Coastal Cup with My Three Sons

Jim Gibbs raced his Express 27 Moonlight in last month’s Coastal Cup with his three sons as crew. "Two of them, Nick, age 17 and Jon, age 16, had only limited Bay racing experience, so this was a ‘coming of age’ adventure for them and the realization of a dream for me," said Jim. "My older son, Matthew, 38, and I have raced Moonlight to Santa Barbara now six times, so we knew the way, but we were uncertain as to how well we would do." The Coastal Cup was sponsored by Encinal YC, with starts on June 13 and 14 off the St. Francis YC race deck.

"Nick and Jon were terrific as crew – and they learned to drive fast in wind and waves and pitch dark. Nick set our speed record of 13.5 knots at night, and Jon was great as foredeck, jibing and dousing in big waves and wind." It took them two days and a bit less than four hours to reach the Santa Barbara finish.

Moonlight placed fifth out of 18 boats, which was "pretty good considering our average experience and the fact we were the smallest boat in the race. Most of the fleet were fast sleds with experienced crews." They won the MORA Perpetual Trophy, for the first yacht of 31.5-ft or less in length on corrected time in PHRF, and the Carl Schumacher Perpetual Trophy for the Schumacher-designed yacht with the fastest corrected PHRF time.

For complete results and more, see www.encinal.org.