Skip to content

Delta Ditch Beat

Tim and Karin Knowles Wyliecat 39 Lilith and Sam McFadden’s Olson 30 Dragonsong get split up by a tanker during Saturday’s Delta Ditch Run. No Olson 30s were harmed while making this image.

© RYCphoto

Halfway through the 67.5-mile race, while folded over the lower lifeline of my ride for Saturday’s Delta Ditch Run, I thought, "Yucca has to be crushing everyone right now." That recollection should give you a clue about the 20th edition of this, errrr . . . "downwind" classic hosted by Stockton Sailing Club and Richmond YC. With a northerly breeze direction and pressure that ranged from 8 to 25 knots, a double-head rig would have been more useful than spinnakers most of the time. While we couldn’t see Hank Easom’s 8 Meter, we figured the conditions which kept everyone in headsails all the way through San Pablo Bay and at many points beyond, were working out perfectly for the venerable woodie. And the overall win prediction wasn’t a hard one to make, given that Easom probably spends as much, if not more, time on the water as anyone and has won what we’re guessing is just about everything at this point in his life. It turned out that Yucca did in fact take the overall monohull title for the race, finishing the nominally-67.5-mile race in 8h, 34m, 34s and correcting out more than 11 minutes ahead of David Holscher’s Cal 40 Henry Hannah.

What do you get when you add rockstar sailors, a lower-prismatic hull form with plenty of overhang, a lot of beating and headsail reaching over a 67.5-mile course? The overall monohull winner of the ’10 Ditch Run, Hank Easom’s 8 Meter Yucca.

© Erik Simonson

Among the multihulls, Olympic medalists Pease and Jay Glaser’s F-18 Breakfast at Bill’s took the honors in their eight-boat division while also taking the overall multihull honors on the strength of an elpased time of only 6h, 3m, 5s — second fastest only to Richard Matthews’ ProSail 40 Tuki, which finished in 5h, 13m, 28s. Richard Paul’s Meritt 22 NS Irrational Behavior won the cruising division. Although today’s ‘Lectronic Latitude got a little full, thanks to reader submissions we have so many photos that we’ve decided to do a feature on the race in the July issue of Latitude 38, which comes out on the first of the month. You’ll have to wait for the bash-by-bash and blow-by-blow until then, If you have a good story or great photo from the race, send it here!

Leave a Comment




Having resided in the confines of a sheltered world, we’re not sure if Abby Sunderland yet understands that when she returns to the States, she’s likely to face a bigger storm than any she saw in the Southern Ocean.