Sweeping up Pumpkins

It is always fun to sail with friends, but to go home and race with friends on a great boat in fun race, priceless…

I traveled to the SF bay area to race the Farr 400, Team Premier in the Great Pumpkin Regatta.  This is a fall, Halloween classic raced out of Richmond YC.  The last one I did was in 2005 with Money Penny Swan 601.  This year they ran 3 short races on the Berkley Circle and on Sunday they had the 1 big Pursuit Race for all the Pumpkins that starts near the YC in Richmond the only marks are Alcatraz and Angel Island.  Which you can go either way. 

This year the weather was perfect, sunny warm, and in the fall when it is like this, there is not so much wind.  I think the weather had a lot to do with 270+ boats entered.  Saturday windward leeward races were short and light.  We were racing in the Sport Boat A division.  The first race was 3 legs, not 3 miles.  PHRF A class started 5 minutes ahead.  We won the start at the committee boat and our powerful sail plan push us ahead and into the fleet ahead near the first mark.  By the time we rounded the bottom mark, we were first boat on the water and went on to win with minutes to spare.

Then we had to wait for 2 hrs for the wind to fill in from the west and pick up.  The next courses were very short but fun.  The first race 3 legs took us 21 minutes to complete, the second 5 legs, 29 minutes.  We won both of these races also.  Great fun, boat was fast and a pleasure to sail for everyone on board.  We raced with 8 people, average age somewhere around 48.

The pursuit race on Sunday, we were to start almost an hr after the first boat for a 12 mile course.  In a race that was 0-15 knots, it took us less than 1:40.  We started and went around Alcatraz first.  The wind was very light from the northwest, we hoisted the Code 0 and sailed low to the closest spot that the westerly will fill in.  Went through a small hole, pulled the jib up and sailed upwind in a fast mode to Alcatraz.  The wind built to a max of 15 knots, the boat was sailing very well, I am sure we passed over 100 boats on the way.

Around the famous Rock

We had a fast reach over both islands and then the wind dropped just enough to put the code 0 up again.  As we approached the north west tip of Angel Island the first boats going the other way were just going around, lots of traffic and we were on port tack.  Changed spins to the A1 and sailed with many boats down the straights.  We played the right side and got a good shift to the north as we exited and sailed around the remaining boats with a better angle into the finish.  About 1.5 miles from the finish line we were the first mono hull.  And so we placed.

The Farr 400 went very fast though all these conditions. Only three big Cats beat us.  We were the fastest by far mono hull on the course.  We have learned a lot sailing the boat and the speeds are starting to improve.  We would have won this event, all boats we sailed against in any rule, IRC, ORC or PHRF, the boat was on fire.  Nothing better than sailing a great boat with a great crew.  Check out the results at http://www.jibeset.net/RYC000.php?RG=T027599622

Dee Smith