Pink Sailing at the Vallejo Yacht Club Beer Can Race

Wednesdays at the Vallejo Yacht Club are for beer can races — wind, food and beer included. Last Wednesday was the VYC’s annual Pink Sail race, a fundraiser for breast cancer that the club has done every year since 2010. Everyone was wearing pink shirts, but since it was overcast, you wouldn’t know it until the race was over and everybody was getting in line for their chili dinner. As part of the Pink Sail, only women were at the helm of the 10 competing sailboats.

I’ve sailed in fewer than a dozen of these races, always aboard Lean Times, co-owned by retirees Dale and Denny. While they take turns steering the boat, every race turns into an exercise in micromanaging and backseat driving. This time, there was a third voice: our captain, Valerie, who called Dale and Denny “the echoes of mansplaining.”

My experience with the sport so far has led me to describe beer can racing as the slowest form of racing with the highest amount of relative stress available. The race was eventful.

As we were preparing to cast off, we realized that the batteries were dead. Since diesel motors don’t come with kick-starters, we spent the next 10 minutes charging the batteries while exchanging conspiracy theories and subtle accusations of why they hadn’t been charged. The gossip lasted long enough to get us running. As we left the harbor, the first of many sighs of, “Jesus!” was heard. With little time before the starting horn, we tacked once and crossed the start line within a minute of entering the strait.

The wind was around 20 knots, while we made a modest six. The day’s course sent us to the Carquinez Bridge, around its buoy, and back. This is Vallejo Yacht Club; you won’t find any modern racers here. We were just relieved to be sailing. “Things are way better than they were 10 minutes ago,” someone said.

The wind was gusty, heeling us over and to leeward. “We’ve got good wind till the eye can see,” our captain said, while I wondered what she was looking at. Mostly we just kept our eyes on the rival behind us, Adventure, who was gaining fast as we remained stuck in the middle of the pack. “We’re all killing each other in the wind and they’re just catching up,” said someone.

Exiting the strait, we passed the abandoned Sperry Mills factory and half-sunken paddlewheeler Grand Romance on one side, the old Navy bunkers on the other.

As I listened to the crew’s jabber, I was brought back to the linguistics class I’d taken in college, wondering where the meaning was in all of the jargon around me. “Is our vane kind of loose, can we spill off more? Seems like there’s a lot of spillage,” someone said. I questioned at what point in history boats became women: “Keep her up, keep her up,” said one retiree. “I’m going to harden up and turn right,” captain Valerie responded.

I realized tardily that they were also speaking to me. “Seriously, dude, put the pen down,” the starboard grinder grumbled. I did my duty pulling in lines for a couple of tacks and went back to scribbling.

We picked up a knot of speed as we streamlined toward the bridge. Looking back, we saw one of the boats had spun out 180 degrees and wondered what kind of nonsense was going on. “Did a man fall overboard?” Turns out one vessel had snagged and ripped out another’s lifelines. The guilty captain was a woman who usually sails with us but had been “requisitioned” by another crew short on women for today’s Pink Sail. She confessed to me it was more mortal embarrassment than actual damage.

We headed back without issue. Once we passed the jetty we cracked open the beers. IPAs were today’s refreshment. Regardless of what kind, it’s “the best beer of the week,” Denny said. As we dropped back down to five knots, the conversation veered to hot dogs.

After we crossed the finish line, to our amazement, the engine started. As we pulled into the harbor, another 10 minutes were spent practicing communication skills while yelling, as club volunteers got busy rafting all the boats together in preparation for August’s marina dredging. This was the last race of July.

We sat down, had dinner, drank more beer, and waited for the result. We came first in our division. And thankfully we weren’t disqualified for crashing into someone. Sorry, Marie. It was my favorite race yet. “Nothing quite like the sound of the wind in my hearing aids,” Denny concluded.

The race raised $2,600, to be donated to the American Cancer Society, and the yacht club invites other sailors to come over and join the festivities next year.