The weekend started early for NorCal racers, on Friday, with the Windjammers Race from San Francisco to Santa Cruz. The theory is that this is a downwind romp, but coastal races this summer have suffered from southerlies. Flash, the TP52, won the event, with the fastest corrected time. Often these days in coastal races many boats drop out midway through, and this one was no exception.

Greg Nelsen had hoped for a biathalon, with a plan to finish the Windjammers quickly, put his Azzura 310 sportboat Outsider on a trailer, and head back to SF to sail in the Jazz Cup. “There was lots of fog outside the Gate with a beat all the way until about 10 miles to the finish, then a broad reach with about one hour of kite time. We finished ten or fifteen minutes behind the big Sorcery. It felt good to be near them. To add insult to injury we couldn't hoist out the boat in Santa Cruz because the hoist doesn't go up all the way up anymore. It used to haul Starbuck [Greg’s Black Soo] fine. So that ended our plans for doing the Jazz Cup. Outsider is still in Santa Cruz.” Greg did win his division (MORA). For all the results, see www.windjammersrace.org. If you have any anecdotes to share from the race, we’d love to hear them.

Saturday’s Jazz Cup, from the Central Bay to Benicia, really was a romp this year, with plenty of wind and minimal slow-downs. So much wind in fact, that the course record was broken. We didn’t know there was a course record, but Bill Erkelens’ D-Class catamaran Adrenaline is the new record-holder. He and his crew finished just short of 1400 hours.

The Jazz Cup trophy is awarded to the top finisher from the hosting yacht clubs, South Beach and Benicia. This year, Simon James’s Ranger 26 Star Ranger out of South BeachYC prevailed over three-time winner Goose.

A reverse order start for the 26-mile race seemed to work out fine. We saw a lot of round-ups, spinnaker twists, a torn chute, some bald-headed spinnaker douses, and a capsized catamaran in San Pablo Bay, the windiest part of the course, where the breeze kicked up white caps and clocked around to the east enough that most boats dropped their spinnakers for a while.

Two South Beach Yacht Club junior program CFJs, sailed by Andrew and Patrick Wilkinson (their dad Kevin is in charge of the junior program at SBYC) and their crews started early, at 10:30, and were shadowed by a mothership. The late summer heat wave carried on at co-host Benicia Yacht Club, where swimming, dinghy sailing, and water fights preceded an excellent power trio, dinner and awards.

For complete results, see www.southbeachyachtclub.org. Check out our Jazz Cup photo gallery, and you’re looking at racing pictures, be sure to visit the sites of contributing photographers Erik Simonson and Peter Lyons. Also see more Jazz Cup photos at www.pbase.com/slackwater_sf/jazzcup.