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Weekday Racing Wrap-up

Alan Brierty’s R/P 63 Limit leaves the Bay behind shortly after starting the Encinal YC’s Coastal Cup yesterday.

© Erik Simonson

It would appear as though the fastest of the 18 boats in the Encinal YC’s Coastal Cup have had pretty consistent breeze since starting yesterday. Australian Alan Brierty’s R/P 63 Limit finished at 8:13 this morning. Although it wasn’t sufficient to break the elapsed-time record set by Doug Baker’s Magnitude 80 in 2006 at 20h, 54m, 30s for the 277-mile course, Limit‘s effort wasn’t that far off. Brierty’s time of 22h, 13m, 22s is pretty amazing when you consider that Limit gives up 17-ft of waterline to Mags, and is conventionally ballasted rather than canting-keeled.

Kevin Flanigan and Greg Nelsen’s Fox 44 Ocelot and Andy Costello’s J/125 Double Trouble had a pitched battle down the coast.

© Erik Simonson

According to the race tracker — whose reports are delayed by four hours and appear to be missing some of the boats — Andy Costello’s Pt. Richmond-based J/125 Double Trouble and Kevin Flaningan and Greg Nelsen’s Alameda-based Fox 44 Ocelot are the only two boats to have rounded Pt. Conception, with Double Trouble leading Ocelot and looking like the overall winner at this point. Both boats are pretty far offshore, at roughly half the distance between Pt. Conception and San Miguel Island. While both were reporting speeds in the mid-teens, the West Santa Barbara Channel is notorious for being a re-starting area, especially in the morning. With the course rated as time-on-distance that means that it’s still anyone’s race, although Double Trouble is roughly between their competition and the finish.

Bill Guilfoyle’s SC 52 Prevail Per Peterson and Artie Means’ Andrews 68 Alchemy and Tom Holthus’ J/145 Bad Pak beat off the Cityfront.

© Erik Simonson

According to r/c member Charles Hodgkins, Peter Blackmore’s Oyster 49 Pied Piper was dismasted and safely made port in Monterey, and a couple other boats reported knockdowns overnight. The next pair of boats on the tracker are Dave Van Houten’s Tiburon-based Thompson 38 Serena and Tom Holthus’ J/145 Bad Pak; both are just north of Pt. Arguello and reporting much lower speeds as of four hours ago. The awesome start photos are brought to you by Erik Simonson’s H2Oshots, and we bring it up because we wanted to make sure that you knew that Erik was in a helo for last weekend’s Delta Ditch Run and got thousands of aerial photos. The chance to get an aerial photo of your boat is pretty rare, so if you were sailing to Stockton last weekend, make sure you check out his galleries of the race!

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