Friday Night Racing and New Crew From the Crew Party
The first two Corinthian YC Friday evening beer can races were especially pleasant: warm air, flat water and light winds. In fact, it was so light on the first Friday that nobody finished the short course by the 15-minutes-after-sunset deadline. The second Friday was similar, with some boats not finishing, though we managed to slip in at 7:55, which was just three minutes ahead of the 7:58 deadline. Phew! Finish or not, the evenings were spectacular.
We met new crew member Sabrina at the recent Latitude 38 Crew List Party held at Bay View Boat Club. Sabrina then brought along her sister Alisha for their first sail ever. They’d spent quite a bit of time on power boats so they were psyched to try sailing. It was an ideal time to bring new folks out, and they’re ready to go again.
You can find more crew on our Crew List here.
As usual, the only boats out enjoying the evening on the Bay were those signed up for Friday night beer can racing. We’re sure sailors were also enjoying the beer can races at the Berkeley, South Beach, Encinal, Island, Tiburon, and Golden Gate yacht clubs. Maybe they had enough wind to get around the course, although if not, it’s still a great way to spend an evening regardless of the conditions. You can still sign up for any one of these beer can series.
On recent sails we’ve also spotted whales and large flocks of seabirds; we wonder why there aren’t more boats out enjoying the evening and the wildlife.
Let the Beer Can Ten Commandments guide your behavior around the course and you’ll have lots more fun.
The season is just beginning, the days are getting longer, and, if anything is normal in these abnormal times, the wind will increase in the weeks ahead. The forecast for this coming weekend is sunny and warmish, with a bit of a breeze and a very good chance of good times.
A parting sunset shot from last Friday:
Good Jibes #187: Steve Paljieg on the Newport Beach Wooden Boat Festival
This week we chat with Newport Beach Wooden Boat Festival co-chair Steve Paljieg about the festival, taking place on June 13–14 at Balboa Yacht Club. This is the Ninth Annual Newport Beach Wooden Boat Festival, this year with the theme “Stories of the Sea: Wooden Boats in Film & Fiction.”
Hear why Croatia has the most beautiful coastline in the world, the history of the Newport Beach Wooden Boat Festival, about famous boats and actors in the wooden-boat community, what makes wooden boats so special, and some wooden boat puns you’ll wish you “wood” forget.
Here’s a sample of what you’ll hear in this episode.
- How sponsors can bring the event alive and also serve the community
- A virtual tour of the Newport Beach Wooden Boat Festival
- Wouldn’t it be fun to take a ride on John Wayne’s yacht?
- Where else could you get sailing history, Hollywood stories, and wooden boats all in one place?
- What does BOAT mean?
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots — follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re feeling the Good Jibes!
Buy your tickets at NewportBeachWoodenBoatFestival.com and connect with Ryan at Ryan.Online.
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What’s the Best Transpac Halfway Package?
With the Transpac start coming up on July 1, a reader wrote in to ask, “What are the best things to include in the halfway package?” What’s the halfway package? It’s a tradition of family and friends of Transpac crews who put together a Transpac package that the crew gets to open at the race’s halfway point. The package contains “goodies.” If you’ve raced the Transpac or Pacific Cup, or even circumnavigated, what is the best surprise, food or goodie you’ve received?
Packages have included love letters, brownies, spare parts, assorted food items, limes to prevent scurvy, fresh reading material, party favors, celebration costumes, and divorce papers (just kidding). Keep it light.
We spoke with Scott Easom about rituals on Pyewacket and he replied, “We practice ‘Fellowship Hour’ every evening at 6 starting when the boat flattens out on its way west.” Each evening they get out two bottles of wine with a connoisseur explaining the wine. They share it with cheese, crackers, fruit and fellowship for team building and relaxation. Many of the crew have done the Transpac more than 20 times. We’ll have a Transpac profile on Pyewacket coming soon.
There are currently 61 boats signed up for the Transpac including the previous Transpac winner, Dave Moore’s Westerly. There’s a host of very competitive boats, including the J/125 Velvet Hammer and Tina Roberts with the Spencer 62 Ragtime, which will be lining up against the Bill Lee 68 Merlin and Roy Disney’s Andrews 70 Pyewacket.
We’ve done Transpac profiles on Greg Dorn’s TP52 Favonius 2 and Andy Schwenk’s Custom 49-ft schooner Sir Edmund. If we can profile your crew for the upcoming Transpac, send us an email at [email protected].
Otherwise, you can help out friends and family back home by including some halfway-package suggestions in the comments below.
Island Fever in South Beach
John Tennyson, South Beach YC Island Fever Midwinter Series chair, says that each fall, after the Wind Machine has switched off, sailors are so desperate to race that they’ll believe anything — especially the idea that there will eventually be enough wind if they just show up and wait long enough. This sure sounds like what happened February 22: sunny skies and a ripple o’ breeze to start, advancing to mild rollers, cloud cover and bluster brewing.
On the course, Carter Ott was walking away with a string of firsts in Non-Spinnaker Division. A newer member at South Beach, his Yankee Dolphin 24 picks up and goes. “I was looking to move Duckling up to South Beach Harbor. The welcome experienced at SBYC — the generosity, Corinthian spirit, love for their club and interest in bettering it, as well as location, made membership there a no-brainer for me.”
Still getting in sync with the boat, he raced Duckling once in the South Bay about a year ago and counts fewer than 10 times being on the water for an extended time: “I’ve been busy restoring her at the dock. I entered the series as a shakedown for Duckling. As for sailing solo, that’s possibly out of nostalgia, remembering my time as a junior in Sabots and Lasers.”
He says February brought a welcome break with enough wind to “make it a bit spicy without the ripping currents we experienced in the first two months. For the non-spin class, just trying to finish November and December before the race committee called it — against significant current, in light wind, without a spinnaker — was extremely challenging.”
The Spinnaker PHRF >150 division was trailing Huge, a Catalina 30. “As for our first-place standing at this point, it’s not really so much our skill, but that ‘we showed up,'” says Jay Moore. “Winter racing is such a grab bag. In all the multiple club midwinters I’ve raced this season, more than half have not had a scored finish due to lack of wind and too much tide: If you show up and can finish a race, your odds of a good result are huge (tongue in cheek).”
In February’s race, Huge’s crew count was eight. “There were two keel newbies (also their first time racing), the person on the bow was brand new in that role (he races J/105s, so is a great sailor), and two hadn’t raced on Huge for several months.”
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