A Pleasant Day on the Way to Half Moon Bay

We’re often told it’s the journey, not the destination, but in the case of the One Way to Half Moon Bay Race, it was a coin toss. The race down was a decidedly light and pleasant affair, with most of the tactical genius cards being played on the departure from the Golden Gate. This is where we relearned the lesson to pay attention to the wiser and more frequent racers in the fleet, such as Jim Quanci and the Cal 40 Green Buffalo crew.

The flood was turning to an ebb at the 10 a.m. start, so we headed out the Gate aboard Randy and Jennifer Gridley’s Sabre 38 MkII Aegea, with the mistaken belief that there might be more ebb to the south. Maybe there was, but regardless, when we reached the channel marker to head south toward Half Moon Bay, Green Buffalo was already far ahead. And that was all right; there was plenty of time for us to catch up with one another, spot some whales, contemplate all our good-to-have but not-needed-today safety gear, and imagine a magic wind line that would somehow find only our sails. We tweaked and trimmed, generally kept weight to leeward, and relaxed over a nice lunch around the cockpit table (weight aft).

We jib-reached right down the rhumbline while the Cal 39 Sea Star took the coastal route with a spinnaker pole on the headstay. Green Buffalo and the Santana 35 Ahi took the offshore route to avoid the hole at Point Montara. Though we had breeze the entire leg, there must have been a hole, as it was around Point Montara that the offshore boats seemed to move farther ahead. It’s also where Ahi generously got on the radio to let us know we needed to pass outside the restricted Point Montara buoy.

That’s kind of the race report. We’ll let you know who won at the end.

It was the destination that doubled the pleasure. We had a great sail down and, as we rounded the breakwater, the clouds parted, the water flattened even further, and vacant mooring buoys awaited us right in front of our host, the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club.

The club Whaler came out to guide us to a buoy not already taken by earlier finishers. We had a quick cleanup, a cold beer, and a 15-second race debrief before contemplating the important question of when we should go ashore for dinner.

The shuttle came to take us to shore via the offshore dock and cable-connected gangway. A slick operation. Once there, we were lamenting that more people hadn’t raced, and that not all who did came to the club. It’s a shame. We understand the busy world and are in no position to cast stones, but we would suggest you think hard about participating before you say, “We’re too busy.” It’s a great destination for a race and also for a Northern California weekend cruise. Though the good thing about smaller attendance was the availability of a sunny picnic table right on the beach. Perfect.

The cold, hard facts were that we managed to come in third out of four in PHRO 3, since one boat did not make the U-turn to round that darn restricted Point Montara buoy. First was Jim Quanci and Green Buffalo, and second was Andy Newell with Ahi.

In PHRO 1 it was Nesrin Basoz and the J/111 Swift Ness in first, James Goldberg and Psycho Tiller II in second, and Andrew Lindstrom with the 1D35 Leading Lady in third. In PHRO 2 it was Mike and Sean Mahoney aboard their Tartan 101 Story Maker in first, Steven Gordon’s J/88 Inconceivable in second, and the honorary third (actually retired) went to John Ahrens and his crew aboard the J/109 Reverie, who did come to the club for a birthday celebration.

It was a great day offshore and onshore, making both the journey and the destination well worth missing whatever we thought we should be busy doing instead. See you next year. Check the full results here.

P.S. For those who read Monday’s story on the yacht club refrigerator the answer was Half Moon Bay Yacht Club. The winner of the hat was HMBYC member Rea Inglesis. Congreatulations.