Tales From the ‘Can’: Life on the Edge of the Spectrum

It was going to be cold. It was going to be light. It was possible that IFR rules might apply, giving some edge to those with good instruments, and a lucky sense of bearing and range to plug theoretical waypoints into them. But at month two of the Berkeley Yacht Club (BYC) Midwinters, only one of those ugly possibilities materialized on Saturday; it was cold. However, racers could see the marks, and there was a consistent eight- to 10-knot breeze out of 270 degrees on the Circle, with the occasional feint of a veer to what was apparent over the Chevron refinery: the north-northwest to north-northeast happening in the North Bay.

It was enough for the race committee to order up an eight-miler. In the Can’s brutal, PHRF 114–273 division, we were going to need smarts to do better than our seventh-place finish on November 6. The marginal glow of the previous weekend’s division win in the YRA Doublehanded Midwinters had faded midweek. Our gambit was to hit the right corner hard, hoping to avoid the fairly large ebb sweeping south up by the weather mark in the late approach. November winner Rick Reduziner’s yellow SC 27 Lickety Split had the same idea, and had tacked early to port, ahead of us. The rest of our division were either working shifts on the left side, or just banging it out on starboard, hoping for a pressure differential.

The right side didn’t go Iight, and with just a short approach tack on port into the ebb, we were sailing well over our handicap when the kites came out. Our set was not exemplary, but we got the laundry up, with the leaders riding the ebb toward the Berkeley Pier. We noticed the veer, and were nearly the only boat in Alpha, Bravo, or our Charlie group to jibe, finding an optimal rhumb-line course on port. We were still looking good at L, except for Vaughn Seifers’ Moore 24 The Flying Tiger up in front with Jim Carlsen’s S&S 30 Free. By a half-mile on port, on the two-mile leg back to W, everyone had gone to starboard, except the Can.

We were able to sail at nearly max upwind speed (5.2–5.4 knots), pushing water along at 4.7 all the way toward Brooks Island. At two miles out, some good layline calculations on the right corner nailed it spot on, and we were back with the bigs in our group. We jibed right away, while the bigs made the same mistake they had the first time down and sailed a longer downwind leg. As we went hard right on the last leg, the wind did not falter, and we corrected in second, seven seconds behind the Moore, and 12 seconds ahead of John Guilliford’s J/24 Phantom. That sketchy first set.… The Flying Tiger is in the sweet spot, going into the New Year with four others to wrestle for the podium remainders.

Sunday looked seriously more bleak, with the RC opting to go at the scheduled time with only zephyrs, because “… there is no model predicting much chance of wind.” They postponed for a short course adjustment, then started sending divisions off on a four-miler as the wind, wiggling from 270 occasionally back to 250 or so, built to 10 knots. Our division Sunday was a more reasonable PHRF 135–273, with some bigs and some smalls, and with an always-scary Moore, a Ranger 23, an Olson 911 or two, and Megan Dwyer’s new red Tuna, Ahi.

With a fairly short line, the wind on the back end of its wiggle, the pin up 15 degrees, and the Can wanting to go hard right again, what was a slow to do? Why, port-tack the fleet, of course! Pulling it off required the wind shift to hold, and it did. The feeling is like falling in love: really scary, but exhilarating. We hit the right corner hard once again, nailing the W mark from a mile out, and watched as a different group made the same mistake as our Saturday club, following the ebb toward the Berkeley Pier, while we immediately jibed, finding ourselves in a big veer that had us headstay-reaching the rhumb line most of the two miles to L. Meanwhile the rest of Charlie company sailed an extra half-mile along the pier. Twisting the knife, we hit the right corner again to the RC layline, fetching up at the pin end for a 03:32 win over the J/24. Back in the mix! See you next month!