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J/Fest San Francisco was held at St. Francis YC on April 1-2, 2017, with 21 J/105’s on the starting line looking for the wandering river of spring run-off ebb that snuck through the weak flood tide. Heading out to late ebb away from the shore was sometimes the ticket to the fast lane, and later in the tide cycle footing to the city front brought some relief, though some boats won both sides and arrived together at the top mark. Scoring a consistent 4, 4, 4, 5, 3 for 20 points, Bruce Stone and Nicole Breault’s Team Arbitrage won by two points over Jeff Littfin’s Mojo and Ryan Simmons’ Blackhawk, with Mojo earning 2nd on the tie-breaker, followed by Adam Spiegel’s Jam Session and Theresa Brander’s Walloping Swede just one point further back with 23 points. Said Stone: “This was an amazingly close regatta – five boats separated by three points! In fact, including Rolf Kaiser/Shannon Ryan’s Donkey Jack with 25 points, each of the top 6 boats were in contention to take the victory based on the last race. This was also the first time on the podium for Theresa Brandner and we were thrilled to see her progress. The SF Bay fleet had 20 entrants on the starting line for each of the mid-winters, with several new owners, and over 20 entrants in the Spring One Design and in this J/Fest, so that bodes well for the vibrancy of the class.” In winning SF Bay J/Fest, Stone and Breault celebrated their second win of the season, and look forward to competing in other J/Fests. On their calendar are J/Fest New England in Newport RI in August, and J/Fest Southwest in Galveston in October.

The 20 J/105 teams in the season opening St. Francis YC Spring One Design Series were greeted with rain, hail, winds in high teens to low 20’s with gusts to 35 kt…and an erratic flood tide that was overrun by streaks of ebb from recent storm-induced water run-off from the NorCal rivers and reservoirs. On Saturday, the southerly wind caused the course to run across the tides, while on Sunday the westerly ran parallel to the tides. Going into the 5th and last race, it was a three-way tie among Brent Vaughn’s Jabberwocky, Philip Laby’s Godot (winner of the 2016 J/105 Fleet One season championship) and past national fleet captain Bruce Stone’s Arbitrage, with Jeff Littfin’s Mojo and Ryan Simmon’s Blackhawk just a few points behind and challenging for the podium. With flood on the pin end at the shore and ebb outside, the Race Committee skewed the starting line to favor the pin, but Arbitrage won the committee, flopped onto port and ran away from the pack, with Jabberwocky slightly back on its windward hip, both footing out toward the ebb. Godot dug out of a third row start and reached off to clear its air. Arbitrage faced the dilemma as to whom to cover. Mainsheet/tactician (and co-owner) Nicole Breault kept Arbitrage high to pinch off Jabberwocky, and hedge against the southerly gusts which favored Mojo and Blackhawk on the inside. This had the effect of letting Godot get to the ebb first, shooting forward from a ten length deficit to a 5 length lead at the windward mark. Arbitrage caught up downwind, and could have pinned Godot outside but let them gybe to round the unfavored port gate. In going there, Godot sought to replicate its strategy of getting to the ebb first, but Arbitrage chose the well-upwind starboard gate, coming out of the rounding way ahead and romping home with a huge lead. Godot finished second, with Mojo third, Jabberwocky and Blackhawk tied for fourth with Jabberwocky winning on the tie-breaker due to its two bullets to Blackhawk’s one bullet. Full results at:

https://www.regattatoolbox.com/results?eventID=g0EvWKuBY9

Fun at the 2016 Fleet One awards event.

And a special “thank-you” to Les for running our fleet weigh-ins

 Photos: Moe Roddy

Godot narrowly defeated Blackhawk for the Rolex by coming from behind in the last race to cross the finish second and maintain a one point lead. And with that they convincingly won the 2016 season overall!

A regatta report by the winning team. (Also, check out this great article at norcalsailing.com.)

SF Bay whipped up a significant flood tide and fearsome 20-27 kt winds to make for a challenging weekend of windward-leeward racing for the 19 J/105s that made it out to the western face of Alcatraz for the Sausalito YC J/105 Invitational, July 23-24, 2016. Unlike racing anywhere in the country, where you need to sail upwind both legs, time the oscillations of the shifts, and take into account a progressive veer or backing of the wind based on forecasts, here it was a case of advance planning. Before leaving home, skipper Bruce Stone reviewed the Sailtactics.com wind and tide forecast with his team on Arbitrage and announced, “We’re starting at the pin and banging the shore for tide relief upwind, and then jibing out to the bigger flood downwind.”

Well, of course it doesn’t perfectly work like that! We grapple with competitors for solid execution, and sometimes we pursue too much of a good thing. Arbitrage nailed the pin end of the line on the first two starts and led to the shore, winning both races by large margins. On the third try, as shown in the photo below, with heavy traffic at the pin, Arbitrage was forced to set up too low and failed to make the pin, so had to jibe around and start on port, taking the sterns of the peloton and going in the wrong direction away from current relief. “We’ll get some leverage outside in more pressure – no other option.” Heading into the teeth of the flood, they made little progress up the course while the fleet legged over to the shore. At mark one, Arbitrage was in a solid trailing position… ugh. Good boathandling downwind got them past a handful of boats struggling with the blustery afternoon winds. Taking a chance with the outside, seemingly more upwind leeward gate, then tacking right away toward shore helped gain quite a few lengths to windward and more boats. By the end of the race they finished tenth and were still leading the regatta, albeit by just one point.

Sunday brought the same weather and tide, and Arbitrage brought the same strategy. However, at the first start they once again didn’t make the pin and had to jibe out to start on port. Rinse and repeat, taking plenty of sterns and heading the wrong way. This time perhaps the regatta would be lost. Yet this time after tacking on the hip of the fleet heading toward the City Front, they connected with more pressure and right angle while the leaders had lighter air, getting them back into a fighting position by mark one. Grinding up through the fleet, Arbitrage managed a hard fought 2nd place. So for the last race, Stone finally tried a more conservative start in the middle of the line, and with good position and speed earned a solid third to secure the victory, with a score line of 1, 1, 10, 2, and 3, two points ahead of Steve Kent’s team on Perseverance and six points ahead of Philip Laby’s team on Godot. Stone remarked, “It was really special for the J/105 fleet to have a dedicated race course, with our own water and no delays. Sausalito YC did a great job in arranging this for us and dealing with really tough conditions for setting marks. Hospitality in sunny Sausalito was off the charts, with the Commodore pouring free beers for us and offering sandwiches. We’re looking forward to coming back next year.”