The Singlehanded Sailing Society’s Vallejo 1-2 saw two sides of the coin last weekend. Saturday featured typical fall weather: fog in the morning with unpredictable wind which filled in for the final run in the sun to the Napa River. Sunday was more like winter: a windy, choppy slog back through San Pablo Bay in what surely looked like rain, only to have the wind lighten near the Brothers, tapering off almost completely by the finish.

Saturday’s race started at the Olympic Circle ‘G’ mark and headed up to Vallejo YC. Sunday’s race started at VYC and ended up off the Richmond YC race deck.

Kim Stuart sailed Bruce Nesbit’s Olson 34 Razzberries in the singlehanded Vallejo 1, and Bruce joined her for the doublehanded return. This was Kim’s first time to Vallejo, ever. She didn’t even know where it was. Bruce and wife Lina crew for Kim on her Schock 35 in Southern California and loaned her Razzberries for the race. When asked if she ever races her Schock singlehanded, she replied, “Are you crazy?”

Rachel Fogel sailed her Great White to a second place in Express 27s Saturday, in her first singlehanded race. Steve Katzman’s Dianne came in first in a six-boat division.

Another female-skippered boat, the Cal 20 Dura Mater, was the last boat to finish. Jacqueline Philpott sailed into the raft-up at VYC under late afternoon sunshine. No one came close to the 1800 time limit.

The first boat to finish by a more than 10 minutes on Saturday was Mark Howe’s new Farr 36, War Pony, which finished at 14:05:05. Having to steer, handle sails and attempt to eat sandwiches by yourself must be hard. What's next, singlehanding a TP52 to Vallejo? Dave Hodges’ cold-molded Farr 38 Timber Wolf corrected out into first place in their division, PHRF <105.

Dylan Benjamin, on the Dogpatch 26 Moonshine, corrected out to first place overall on Saturday. Second overall was Tchoupitoulas, Stephen Buckingham’s Santana 22, and third was Arcadia, Gordie Nash’s No-Longer-a-Santana 27.

On Sunday, an entirely different trio captured the top three spots overall: Timber Wolf, Dan Alvarez’s JS9000 JetStream, and Steve Wonner’s Wyliecat 30 Uno.

Overall winner for both days combined was JetStream, second was Arcadia, third was Timber Wolf. Complete (though provisional) results are posted at www.sfbaysss.org/racing-new.html.

The awards ceremony for the Vallejo 1-2, and for the entire SSS season, will be held at 1930 on Wednesday, October 21, at Oakland YC in Alameda. With the 2009 racing all wrapped up, sailors were already asking, "Which way are you going?" in next year’s Three Bridge Fiasco. Bring it on.