As we headed out into the central bay with reefed main and jib, the J105 Joyride was heading east so I thought the racing was probably over for the day.
This Cal sailboat was heading north.
We sailed westward on the southern breeze and soon a light drizzle started and we had to tack photos from behind the dodger .The city was grayed out by the overcast and the rain.
In the distance, I could see some race boats flying kites heading across the bay. I had to wait to take any photos until they were well off to starboard and I could duck under the dodger. Here, two J120s are headed for the leeward mark just off Alcatraz. Dayenu is the boat on the right and Desdemona on the left.
Here, four of the J120s are sort of bunched together, Twist is in the lead. Chance and another boat is behind Twist and Grace Dances is trailing.
Mr. Magoo is the lead boat of the J120 fleet, several boat lengths ahead of Dayenu and Desdemona.
Grace Dances seems to be trailing the other boats by a boat length or so.
Here, two boats from another one-design fleet, including Golden Moon, are heading for the leeward mark.
We continued on toward the gate and sailed out for a short ways before coming about and heading back inside, a light rain falling all the time and sometimes a big gust of wind would pull us to weather. As we headed for home port, fortunately the rain stopped and it brightened up a bit and we could now start to see and take some photos of the J105 fleet that was headed for the windward mark in front of the STFYC yacht club building.
Blackhawk seemed to be leading the fleet...
...followed by Jam Session and another boat.
We closed on the fleet and passed astern of these two J105s, the one on the right seeming to be in process of tacking.
JUJU here was heading for the windward mark on starboard tack and two others in the background were on different tacks.
Here, a number of the boats in the fleet are sailing close to the wind as they head for the windward mark.
We are now in the middle of the fleet and here a couple of the J105s are blasting toward us.
Blackhawk has now rounded the mark and is heading for the leeward mark behind her colorful kite.
While the lead J105s are blasting downwind behind spinnakers, the lead J120, Mr Magoo is now heading upwind.
...her crew looking quite relaxed.
Mr. Magoo was on port tack as she passed us, but Chance was heading our way on starboard tack and most of her crew were on the rail.
She's looking good as she approaches...
... and slides astern of us.
On the J105 front, Advantage as raised a twisted kite after rounding the windward mark....
....but later she is blasting downwind with the kite flying as it should.
Here, a group of J105s is blasting downwind behind kites of different sizes.
Blackhawk is headed for the leeward mark...
... and we are working our way through the fleet, with a J105 blasting toward us here.
We eventually luffed up drastically to stay out of the way of the last group of J105s in the fleet even though we had starboard tack right of way, and here's that group of boats heading for the leeward mark.
I furled in the jib and came about to head west again to watch the J105 fleet heading upwind toward the windward mark, like ORION here.
Advantage seems to be sailing short-handed, lacking one or two crew members.
STREAKER is looking good as she passed us to starboard. You can see many more of our photos of the race boats on my photo album website at
http://cbergstedt.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php?
We watched most of the J105s pass us and then came about and headed for home port on main only. Russian Hill was in sunshine but the city to the east was grayed out in rain or shadow.
Our old pal, ADVENTURE CAT, was heading home from the gate, and soon passed us.
The flags on pier 39 were fluttering variously, and since the cruise ship was still tied up at pier 35, we ducked in behind the Jeremiah Obrien at pier 45 to douse and tie up the main sail.
As we motored toward home port, we could see that quite a crowd of people were watching the sea lions from the northwest area of pier 39....
....and a few people were standing on the north end of the pier.
We motored into port and were happy to be able to get sail and helm covers on before it started raining again. Mother Nature was kind enough to stop the rain for a while so we could get some decent photos of the race boats and we were happy about that. Later that evening, Olivier came over for dinner. He had been on a boat doing the crewed-lightship race that day and had especially enjoyed the spinnaker run back to the finish line.
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