The Jessica Cup Enjoys a Beautiful Weekend Short on Breeze
It wasn’t the best day for sailing, but it was a great day to be on the water and shooting photos. Photographer Scott Wall went out to crew with Bill Belmont aboard his Farallon Clipper Credit for the Jessica Cup race held on Saturday. They floated around with the classic boat fleet for most of the afternoon with a strong ebb and no wind. Unfortunately Credit had to withdraw just before the winds came through the Gate.
Not to be deterred, Scott sent photos of the waiting game and shots of some of the fleet from the St. Francis YC race deck as they raced in the building breeze.
It was a classic fall weekend for classic boat racing, with comfortable temperatures, flat water, no fog and no breeze. For sailors ready to take it easy, the fall is perfect time to sail the Bay.
Despite the minimal breeze, boats did race and finish. You can see the Jessica Cup results here.
As far as we were concerned, the day redeemed itself. Wondering if Scott got any of Makani Kai and Briar Rose on the downwind leg…
Jack, contact me directly and I may have something…
As a crew member of FLOTSAM I can tell you we were at anchor for 1.5 hours just west of A bouy. At 14:30 Hrs. we commenced to getting out the “paddles” and setting up the oar locks, we do not have a motor, before we could get an oar in the water we were approached by the magnificent vessel
KAY OF GOTEBORG, they were very kind and offered us a tow up current (or maybe we asked?) as it was moving really good and there was no wind, we raised the anchor threw a tow line and off we went. At this time it was 14:45 and we figured they would just call the race, KAY advised us to standby until the official decision was made, we got antsy and decided to prepare for the short tacks up to the docks at the St. Francis Yacht Club, we dropped the genoa and hanked up the jib, right then the horn sounded and the race was on! We scrambled to get the sail change back to race mode and headed for the line, we made it across in time, with style I must say. The current was ripping and it was a very fruity rounding of #16/Blackaller with this being our second race with the spendaker, yes I know it is spinnaker however, every time we use it I manage to damage it and spend more money for repairs. It was a really exiting down hill run to X and the tack back up to the finish line was even better. All in all it was not a swell time as the waters were calm…..That was a pun.
We all had fun and sailed our boats.