Richmond Yacht Club Beer Can Cup Goes Racing for the Fun Of It
We were lucky to get out racing in this past Wednesday’s RYC beer can series with Nick Grebe and crew on his Santa Cruz 37, Wildcard. Nick has done plenty of very competitive inshore and offshore racing with Wildcard, so it’s a pretty sporty, dialed-up boat. Nice sails, new, very light and thin jib sheets, and, on Wednesday, Brandon Mercer had a chute on the bow ready to hoist. It was pretty quick work getting set up for the regular Wednesday evening race, done just for the fun of it. In fact, isn’t almost all sailboat racing for fun?
There are plenty of wolves in sheep’s clothing amidst this fun-loving race evening. The Richmond Yacht Club (RYC) is full of competitive sailors, from its youngest members to its most decorated world-champion Olympic medalist sailors. Somehow the competitive juices that breed winners don’t stifle the fun of an evening beer can race. It is a race with official start times, but it’s kept simple with the same course every week. It’s up to the wind gods to determine if it’s a windward-leeward or just a reach.
We couldn’t have been luckier with the weather, although regular RYC Wednesday evening racers swear it’s always like this on the “Richmond Riviera.” It was shirtsleeve sailing, with skipper Nick Grebe sailing the entire course barefoot and in shorts. In contrast, we were overdressed for our normally cooler weather over by the Corinthian Yacht Club’s Knox course. The sun was bright, the breeze warm and steady, and we don’t think a single drop of water got on the deck.
Though it’s casual, the boats are broken up into classes, with Lasers going first and then a very healthy Alerion 28 one-design fleet leading the big-boat starts. The Carl Schumacher design is a comfortable, elegant, stay-inside-the-cockpit craft, perfectly suited to a very civil evening of beer can racing.
To get a sense of casual, we give an excerpt of the Deed of Gift for the RYC Beer Can Cup, donated by the yacht LightnUp in 2004: “Any organized, semi-organized or disorganized Yacht of this or any foreign yacht club, incorporated, patented, or licensed, or whatever, by the legislature, admiralty, or other executive department, or Bob, having for its annual regatta on ocean, salt, fresh or other water course, except bottled, on the sea, or on an arm, leg, ear or torso of the sea, or one which combines all, shall always be entitled to the right of sailing a match for this Cup, with a yacht or vessel propelled by sails only and constructed on the planet to which the Challenging Yacht belongs, against any one yacht or vessel constructed on the planet of the Yacht holding the Cup.” They say no good deed goes unpunished, but this one continues to work.
Could casual fun be a way to grow participation in racing? The 85 boats signed up to race every Wednesday from April 1 (no foolin’) through September 30 suggest it is. It doesn’t matter what you bring to this “hump night” tradition. It could be something as hot as the foiling Figaro Castor or a pocket-cruising Compaq yacht or an ILCA/Laser. Because they don’t keep score, no one stresses over trying to figure out how to rate all these mismatched toys from the boatyard toy box. They’re all just bringing their favorite toy to the playground and going out to play.
It could be that using Norway’s rules for children, which focus on participation and fun rather than keeping score up until age 12, could satisfy more sailors’ inner 12-year-old than all the grand prix racing combined. It may be why the Baja Ha-Ha has 130–150 participants in classes like the “Burrito” division and the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race gets 25 to 30 boats. It’s nothing against grand prix racing, but clubs and classes need to think about the nature of their events and how they suit the desired audience. There are plenty of “grand prix” racers, like Wildcard, Velvet Hammer, Castor, etc. in the mix of RYC’s “casual” beer can series.
This past Wednesday, Mother Nature chose a warm-air reach out to the Bob Klein buoy and back. A somewhat cluttered pin-end start led the fleet toward the nearby breakwater, requiring some calls for sea room and quick tacks, before the fleet found their track and settled into a sunny groove to round the breakwater for a quick reach to the Bob Klein buoy. Light air at the port rounding had the fleet bunching up, with almost everyone landing in someone else’s wind shadow. The crowd made the boat with the fenders out look like the smart one. Again, the fleet cleared their air, found their lane, and tight-reached back to the breakwater. A slight bearaway (beeraway?) with acceleration toward the finish, and suddenly it was over way to soon. It was so nice we almost went around again.
There are plenty of races to get into full-on battle gear, but this is not one of them. It might be a place to test a new sail, a new crew, a new brew or a new playlist. It reminds us again that it’s important to sign up for events like this because you sail when you otherwise wouldn’t. Tuesday night and Thursday night were also beautiful evenings for a sail, but the RYC Wednesday night was a “nothing-special but oh-so-special evening sail” with approximately 60 boats that have done this lap so many times they could do it with their eyes closed. But then you’d miss so much of all the good reasons to be there.
When asked, many sailors say they sail to “get away from it all.” You wouldn’t know it by the fleet size or the post-race party. The other side of sailing is that it’s all about the people. From pre-start banter to post-race ribbing, the vibe was lighthearted and experienced. This is not an event you want to miss. People have their reasons for missing it but they’re rarely justified.
Every event needs a booster, and RYC’s Eric Arens is one who helps keep the fleet connected and coming back. There are awards for most crew, young crew or most new crew, or awards that are new ideas each Wednesday. Some regattas have polished silver trophies that date from a century ago, while the RYC Wednesday beer-can awards may be invented on the spot and suddenly vaporize. What lasts is a tradition of a large crowd of boats and sailors who come out just for the fun of it. In word and deed the RYC Beer Can Cup indeed continues to succeed with the magic of non-competitive competition. Read about the winners — elsewhere. Which reminds us — it’s time to re-read the Ten Commandments of Beer Can Racing here.
