Home	Vallejo Race 5/3 & 4/25

Prologue: Though not racing Vanishing Animal, your Webmaster drove up to Pt. San Pablo to try to get pics of our fleet as they passed The Brothers into San Pablo Bay. Looking for a spot to shoot, Google maps depicted a "Sailing Goat Restaurant" at the end of a dead end road on the east side of the point. After check it out there was a good viewing place on the west side, when another photographer with serious camera gear was already set up. Turns out it was Steve Green who shoots photos for Latitude 38 and was kind enough to share some of his closeups, both of the race up at Pt. San Pablo, and at the start coming home. In a bit of a mea culpa, your truly had stopped at KKMI to do chores on Vanishing Animal and, though all charged and laid out, had left my zoom camera at home, leaving only a cellphone for taking pics. Thankfully, Commodore Egan had a great race description and more pics to share that are included below.

The winds at San Francisco airport lived up to forecast:



Yet four dedicated Islanders faced the ferocious forecast northwest winds gusting 30 - 40+ yet arrived on the starting line for a most enjoyable Vallejo Race. Light westerlies prevailed and after the short windward leg it was spinnaker time heading for Red Rock and on to San Pablo Bay. Yet mother nature wasn't ready to give up. Only the earliest starters made it to San Pablo Bay with chutes, but the wind died then filled in from the northwest to a delightful 12 - 15 knots. It was a power reach into San Pablo Bay with some great pictures along the way.

Our fleet included: Windwalker, Rich & Tom Shoenhair; Kapai, Commodore Rick Egan; Luna Sea, Dan Knox, but skippered by Rob Blenderman (White Horses) while Dan & Myphi are in Paris; and Windcatcher, Dan Throop - sailing single handed! They passed the Brother in that order and also finished in that order. Here's a comparison of their times from my pics at The Brothers and the official finish times at Vellejo.



Report from Kapai:
Four boats signed up this year including Windwalker, Luna Sea, Windcatcher and Kapai. The Kapai crew included Bryce and Reanne Egan and my middle son Blaine who came down from Sacramento to do the Saturday race only. He took the 7:30 ferry back to SF and was back home by 10 PM.

The weather forecast called for a blustery day but on Saturday morning it was meek and mild. At the start it felt like we had around 10 knots of wind. Windwalker had a good start at the pin end which was favored to the first windward mark. Kapai crossed the line just behind but at the committee boat end. Luna Sea,skippered by Rob Blenderman, while Dan & Myphi were in Paris, crossed next followed by Windcatcher sailed by intrepid single handed sailor Dan Throop.

Windwalker was first around the windward mark, launched their spinnaker and the next time we saw them they were enjoying a drink outside the bar at VYC. Rich Shoenhair shared that they blew up a couple of kites on the way up but basically sailed a very good race in a league of their own, finishing 2nd in the section of 9 boats. Congrats to Rich and the Windwalker crew! Luna Sea was third to the windward mark but soon closed on Kapai and launched their spinny.

Kapai elected non spinnaker this race and watched Luna Sea take off on a light wind reach before getting stuck in a wind hole around Red Rock. We passed them just as the predicted westerly kicked in and we poled out our jib and managed to stay ahead of Luna Sea and Windcatcher all the way to the finish. 2nd place with no spinnaker felt pretty good.

The raft up at Vallejo was a fiasco as some boats got stuck in the mud blocking the entrance to several fairways. We were delayed about an hour circling around with 100 other boats. We finally got tied up and enjoyed the typical VYC hospitality. Dan Throop joined the Kapai crew for a dice game and some tall tales but all were in bed pretty early.

Sunday's race started on time with a steady 10-12 knot westerly. Kapai was first over the line and lead the other Islanders until about half way down the channel when first Windwalker and then Luna Sea passed us up. Windcatcher passed us about 10 minutes later and we DFL'd all the way to Richmond. Kapai simply could not dial in our sail trim on Sunday the way we had on Saturday and we basically lost track of our other Islander friends for the rest of the day. Congrats again to Rich in 1st place, Rob 2nd place and Dan 3rd place on Sunday!

All in all a very fun weekend with classic spring weather and good competition. Cheers to all!

Commodore Egan

So enjoy the pictures from Rich Shoenhair, Rob Blenderman, Rick Egan, Steve Green, and Rick Van Mell. Click to enlarge.

At Pt. San Pablo ...	is Sailing Goat ...	restaurant ...	quite popular!	Kapai crew.
Windcatcher	Luna Sea	Windwalker.	Luna Sea passing Kapai ...	under spinnaker, but ...
Kapai passes Luna Sea.	Windwalker, out front, under chute	Windwalker ...	at the Brothers ...	up close ...
and moving on ...	in style.	Allerians against Mt. Tam	Big Ketch	Steve Green clicks
Kapai leads Luna Sea ...	Kapai at East Brother ...	up close.	Luna Sea approaches ...	East Brother ...
looking great!	Here comes ...	Windcatcher ...	up close.	Your webmaster.
View from Windwalker on San Pablo Bay	Kapai approaching Napa River	Kapai at Vallejo Sunday morning ...	leaving the harbor ...	Rt. Luna Sea leads Kapai to the start
Windwalker starts ...	and Windcatcher.	L. S. Leads Kapai	Luna Sea	Kapai concentrates
Windwalker is ...	overtaking Kapai	Windcatcher follows	Out in the channel.	Windwalker racing home
Kapai approaching the finish line.