When I reached the GGYC, all of the boats that had entered the race were just drifting around on a virtually breezeless sea behind the starting line.
The larger boats were the first to start and, after the starting gun sounded, they began mosty driting toward the gate with the waxing ebb current.
Several catboats were in one of the starting groups in the fleet.....
Several catboats were in one of the starting groups in the fleet.....
... as were a oouple of Moore 24s-- small lightweight race boats.
The multihull group in the fleet incuded these trimarans of radically different size.
When a light easterly started blowing-- a land breeze-- the two Moores set spinnakers to try to take advantage of the light breeze and gain some headway.
After all of the starts were completed, the fleet of boats were scattered over the southern portion of the bay, mostly just drifting with the current toward the gate, but I could see a line of wind at the gate itself. My guess is that it took them well over an hour to reach the gate and to find some decent breeze.
Later on Saturay, my friends Marc and Sarah joined us for an afternoon outing and introduced me to their 8 month old son, Zack. I was really looking forward to meeting this little tyke that has been a long time in arriving on the scene. We headed out of port around 2;30 pm, putting out full canvas before heading out into the bay.
As we headed west on the southwest breeze, this lovely dark hulled sailboat passed us, sailing downwind with a full crew. In the background, you can see the pier 39 flags fluttering in a breeze of 8-10 knots or so.
Zack started out wearing his Surfer Baby hat and a life jacket and was not happy to be confined in the PFD.
Quitei a few boats were out on the bay in the warm spring weather, like this large sailboat sailing downwind along the shore of the city.
Behind us, the race boat Aleta, participating in the Stone Cup Regatta hosted by the St. Francis YC, was beating upwind with the crew on the rail.
ALMA also crossed behind us, heading toward the city on her afternoon outing with a good number of passengers on board.
A lovely Ericson 32 with light blue hull passed to starboard, looking good!
Closer to the shore, another race boat was heading downwind behind her blue kite.
Aleta tacked onto starboard tack and was headed toward the cityfront behind us.
A couple of J105s were racing down the cityfront.
Soozal, a boat that I have not seen here in a race before, was sailing downwind toward the leeward mark. She was competing in the Stone Cup race.
Hawkeye, the race boat that my friend Olivier often crews on was beating upwind and here was on a beat just off the shore of Alcatraz.
Zack, still wearing his life jacket, was learning the ropes as a young sailor and handling the line for the traveller in case it needed some attention.
The winds freshened to around 15 + knots so, with full canvas, we had to fall off the wind a bit to avoid being overpowered and so ended up sailing toward Sausalito where we eventually found light air and reefed the jib before heading back toward the central bay, passing this lovely boat with a crewmember on the bow pulpit.
Eventually Zack was freed from his life jacket and became a much happier boy-- here showing us his best two-toothy grin!
As we sailed southward across the bay, eventually arriving in strong winds again, this race boat was heading upwind with the crew on the rail.
We sailed to near the shore of the city and then headed for the gate, but eventually came about and headed back toward home port as it was getting late and we needed to get Zack fed and to bed at a reasonable hour.
As we approached home port, we began to encounter some of the race boats in the regatta, like Phantom Mist here passing us to starboard...
.... and Hawkeye passing close to port.
This race boat with no name on the side was also beating upwind and passed to port...
... with crew on the rail.
A larger no-name-on-side race boat also passed with a much larger crew on the port rail.
We sailed into the lee of pier 35 and doused the sails before motoring into port.
Zack was definitely my happy sailing buddy now as he had had a nice nap on the way back to port.
All three crewmates had enjoyed the outing immensely and we were all looking forward to heading over to North Beach Pizza for our dinner.
Unfortunately, since last I was there, the restaurant has moved from it's original location to a place across the street and, damn, as I feared, the pizza is not as good as it was in the original location. No longer can I walk past that corner and drink in the delicious baking pizza oders that are shot out into the street by the exhaust fan over the door. Another one of life's losses-- of which there have been way too many over my 30 years of living in this city!
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