West Coast Schooners in San Diego for the America’s Schooner Cup
Silver Gate Yacht Club continued a tradition in 2025 to host its 37th annual America’s Schooner Cup Charity Regatta on Saturday, April 5, to benefit the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS).This charity regatta featured some of the most beautiful boats to be found sailing today on the US West Coast, including the weatherly staysail schooner Witchcraft, owned by Brian Eichenlaub, as she defended her 2024 victory in the America’s Schooner Cup (ASC).
A host of generous sponsors donated raffle prizes, plus event food and drink, with all proceeds made from the ASC event being delivered to NMCRS to help with their long-standing aid to service personnel and their families.
This year the ASC event welcomed the return of Scrimshaw, as she joined to race in the ASC regatta for the first time since 2019. Dennis Daoust, a longtime Silver Gate YC member, owned Scrimshaw for 43 years and recently donated her to the Maritime Museum of San Diego. Scrimshaw is a modern (1947) 40-ft example of the Block Island boat, a type that served as work boats in colonial times (see WoodenBoat 221, 2011, page 84). The traditional Block Island boats ranged from 20-ft to 40-ft on deck. They were work boats with unstayed masts and were used for fishing and carrying freight and the US mail between ports in New England. Scrimshaw is now in service for the Maritime Museum of San Diego as a six-passenger charter boat.
Race day for the 37th America’s Schooner Cup was predicted to have light airs as usual, with winds of 7–9 knots, so a shorter course was selected, which determined an outer leg of the race from San Diego Harbor buoy SD4 to SD3. Only after the skippers’ meeting had concluded did the race committee learn that Buoy 3 was reported missing, a fact quickly verified by consulting the Notice to Mariners. By this time, most of the schooners were already on their way to the starting line, so the race committee modified the course by radio to a long course omitting Buoy 3 and continuing out to SD1, which is three miles off Point Loma.
The change of course helped create one of the most remarkable finish outcomes in the history of this event. Wind much better than predicted came through to help even more.