Beer Can Racing from the Corinthian Yacht Club

The Corinthinan Yacht Club, Tiburon

Audrey and I were lucky to meet pro sailor Michael Johnson who did some tutoring with us on the San Francisco waters as part of our development programme with the Modern Sailing School.

I think because I generally have a bit of a "race attitude" when cruising on yachts Mike noticed and asked if I would be interested in being hooked up with a Friday Night "Beer Can" race from The Corinthian Yacht Club, the oldest club in the Bay Area (of course I was bloody interested... don't ask me twice!).

Robert Long's "Mimicat". Hinckley 38.

As often happens with sailors of all types ;-) we were drinking later in the bar and Michael introduced me to Robert Long, the owner and skipper of "Mimicat", a Hinckley 38 yacht. Robert graciously invited me to join and Audrey and I excitingly turned up at the Corinthian (CYC ) on Friday to set out for the evening race.

Audrey makes herself comfortable!

Mimicat sails out of Sausalito and we had mistakingly turned up CYC (assumptions!) around the bay at Tiburon where the actual race start was. A quick apology and phone call later and Robert came alongside to pick me up off of the CYC dock. Audrey was only too pleased as to our location as the observation deck and bar at the race hosting CYC overlooked the start line, the start cannon was blowing off over Audrey's head!

The Boys Pick me up

I joined skipper and helm Robert with Mike on main trim and acting as strategy no2. Roberts's long term Mimicat expert race partner and friend Gary was on port genoa grinding and looked after all forward stuff. I settled into the starboard side trim and grinding role.

I have raced dinghies since I was a kid and I am a reasonably proficient and intuitive race crew but big yacht are very scary. In 20 knots of wind there so much power in everything and these boys slam 6 tonne yachts at each other on the start line like a dinghy race on the local gravel pit.

Mimicat positioning herself for the start

Robert and Mike agreed on a port start (oh shit!... this is the one where you run the advantage gauntlet with no sailing right of way...... its a big risky payoff.... or death. I'm thinking 'oh grief these boys have "balls"!'. 

In a field of around 30 boats (an overall handicap race) we started in our group of 6 yachts with what looked like, for about 15 seconds, to be a stroke of genius.... but which ... suddenly became .... death!.... All the boats had opted for the port start and we were squeezed out downwind... We could not make the start buoy and had to re-round. This put us 20 boat lengths behind one of Robert's key nemesis competitors by the name of John Arndt  (Associate Publisher of "Latitude 38" the Bay Area yacht racing mag). John was racing "Summer Sailstice" a smaller but beautiful light blue hulled Ranger 33 with an identical racing handicap to Mimicat. Now the recovery was on!

The fleet rounding the upwind mark

We were racing upwind against a flood tide with the water pouring into The Bay under the Golden Gate. Robert with a stroke of genius decided to stay closer inland on a prolonged port tack only just making the point between Tiburon and Saulsolito. Our tack onto starboard out towards The Slot (an area of higher wind pressure building under The Golden Gate) did not initially look like it was going to allow us to make the windward mark but we were being constantly and progressively lifted up and up to our target.

"Summer Sailstice" was way ahead (too far ahead?) but gradually disappeared from view under our sails downwind. We were making the mark! She was falling off on the current and had to tack. Our loss became gain and we rounded the windward mark with a healthy 60 second lead.

'Summer' had decided to reef the main from the get-go for the upwind leg but Robert had decided to sail Mimicat slightly overpowered here using full canvas while Mike engaged in dumping mainsail power as required to compensate. On rounding the upwind mark, our power advantage was clear: Downwind we had more sail area to optimise Mimicats's hull speed. Gary ran forward to pole out the Genoa (this was a 'no spinnaker' race') while I worked on the forward sail trim.

At this point I was thinking the job was done but with great match racing craft skipper Robert made sure 'Summer' was "covered off" matching John's rearward course of to avoid any disappointment as we made for the penultimate downwind mark.

Mimicat boatspeed!

In an effort to claw back boat speed, 'Summer' shook out her reef in an attempt to catch up... but the race with Mimicat had been run at this point, Summer was beat! Our goal had now become victory in the overall handicap standings. A first place was possible!

We had some issues as wind shifts occurred and we lost boat speed caused by the need to gybe to maintain sail set. As one of the larger boats, the falling late evening wind was now dispropotionalely hurting us and the final run to the line saw us crossing in an overall (and brilliant) third place!

Home in 3rd Place at CYC

In the fading light we came alongside at CYC and Audrey joined us onboard for a celebration beer. This was followed by much yacht racing banter as we enjoyed an evening barbque with the other sailors and guests on the Corinthian club deck.

Winning!

I want to thank Robert Long for his grace and hospitality and for gifting me with Mimicat's Corinthian Yacht Club 3rd Place Trophy! much respect to Gary for being the "real crew" and Michael for the introduction. I can't think of a more beautiful place to race boats!

Robert Long:
http://robertlonglighting.com


Mark