Oakland Yacht Club Hosts 2025 Oktoberfest Regatta
Oakland Yacht Club’s (OYC) 2025 Oktoberfest race was sailed last weekend on Saturday, October 18. Oktoberfest is always a fun way to wrap up the OYC race season; a good race whether you’re a seasoned racer or just beginning to race. The course featured a South Bay start at the entrance channel to the Alameda Naval Air Station, a circumnavigation of Treasure Island (either way), and a finish down the Estuary in front of the Oakland Yacht Club.
To encourage creativity in costumes, three seconds per mile were be added for each crew member wearing Bavarian lederhosen or a dirndl, and creative license was allowed, as long as it was in the “spirit of lederhosen,” as determined by the race committee. And there were some great costumes! A couple of examples: Flying Fish (OYC) and Tramp Boat (IYC).
It was rather a low number of signups, 14 boats, but all showed up. These days that doesn’t happen often. The regatta featured four fleets: multihull, non-spinnaker; and two spinnaker fleets. There was a 10-minute start delay to let the wind fill to four to six knots, and then the racers were off. Racers worked their way through some good wind, and some not-so-good wind. Multiple times some finesse sailing was required to get through the lulls. As the fleets came down the Estuary, the wind filled a bit more, and all were back to OYC by 1630, give or take, so right on time!
All were invited up to the club, where the bar was open, results were announced, and prizes were selected. Top prize to the Overall Winner was a gift certificate to Brotzeit Lokal, which was awarded to Justis Fennell, skipper of Good and Plenty (IYC), who completed the course in two hours 11 minutes and five seconds.
OYC member Jes Wang was PRO. It was her first time at the position, but you would never know it. She and her committee were a great team and did an excellent job managing the race. If you haven’t done it, you probably have no idea of all that goes into managing a race, so give it some thought and maybe hop off your boat now and then and help out running a race.
A good time was had by all!
You can find the full results of the 2025 Oktoberfest Regatta here.
Congratulations if you were able to read the photo captions without the help of a translator. – Ed.
Had to re-read it to realize the captions were in eine Duetsche…