Winds Stiffen for Exciting Day 5 Racing
The fifth day of the 2022 Pacific Cup arrives with the latest sixteen starters out on the race course and the earlier starters now sailing in three distinct groups all with very different weather.
As originally forecast, the Thursday starters have enjoyed the best weather of any start day for both exiting San Francisco Bay and for making their way offshore without any pit stops. Leading the charge away from the Golden Gate is Michael Schoendorf’s Riptide 41 Blue, which streaked across the Gulf of the Farallons at more than 10 knots, though has now slowed slightly. In the early starters, Foamy and Raku are both beginning to see their earlier navigational decisions bear fruit.
Under brilliant sunshine and breeze in the mid to high teens, two more divisions of boats started on Thursday, with many boats under reefed (reduced) main sails and smaller headsails in the puffy breeze. Once out the Gate and into the ocean, these boats likely shook out the reefs and accelerated into winds that were forecast to drop off a touch. With more breeze than starters earlier in the week, the boats could attack the start more aggressively than those on Monday or Tuesday, who were cautious to not drift over the start line early in the ebb tide. This made for much more photogenic starts with two starts full of big, fast boats lining up for a proper racing start.
Unsurprisingly, the J/125’s are providing some of the closest racing in the fleet, with Rufus Sjoberg’s J/125 Rufless and Shawn Dougherty and Jason Andrew’s J/125 Hamachi seemingly match racing and stuck to each other’s hips for their first night and morning at sea. Zachary Anderson’s J/125 Velvet Hammer has thus far been a bit off the pace of the other two J/125’s. Bob Hinden’s Schumacher 46 Surprise, with daughter Rebecca navigating, is the most northerly boat in the Thursday fleet while Aaron Wangenheim’s Santa Cruz 52 City Lights is the southernmost. David German’s 1D35 Such Fast took the start on time but appears to have ducked back into the dock and then re-started behind the fleet. We look forward to learning more details and sharing these with you.
In the Monday and Tuesday starters, which have now merged into one wave, there are now three distinct groups that are all sailing in very different conditions. Up North, the Cal 40 Azure and Beneteau 10R CruzSea Baby have more or less managed to thread the needle between various wind holes and sailing upwind over a high and are now beginning to see a weak northerly flow that will later result in them reaching the ‘new’ building breeze first. Will this be enough to get their race back on track?
The middle group is in light air as of this writing but should also see their breeze increase over the next 24 hours. Similarly, will this middle group be able to get up to speed and ‘cut the corner’ on the southerly boats? As of this writing, the southerly boats are again the quickest boats in the Monday/Tuesday fleet with husband/wife duo’s Bill and Melinda Erkelens on the Moore 24 Foamy and Christina and Justin Wolfe on the J/111 Raku continuing to impress among these earlier starters. Being further to the south and having the ability to sail a hotter angle, or gybe less, and consolidate that leverage into gains over your rivals could prove to be the difference in the race.
It’s a long race to Hawaii and anything can still happen!
Aloha
The Race Committee and the Media Team will be headed to the Saint Francis Yacht Club shortly to conduct the fourth and final day of starts today with the first and only warning gun to come at 1:30 PM. Our Live broadcast of the final start will begin at 1:15 pm on the Pacific Cup Yacht Club’s Facebook page.
Start photo (c) 2022 Slackwater_SF