Weis Wins California Dreamin’ Stop at StFYC
The annual California Dreamin’ Match Racing Series is a series of four events run each year at four West Coast yacht clubs: San Diego Yacht Club, Balboa Yacht Club, St. Francis Yacht Club, and the Long Beach Yacht Club. The series gives California match racers looking to move up the ladder the potential to qualify for higher-caliber events. The St. Francis Yacht Club event was run the weekend of March 8–9.
Amanda Witherell sent in this report: “Running quality match racing on the San Francisco Cityfront in early March is a challenge; it’s a time of transition from the winter doldrums, and wind directions can vary widely and wildly. Competitors, race committee and umpires anticipate fickle breezes and cross-course currents while they knock some winter months’ rust off their game. The unpredictability added an extra thrill for the nine teams match racing in J/22s at St. Francis Yacht Club.”
“After agitation over discouraging forecasts, Saturday presented a fresh westerly and flat water that allowed PRO Gerard Sheridan to promptly fire the first warning at 1023 and complete nine flights of four races before retiring for the day. Chris Weis (Richmond YC) and Molly Carapiet (StFYC) led with seven race wins, followed closely by Cormac Murphy (Seawanhaka Corinthian YC) with six wins, then Lindsey Baab (StFYC) and Shane Young (Long Beach YC), each with 5 wins.
“Sunday’s racing was marked by intense matches and quality race management and umpire work. When the dust settled, past California Dreamin’ Series champion Weis finished first, with Carapiet in second and Young in third.”
“The 2025 California Dreamin’ series will conclude with a final stop on April 5-6 at Long Beach Yacht Club, sailing Catalina 37s with an invitation to the 2026 Ficker Cup on the line.”
“As always, thanks go to the 25 race committee and umpire volunteers who assisted with the first weekend of racing in StFYC’s 2025 regatta calendar.” Complete results here.
On the San Francisco Cityfront this weekend: SailGP will be practicing this afternoon and racing the Cityfront this weekend. Grandstand tickets available here.
From Redwood City to Croatia — Boats Building Bridges
From the restoration of Vinka to our growing partnerships in Banja Luka [a region in the northern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina] and beyond, everything is coming together for an unforgettable summer of maritime exploration, cultural exchange, and hands-on learning. This year, we’re returning to Rab for the Felix Arba Expedition, where students will sail the Adriatic, engage in traditional crafts, and build friendships across borders. Additionally, we’re launching a Dajak boat-building project in Banja Luka, working with master craftsmen to preserve and celebrate this unique heritage.
To support these programs, we’re hosting a fundraising sail on May 4 — the Three Bridge Tour aboard the Derek M. Baylis. It will be a fantastic day sailing under the Golden Gate, Bay, and Richmond-San Rafael bridges, enjoying music, drinks, and great company — all while raising funds to help make these experiences possible for our students. I’d love to have you to join us or help spread the word! Tickets will go on sale soon and sell out fast, so stay tuned!
Wishing you a great start to the season, and looking forward to keeping you updated as we set sail for another amazing summer!
Fair winds,
James Bender.
P.S. In case you missed our New Year’s update, you can check it out here:
Boats Building Bridges ‘24 Highlights
As I reflect on the year, I see that the many different aspects of my life and its endeavors are converging. The work that we have done in Croatia with traditional boats and the preservation of intangible heritage has now grown into opportunities for students in Redwood City sailing on the classic yacht Ocean Queen V. My work as a teacher in the woodshop at Redwood High School has grown into plans to build a historic boat through pictures in archives. Our peacebuilding work with kids from former Yugoslavia has grown into opportunities for local boat builders to work directly with the students from the home for children in Banja Luka. Each of these endeavors has grown from work that is Boats Building Bridges … Read more here.
You can learn more about James Bender and the Boats Building Bridges program on our Good Jibes podcast, #111: “Dr. James on Teaching on Boats.”
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Crew Dynamics — A Make or Break of Good Sailing
We often share stories about what crews achieve together when racing across oceans, delivering boats, or simply cruising at leisure. We talk about the sailors, the boats, the equipment, the weather … but as reader Greg Clausen from Point Richmond brought up, how often do we talk about the crew dynamics? It’s not very often.
Sure, we share stories about crew life from time to time, and our crew parties (the next one coming up on April 3) are geared to bringing crews together. That said, it takes effort, patience and tact to be part of a crew, and we think that’s a good conversation to have.
“From my experience and [that of] a lot of other people,” Greg writes, “we have found that we are OK with problems with the boat or weather because those are expected, but sometimes the biggest challenges are getting along with fellow crew members.”
Greg shares an important point. Boats are small places, particularly when you’re aboard for a long time with no way of getting off (unless you want to swim). There are limited places where one can get personal space, and often there’s limited time anyway. Greg refers a situation in which crew members stopped communicating with each other after they got to shore “because of bad experiences,” and another scenario involving an evacuation.
We get it. While we haven’t necessarily had the same experiences, this writer recalls a time as part of a paid crew, being inexplicably shunned and ignored by another crew. What happened? What unspoken rules were broken? How did it feel? Terrible. And yes, it did affect the crew dynamics and the smooth running of the ship.
How often does this happen? Probably more than we know. People don’t like to talk about such personal issues, but shipboard relationships are important and make the difference between a pleasant voyage and sheer agony. In some cases, it’s the difference between survival and perishing. (It sounds dramatic, but we think it’s true.) We share a story in this month’s Sightings: “8 Tips on Being Great Crew.” But all the planning in the world won’t necessarily protect us from the unexpected personal issues that can and do arise from time to time.
Anyway, we’re going to hand this over to you, dear readers. What have you experienced, and what do you think is important in terms of crew dynamics?
Please share in the comments below or send us an email at [email protected]. (Please be courteous.)
Greg is happy his “worst-case example” is over, but he wanted to bring these issues to light. In the meantime he says, “Anyway, we are coming into spring and happy about a warmer-weather sailing season that is upon us.” We couldn’t agree more!
Three Bridge Fiasco — The Marks Get Their Way
The Singlehanded Sailing Society’s Three Bridge Fiasco could have as easily been titled “Crap Shoot.”
Andy Schwenk, who sailed his Covey Island schooner Sir Edmund, described the lead-up to the race: “All week long, talk on the docks was, ‘This one’s gonna be different; this year we’ll have wind. It will be fun,’ they said. ‘Everyone will have a chance,’ they said. Well none of that was true; as the day drew near, the weather forecast for breeze on race day disappeared like the 49ers’ playoff chances.”
An ebb current dominated the scene on Saturday, January 25. What didn’t dominate was the breeze. During the Cityfront starts that morning, it switched around between a meek easterly and a mild northerly. A westerly filled in by lunchtime but didn’t make it all the way to the farthest mark, Red Rock in the North Bay. The 328 entries, they were dropping like flies. Some were never even able to make a clean start. Others crossed the restricted start line multiple times, incurring 20-minute penalties. Nevertheless, 41 boats were actually able to finish the theoretically 21-mile course ahead of the 7 p.m. time limit.
A Brief Three Bridge Fiasco Intro
The SSS puts on this most challenging in-the-Bay race for singlehanders and doublehanders. The starts and finishes use Golden Gate Yacht Club in the San Francisco Marina. It’s chaotic for the racers and stressful for the race committee.
The slowest boats start at 9 a.m., and each PHRF or BAMA rating has a different start time, from slowest to fastest. The sailors can cross the start line in either direction, take the three marks (Blackaller Buoy east of the South Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge; Yerba Buena/Treasure Island, bisecting the Bay Bridge; and Red Rock, just south of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge) in any order, and round them in any direction.
J/125s Are on a Three-peat
The first-to-finish boat the past two years was a J/125, Rufless. This year Rufless finished fourth in division, but another J/125, Arsenal, led the way across the finish line.
“We had a fun Three Bridge Fiasco,” commented Arsenal‘s skipper, Andrew Picel, who sailed with crew Leland Hubble. Arsenal finished at 4:07 p.m. but incurred a 20-minute penalty for a start line violation.
“Heading out to the race course, we had a plan in mind, but that quickly changed due to the lack of breeze. It was glass starting toward Treasure Island, so we decided our best chance was to start with the ebb and at least get moving away from the start line.” The duo rounded their first mark, Blackaller Buoy, then quickly ended up under the Golden Gate Bridge, drifting out to sea.
Don’t Miss Richmond Yacht Club’s ‘Sail a Small Boat Day’
