Rolex Big Boat Series Kicks Off With Day One
When the gun for the first start of the 61st Rolex Big Boat Series sounded, the Bay was overcast with gray skies, light airs and a flood that lasted through the day. Everyone knows those conditions don’t last. The light-air first race was held in the flat water of a building flood. For the second race, everyone changed gears as the fog began to lift and the Bay returned to its usual bluster.
The large and notoriously competitive J/105 fleet finished the day with Bruce Stone and Nicole Breault aboard Arbitrage out front with a 7/1, followed by Beast of Burden with a 2/6 and Donkey Jack with a 5/3. It was a tough day to find consistency in the 27-boat fleet. Latitude 38 race editor Fritz Baldauf was out racing aboard John and Michael Rivlin’s Peaches, which finished the day with a 10/16. Fritz had this to say about yesterday’s racing: “It was really tricky racing in the light wind. Not your typical Big Boat Series day. Lots of reshuffles, especially in the first race — I think during race one alone at least four boats were in first at one point or another.” It was Ed Raff aboard J Tripper who took first in that race, though a ninth in the second race.
Double bullets were scored in all the other fleets, with Mark Chaffey’s Loca Motion doing it in the Express 37 fleet, Brice Dunwoodie on Ravenette pulling it off in the J/88 fleet, Michael Fermin aboard Zeus in ORC A, Peter Wagner’s Skeleton Key in ORC B, and finally Zach Berkowitz and the crew on Feather in ORC C. We’ll see which of these solid starts can last the full four days.
A few sails were hauled up the docks for repairs, and others are going to have high-contrast numbers applied to comply with the racing rules.
At the end of the day, there was a bubbling spring at the edge of the saltwater desert to make sure thirsty crews were going to be hydrated for today’s racing. They’ll be out racing today and throughout the weekend.