Weekend Racing Wrap-Up

The Etchells Worlds wrapped up on Saturday with the ninth race for the 51-boat fleet — it’s one of the larger and more congested starting lines we’ve seen on San Francisco Bay in some time. And the Etchells — a simple, ubiquitous boat — is one of the most competitive fleets in the world. East Coast sailor Steve Benjamin, an Olympic silver medalist, 5o5 and Fireball World Champion, and 2015 Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, finally claimed the championship after numerous attempts. Crewing for Benjamin on Stella Blue were  Dave Hughes, Ian Liberty and Michael Menninger. Benjamin got a bullet on Friday — which saw up to 25 knots of breeze — to pull ahead of Senet Bischoff (who would take third overall). Stella Blue had previously won the Easom Founders/Pre-Worlds Regatta (both regattas were hosted by San Francisco Yacht Club on the Berkeley Circle).

On Sunday, the Pac52 class wrapped up the three-day Pac52 Cup at St. Francis YC, concluding their inaugural season. Tom Wilson’s Gladiator joined the five boats that had competed at Rolex Big Boat Series in mid-September. Echoing their dominance of RBBS, Karl Kwok’s Team Beau Geste took all but one of the seven races (they finished second in Race 6) to win the regatta, but Tom Holthus’ Bad Pak topped the season.

Sharing the Circle with the Etchells fleet on Friday and Saturday, but farther south, Express 37 Nationals fielded 10 boats for three days of racing hosted by Berkeley YC.  Bartz Schneider’s Expeditious won the title, edging out Mark and Heidi Chaffey’s Monterey-based LocaMotion by virtue of a tie-breaker. The second race on Saturday sent the fleet out to Point Bonita, just as the YRA Season Closer fleet was returning from the buoy off the point three miles west of the Golden Gate Bridge.

On Saturday and Sunday, the YRA Season Closer, hosted by Corinthian YC started and finished off the race deck of that club in downtown Tiburon. Saturday’s jaunt out to the ocean was followed by a Sunday in-the-Bay race. The racers got a good view of the Pac52s, especially on Sunday. Conditions inside the Bay on both days were absolutely stellar, with wind into the mid- to high teens and gobs of sunshine.

We’ll have more coverage of all of the above in the November issue of Latitude 38.