Thanks to the efforts of organizers John Swain, Alan Olson and Angie Lackey Olson, and host club San Francisco Yacht Club, the first ever Great San Francisco Schooner Race went off on Saturday with mostly good breeze, afternoon sunshine, and only one hitch.

Suzie Moore, chair of the race council, was aboard SFYC’s committee boat, Victory, and reports that, “Viveka hit the committee boat with a glancing blow at the start. They were a good boat length away and we were thinking, ‘They are going to hit us! They’re going to hit us!’ Unfortunately there are no pictures because the photographer went ducking for cover with the rest of us." Viveka took a ‘DNS’ (Did Not Start), a disappointment for the 20 crew aboard and skipper Merl ‘President of the Pacific’ Peterson, who’s owned her for more than four decades.

Unlike modern sailboat racing starts, the line for this race was intentionally skewed to allow the schooners to start on a reach. The finish line in Raccoon Strait was also skewed, with the pin end favored. Everyone came in on port, sailing parallel to the line against a flooding current, and most had to tack onto starboard to actually cross.

The course started in the Knox area on the west side of Angel Island, went into the Central Bay, around to the south and east sides of Angel, up to Southampton Shoals and Richmond, then through Raccoon Strait north of the island back to Belvedere Cove. The Marconi Division’s course was about three miles longer than the Gaffs’. Santana, the Kaplan family’s Marconi schooner once owned by Humphrey Bogart, was first across the finish line at 1442 hours, less than two and a half hours after starting.

Elizabeth Muir finished three and a half minutes later, taking second in the Marconi Division. Partners Ivan Poutiatine and Peter Haywood discussed the pursuit race handicaps. Said Ivan, "I think the handicap was pretty rough. It’s the first race and you have to live and learn and make it better next time. It can be fine-tuned to make closer finishes." Peter said, "We started 15 minutes behind the first fleet and passed everybody in front of us - then Santana passed us. Santana started 10 minutes behind us.

“It was a great day and it's great to have another race for us on the Bay,” added Peter. “It was interesting to have a different course than the Master Mariners Regatta. Although schooners, all of these boats are individual, most of them old - that makes this a different type of race."

After the first two, the finishes were really spread out.

The family-owned 102-year-old Stone-built schooner Yankee was the only Gaff Division entry to finish before the 1700 time limit.

“We had a fantastic race. We came in first, and we were very happy with that,” enthused Sophie O’Neal. “It was a great day, great conditions, and we had new sails, first time since 1968. This was our first race using them - so it was nice having nice, crisp sails, made by Neil Pryde. The guy who cut them had worked at Starbuck’s and had worked on the sails that were on before, so he was very excited about it. The day was gorgeous and this course is great. Brigadoon came in quite a ways behind us. We had our sail covers on by the time they did. She’s our chief competitor, we love her and we always trail her, so it was very nice to have that happen.”

John Swain, Commodore of SFYC and instigator of the Schooner Race, noted that this was the first schooner race on San Francisco Bay in 100 years. He gave the ‘Spirit of the Race’ award - a bottle of 15-year old Haitian rum to Terry Klaus, a past commodore of St. Francis YC - Terry took John aboard Brigadoon as crew.

PRO Angie Olson asked the cheering crowd, “If we do this again next year, will you come? And if you come will you bring another schooner?” She says the nice thing is that next year, all she has to do is change the date by a day.

Half of the race’s entry fees was donated to the Spaulding Wooden Boat Center in Sausalito - $600. Complete results can be found at www.sfyc.org. For some very nice photos by Erik Simonson, see www.printroom.com/pro/h2oshots/default.asp?