
Racing From Dead *^%^&$ Last to a Bullet!
It seemed like such a beautiful January day on San Francisco Bay. Sunny and crisp with a light breeze and lots of exciting moments in store for the racers competing in the Corinthian Yacht Club’s annual midwinter races. But for our crew on Liquid Asset, things started going south almost immediately. Before leaving the dock, our skipper (who also doubled as bowman to manage our end-for-end pole on our old Ranger 33) was called away to rescue his 100-year-old mom from an apparent medical emergency. We collectively sighed. We were registered in the PHRF 4 Spinnaker Class. With no bow/skipper, we knew that our already less-than-full crew of five, given experience levels, could not possibly run a spinnaker. This is, of course, one of the best ways to down-position yourself for a race — before even starting.
Oh, dear. Another “oh, shit” moment in sailing. But off we went, determined to do our best despite the odds. We fired up the radio and finished rigging the boat, listening for the course and adding layers: It was a nippy 50-degree morning. And then … the radio went dead. Out of battery. Really?? But then Annie remembered, by complete luck, she just happened to have a charged-up battery pack on board with a USB connection! Amazing!

Our start wasn’t too bad, actually, but as breezes would have it, this turned out to be a rare “downwind race” all the way, and of course, that left us $#&! out of luck with no kite. And hey, there was hardly any breeze to begin with. When the gulls are calmly standing on floating logs, bobbing about you in the middle of San Francisco Bay, you know you are in deep trouble and your chances of even making it around the course are extremely slim. Using our number-one jib as a kite was, as expected, less than entirely successful. We quickly secured our DFL [Dead ^&*% Last] position and defended it easily for the next hour or so. Time drifted on as we pulled out the bubbles to guess the shifting no-breeze direction.

As 2 p.m. rolled around and the fleet (now spread entirely across the Bay) became visibly smaller and smaller, we found ourselves caught in the middle of the latest tideline. Spinning in circles, we eventually headed backward toward the committee boat. Beyond embarrassing. There are only two choices for most sailors in these moments: Drink or eat. Time for lunch! As we polished off a set of delicious chicken salad sandwiches, we noticed something odd. A breeze? No! How could that be? In a matter of minutes, a westerly materialized by some miracle and we were off (finally) across the Bay with Susanna and Annie all smiles on jib trim. Incredibly, in another lucky break, we caught the layline exactly to Blackaller and rounded, finally catching up to the tail end of the fleet.

Then the hard work started. With a panorama of colorful kites ahead of us, we stealthily maneuvered wing-on-wing, jibing our way forward and inching closer to the pack from behind. Our tallest crew member, Janet, managed the whisker pole back and forth as Gautier, our skipper, with Maureen on the mainsheet, carefully navigated us toward the Fort Mason mark. On the radio, we kept hearing some squawk that sounded as if something might be happening with the course being shortened and the finish line being moved, but each time the race committee tried to reveal the essential info, the line went dead or delivered unintelligible gibberish. Boats were going north toward Alcatraz. Boats were going south toward the Cityfront. We just stayed in the middle, opting for the shortest distance to the mark, still confused as to exactly where the finish line lay.
Luckily, at this point we were finally back in the mix again, and because so many kites kept de-powering, shadowed by others and in very light breeze, our “fixed” wing-on-wing strategy continued to pay off. Eventually, we finally saw the finish line. That was the good part. The problem was, so did everyone else. We headed toward the mark, hoping to avoid the pileup of stuck spins right and left. Suddenly a boat on port to our right (with a boat between us) started yelling at us to travel up to give them room to more easily make the finish line. Say WHAT??

We jibed to get onto starboard, so of course they jibed … but then, when they kept yelling, we had to point out that we were now the leeward boat. Off we continued to the mark, crossing the finish line with a jumble of competitors in a noisy and chaotic scramble for position and desperately trying to avoid collisions, with very little steerage.
Imagine our surprise when the race committee finally sorted out the standings hours later and we discovered that not only had we finished the race, but we had corrected out in first place. Lesson learned: Never say, “It’s over!” until … it is.
And now for a different perspective, Junette Kushner was hiking in Tiburon when she took the following photos of the fleet on the Bay.


You can find the day’s race results at cyc.org/mids25/results/1.
A funny read!!! That race had many frustrating and funny moments! Just at the windless finish, we got shouted at from a competitor for PC (proper course room)!! Was there ever a “PC” that day!? Lol