For the third time in as many years, San Francisco YC hosted the San Francisco edition of the Leukemia Cup. By all reports, the 100+ boats that sailed had a fine day of racing despite a couple of pauses, and raised a ton of money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

‘Cub Reporter’ Bill Hoehler of Tiburon YC sailed his J/105 Joyride and reports that the 14-boat J/105 fleet had, “No general recall! Weather was ideal. We started in a slack, but had some ebb at Blackaller buoy. Joyride had a great start, but life turned a bit bleak when our rudder caught a big piece of Visqueen or some other plastic. We tried a boat pole and tacking and shaking, but finally had to back down to clear it, which put us in last place. We fought back to ninth, but had a wonderful day of sailing, including banging the Angel Island shore going from YRA 19 to Pt. Stewart. Then we had a huge jam at Elephant Rock. It was a fantastic, well-run regatta with a great party after, for a great cause. It does not get better.”

“We had a lot of talent on board,” said Larry Weinhoff, sailing on Torin Knorr’s Jet Lag, as he did last year, “and were fresh from winning the Catalina 34 San Francisco Cup, but we only managed to finish 12th out of 14. There was about a 15-minute postponement during the start because a flock of at least 10 kayakers decided to paddle through the starting fleet and hang around the start line. As usual it pretty much came down to the last tiny leg from Elephant Rock to the finish. Lots of flood at the Elephant and no wind, plus 50 boats all trying to get around at the same time was the usual disaster. 

“More than $600,000 was raised for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and the top three boats raised approximately $215,000, $65,000 and $36,000 - just over half the total amount raised. Torin raised about $14,000.”

Robert Hu of the Beneteau First 38 Mist, sailing in Division 5, elaborates on the kayaking incident: “During the starting sequence of Division 4 (non-spinnaker PHRF 0-126), a group of young kayakers paddled right through the starting area amidst all the boats preparing to start and caused the Leukemia Cup RC to postpone the start of Division 4, while the rest of the unstarted fleet waited for them to blithely paddle across the starting area towards Sausalito.

“At the Elephant Rock mark, the wind completely died, and it seemed like the entire fleet arrived there for a huge traffic jam. It was a parking lot for quite some time.”

Joan Byrne sailed with Robert aboard Mist, and added, “It was really a high class event. This is my third year of doing it, and it gets better every year. The racing was tight. With 12-15 knots of wind we never stopped sailing, and I had to actually take my jacket off. It was that nice. Elephant Rock was the usual cluster you-know-what. We were in second place until Elephant Rock, then ended up in 8th.”

Despite the dead zone on the homestretch, only eight boats were scored DNF, while the rest made it across the finish line in Belvedere Cove. An unusual committee boat, Tom Perkins’ historic 130-ft yacht Atlantide bravely manned the inland side of the finish line, while Perkins’ other boat, Maltese Falcon, observed the action.

For complete results, see www.sfyc.org. For more background on the Leukemia Cup, see www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/regatta/hm_reg.