their starting point in the quest for 2024 glory.
Yeah right. So, this was my impression and my prejudicial respect for the game, and I was dragging my feet all the way. Until a pandemic hit, and suddenly, Bruce was the only person I could go sailing with safely under the 'shelter in place' orders. Now, I am not saying I am fully on board with an Olympic effort, but at least I could sample the endeavor with some local racing on San Francisco Bay (assuming I could sleep in my own bed at night).
As it turns out, there is a deep roster of short-handed sailors who race in San Francisco Bay and into the Pacific Ocean. The Single-handed Sailing Society runs events for soloists and double-handed teams several times a year. As August approached and virtually every J/105 and match racing event on my calendar toppled to the realities of COVID-19, the SSS offered us a chance to feed our passion for racing while giving us a taste of the vogue mixed-crew, double-handed discipline. Its "Round the Rocks" race attracted 122 entries, 80% double-handed and the remaining folks their traditional single-handed clientele. We finished third in a hotly contested eight-boat J/105 fleet that was led by Ryan Simmons in Blackhawk, followed by Pat Benedict in Advantage3. This was followed by Richmond YC’s "Island Tour Regatta" with 80 entries, (9 single-handed and 71 double-handed – including 6 J/70s) – we skipped that one because it was PHRF. Instead, we raced the following day in the double-handed, one-design 2020 Pandemonium Regatta, hosted by Corinthian Yacht Club, with 37 double-handed boats, including a solid eight-boat J/24 fleet, eight J/105s and four J/88s. We finished 2nd in a terrific duel all the way around the course with Bill Woodward’s recently rebuilt Russian Roulette.
The amazing aspect is that’s a total of over 200 double-handed boats crossing the starting line in August! The Single-handed Sailing Society is de-facto becoming the Double-handed Sailing Society.