Before dawn on Saturday morning, Janet Frankel, Staff Commodore of Island Yacht Club, visited the flower market in San Francisco and picked up buckets of bright yellow daisies to be distributed to sailors at Island, Richmond, Corinthian, Golden Gate, and St Francis YC. The daisies would be cast on the water in memory of Matthew Kirby Gale of Mill Valley and Anthony Harrow of Larkspur of the lost Doublehanded Lightship entry Daisy.

Crews in the OYRA Lightship race secured daisies to their transoms, to be scattered on the ocean at the Lightship buoy.

The racers were also given memorial stickers to put on their transoms. Led by Island YC Commodore Lucie Mewes, a group of sailors and family members headed out onto the spit at Golden Gate YC for a tribute.

After eight bells were rung for Kirby Gale and Tony Harrow, Kirby’s son Matthew thanked the sailors.

Lucie reminded the crowd that this was the 27th running of the Doublehanded Lightship, and the race benefits United Cerebral Palsy. Lucie presented a check for $1,500 (an accumulation of three years’ worth of proceeds) to the Bay Area Administrative Director of UCP, Karen Glatze.

With guns and horns going off in the background as the Crewed Lightship race got underway, the group on the spit climbed down to a bit of beach and cast their daisies into the Bay to “join Kirby, Tony’s and Daisy’s spirits.”

Besides the sailors in the Crewed Lightship, other racers would take daisies onboard and scatter them at appropriate moments that day. Pat Broderick, YRA Chair, wrote, “I’m sailing Saturday’s Oakland YC Rites of Spring [in his Santana 22 Elaine] and will take along a bouquet of daisies which Leah Pepe and I will sprinkle at the start line.

“Laura Paul [YRA Executive Director], Gerry Brown [HDA President], Richard Calabrese [OYRA President] and I met with the Coast Guard for most of Wednesday morning at their request,” said Pat. “They wanted to go over safety requirements and procedures for races for which they issue permits, especially the ocean races. They will be issuing a report on that meeting with recommendations, which will be shared with everyone.

“In the meantime they requested that YRA call a meeting of all racing authorities who sponsor or run ocean races to go over safety, requirements, and procedures for ocean races. Laura will be sending out a notice of that meeting shortly.”

On Thursday, using sonar, the Coast Guard and the San Mateo County Sheriffs Department located some of the wreckage of the Cheoy Lee Offshore 31, about 3 nm west of the Golden Gate Bridge. Divers from SMSD explored the sunken debris. Kirby Gale’s body has still not been found. The Coast Guard inquiry will continue.