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Rolex Big Boat Series Underway

By Christine Weaver | September 16, 2016 | San Francisco, CA |
In the choppy, gusty conditions yesterday on the Rolex Big Boat Series Alcatraz course, both Marstrom 32 catamarans dismasted. This one is Ravi Parent’s Aston Harald, seen on San Francisco Bay for the first time. The other was the Race to Alaska-beating Miller Racing.

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The biggest-ever Rolex Big Boat Series, with 127 entries, kicked off yesterday under a chilly fog that never quite cleared, at least on the Cityfront. The first race was relatively mellow, sailed on flat water in a dying flood, but the ebb chop and the wind kicked up for the second race. The crew of the Express 37 Stewball reported "super good racing" in breeze gusting to 27 knots, and they hit a top boat speed of 18.2.

J/105s start Race 2 on the Treasure Island course. At 26 boats, the 105s are not even the biggest division. That distinction belongs to the smallest boat in the regatta, the J/70s. BBS doubles as their Pre-Worlds, and 36 boats have come to San Francisco from as far away as Australia and China.

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Most of the boats sailed two long races yesterday, with the second race finishing in front of host club St. Francis YC, but the 36 J/70s kept to the Berkeley Circle yesterday and got in three windward/leewards. Joel Ronning’s Minnesota-based Catapult and Julian Fernandez Neckelmann’s Mexican Flojito y Cooperando are leading the pack, with Catapult one point ahead. “Those two are going to be tough to beat,” said Chris Snow, co-skipper of a local boat, the fifth-placed Cool Story, Bro. “Flojito is the reigning world champion. Catapult has John Kostecki as tactician, and they’ve been practicing a lot. It’s all about the buildup to the Worlds next week.” Kostecki, it may be remembered, is from the Bay Area and learned his craft in Richmond YC’s junior program.

Race 2 was a wet one for crews, as evidenced by this shot of Skip Ely’s Santa Cruz 52 Elyxir. "We were soaked," commented the crew of the Express 27 Stewball.

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For the first time, the Corsair trimarans fielded a substantial mini-fleet. Two F-31s and two F-27s raced. This is one of the latter, Amy Wells’ Wingit, which was the last boat to finish yesterday’s second race, triple-reefed, with no spinnaker, and the crew bundled up to fend off the chill.

latitude/Chris
©Latitude 38 Media, LLC

The conditions kept riggers and sailmakers busy all night. Among the fabric casualties were Bodacious+’s main and the C&C 30 Tiburon’s spinnaker. 

In a battle with Invisible Hand in the last leg of the second race, the Belvedere-based Tiburon blew out their spinnaker. Having won the first race, they fell to second place overall, but the five-boat one-design division is tightly packed on points.

latitude/Chris
©Latitude 38 Media, LLC
Some of Peregrine’s 10 crew at last night’s Rolex Party. They scored two bullets in the five-boat J/120 division yesterday. They’ve won this regatta the last two years.

latitude/Chris
©2016Latitude 38 Media, LLC

Thursday’s racing was followed by the Rolex Party in the courtyard and Starting Line Room; today’s racing will be followed by the (in)famous Mount Gay Rum Party outdoors on the patch of dirt that was a lawn in pre-drought years. Both parties offer sailors good opportunities to catch up with one another.

More J/120 sailors at the Rolex Party: The crews of Twist and Kookaburra were fraternizing.

latitude/Chris
©2016Latitude 38 Media, LLC

Racing continues through Sunday; check on results at www.rolexbigboatseries.com, and watch the racing live on the regatta’s Facebook page, www.facebook.com/rolexbigboatseries.

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