Given the conditions - winds ranging from 5 to 15 knots but never dying altogether - you’d think the Delta Ditch Run would have been mellow and uneventful, but this was not the case. Despite the benign breeze, several boats ran aground, many more flirted with the mud but didn’t stick, and two unfortunate entries dismasted in Saturday’s slower-than-usual Ditch Run, a 67.5 mile mostly downwind race from Richmond Yacht Club to the Stockton Sailing Club.

An unofficial racer, Team Peckerhead’s E-Scow E-Ticket “just happened to be delivering the boat from Richmond to Stockton,” swamped and partially sank. The leader of the Peckerheads, Tom Warren, tells the story: “We were flying the spinnaker and the jib because it was light wind, and everything was going fine. Chris Sheppard, the owner, was driving. He was thirsty and was reaching for a Gatorade when a puff hit. He didn’t have time to react and the boat went over. Then it was a yard sale. The cooler floated off, everything left the boat, and the boat sank. We used the cooler to try to bail. We got a tow from a passing powerboat to a marina near the Antioch Bridge.” Somehow they made it to Stockton for the post-race festivities, which included barbecue, a blues band, and yummy mai-tais.

Ineligible to enter the race because they lack a keel, E-Ticket was not the first centerboarder to shadow the Ditch Run fleet. Two years ago a couple of dudes went the distance on a 470.

The two dismasted boats were the Laser 28 MegaHurtz and the beautifully restored, remodeled Moore 24 SC Runnin’ Blues, which has an attractive double-window cabin top. The Moore’s stick broke so neatly in half that once she was tidied up on her trailer, she appeared to have a two-part mast. Both boats had traveled long distances to participate. MegaHurtz sailed on her own bottom from Eureka, and Runnin’ Blues sailed down on her trailer at 55 mph from Seattle. To top off RB’s troubles, her owner’s van wouldn’t start for the delivery home on Sunday.

The trouble for both boats came at the one turning mark, green daymarker #19 past the Antioch Bridge. At #19, the course turns upwind enough that racers drop their spinnakers for a brisk white sail reach. This is usually the windiest part of the course, although this year it was not blowing much more than 15 knots. Regardless, #19 reaches out and snags the rigs of boats that sail too close. As a trophy, #19 has kept a shred of spinnaker from an unfortunate racer in last year’s Ditch Run. Runnin’ Blues had taken the mark on the wrong side, and had to go back to round it properly. They got too close, caught a shroud, and down went the rig. Competitors in the vicinity commented that both the Laser and the Moore were sailing aggressively at that mark. We imagine a lot of boats sailed aggressively at the mark, but were luckier.

Almost everyone we spoke to touched the bottom at least once. Many just skimmed it, while three others stuck so hard their race was over. A deep water shipping channel goes all the way to Stockton; once past the Benicia Bridge, venture out of it at your own risk. The Delta mud snags even more victims than notorious #19.

On the plus side of the equation, we spoke to several racers whom the lighter breeze benefited. Gordie Nash on his remodeled Santana 27 Arcadia said he never saw the Moore 24s or the Wylie Wabbits, and he caught up to the back of the Melges 24 fleet. He said it was a good race for small boats, and his was just small enough that he could win Heavy 2.

One of the smallest boats won overall. Who would have ever imagined that Tom & Bill Royall’s Rhodes 19 big WOW! would correct out over everyone else? A Columbia 5.5, a Cal 27, and a Hunter 30 rounded out the top four before the mighty Moores, led by Caleb Everett in the chartered Tortuga, start hogging the results page. See it at www.stocktonsc.org. You may notice that other than the boats which dismasted or went hard aground, everyone finished.

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