There’s Nothing Scary About the Great Pumpkin Race
What a weekend! Fall sailing in California is some of the best sailing anywhere, though you do have to work harder to hunt down some breeze. It was an ideal weekend for fall classics like St. Francis YC’s Fall Dinghy, and Richmond Yacht Club’s Great Pumpkin Regatta held on the weekend of October 24–25. Greg Clausen sent in some pics and insights from a beautiful day aboard Peter and Velina Barnes’ Sabre 42 Second Wind.
Second Wind had 11 people aboard, including some junior racers from the club. (The club includes a button on the web page allowing skippers to invite juniors aboard.) There was a big turnout for the second day, with 149 boats signed up for the event. As the boats waited for the start, the club RIBs threw bags of candy and tossed numbered pumpkins into the water, where boats with fishing nets scooped them up to be traded for pumpkin pies later at the club. Second Wind managed to snag two after losing one to another boat full of sailors dressed as angels and devils.
After enough wind arrived to start and everyone got away, they had to make a decision to go either clockwise or counterclockwise around both Alcatraz and Angel Island. Second Wind, along with most of the fleet, chose counterclockwise through Raccoon Strait to catch the start of the ebb.
By the time Second Wind got through, they were parked with everyone else west of Angel Island without any wind to sail. That left them drifting toward the Golden Gate. The music came on and food came out as we waited in the hot sun for the wind to fill in. When the wind started, everybody was off again, setting spinnakers to get around Alcatraz and point toward Richmond. In the end, there was enough wind for a very fast sail, and we were hitting speeds of up to 9 knots on the way home.
It was fun being in a sea filled with colorful sails. The Bay Area is a place where all the sailors know one another, and waves and shouts of encouragement are standard practice when overtaking other boats. We finished and were treated to a beautiful sunset as we relaxed in our post-race cockpit party while putting away the boat and toasting another great day on the Bay.
