“That’ll never happen again in our lives!” exclaimed Gordie Nash at Benicia YC. His heavily modified Santana 27 Arcadia was the first monohull to finish this year’s Jazz Cup race from Treasure Island to Benicia. The brand new Wasabi, a Kiernan 44, was right behind but couldn’t catch them. They were able to set the spinnaker right at the windward mark, sailed over toward the Berkeley shore, where the wind clocked around, and they peeled from a reacher to a runner. They played the current and never had to douse the spinnaker.

First overall on corrected time and elapsed time (2:02:02) was Tuki, a Prosail 40 catamaran sailed by Roger Barnett. The Jazz Cup trophy was retained by South Beach YC, thanks once again to last year’s winner Simon James and the Ranger 26 Star Ranger. The coveted Jazz Cup can only be won by members of hosting clubs South Beach YC and Benicia YC, but sportboats and multihulls aren’t eligible.

Tim Russell on the Wylie Wabbit Weckless was pleased with their battle against Wasabi and to be so far in front. “We had good tight reaches with a man on the wire. We kept reaching and reaching, barely got by Castro Rocks.” Wasabi went really far to right, and they may have gotten into slower water and less wind as their boat speed was off. “Carquinez Strait was awesome - with those big ol’ reaching puffs. Of the three downwind races the Wabbits have done this year - Delta Ditch, Wiver Wun and Jazz Cup - this was by far the best for the wind.” Weckless was the third monohull to finish right behind Wasabi, which finally passed them at the end. Wasabi missed a mark, Tim yelled to them to let them know, they went back around it, and passed Weckless again. But Weckless corrected out to first place monohull, third overall.

Bill Erkelens Sr.’s Tornado cat E-2 would have had the fastest corrected time, but they missed a new mark at the finish, a small yellow metal ball called the ‘Bales’ mark. Some racers were grumbling that Benicia YC threw in an extra mark no one but their own members were familiar with in order to gain an advantage over the Bay sailors. The permanent buoy sent racers in close to shore in about 16 feet of water, and a few ventured in too far and got stuck. A half dozen boats failed to round the Benicia marks properly and were disqualified. Ninety-six boats out of 110 entered finished the race.

Dan Alvarez ran the Labor Day Weekend Biathalon this year: he crewed on Kevin Flanigan’s Fox 44 Ocelot in Friday’s Windjammers race to Santa Cruz, then sailed his own boat, JetStream, a JS9000 that looks like one hull of catamaran, in the Jazz Cup on Saturday. Ocelot came in third in their division, and JetStream won theirs.

“The only way to do both races is to have the logistics down,” said Dan. “And that requires crew wives and girlfriends helping to shuttle cars and people. It's been a long weekend for sure. We started the Windjammers at 0800, had a close reach to Half Moon Bay, set the spinnaker there, and by Pigeon Point it was blowing like stink. We made it into Santa Cruz by 1630 - plenty of time - but because of dinner and drinks at the club I didn't get back home on Friday until midnight. It was then up and out to launch the JS9000 on Saturday morning at Alameda in time to make the line at 1100. Then on Sunday morning the boat got stuck in the mud at the dock in Benicia, so I couldn't leave until after 1100. After a brutal beat back to Alameda I was done in." After which Dan spent all of Monday sleeping.

South Beach YC had two Catalina 36s entered, Cat’s Meow belonging to Commodore Nancy DeMauro, and While I Can, belonging to Tad and Libbie Sheldon. Libbie sailed the Catalina 36 while Tad headed up the start aboard the SBYC trawler Anabel. “While I Can had three Staff Commodores and the Rear Commodore aboard,” said Tad. “Cat’s Meow protested us for conflict of interest.”

We asked Nancy why Cat’s Meow protested her sistership, and she said, “They cheated!” They had their own match race and she bought red Victoria’s Secret bras to be used as protest flags, so of course someone had to fly one!

Tad told us that out of 103 starters, only three were over early, and they all eventually returned to restart. The RC had some excitement during the Express 27 start, and thought they might have to postpone the starting sequence. All three crew on Dan Pruzan’s Wile E. Coyote were hiking hard against the lifeline at the start. Suddenly, the lifeline broke and they all went in the water, leaving Dan alone on the boat. They all climbed back aboard very quickly however, one over the transom and two over the rail, and the RC did not have to postpone. Mike Bruzzone’s Desperado was the closest boat at the time, and had to luff up to avoid the MOBs. He stood by while the swimmers got back aboard, and was granted three minutes of redress off his finish time. Despite their MOB drill, Wile E. Coyote finished first in Express 27s, but Desperado’s redress was enough to put them in first place.

Like last year, the Jazz Cup was blessed with good breeze. Tad reported that they had up to 15 knots at the start, and that the finishes seemed to be compressed, with the majority of boats completing the 26-nm course within about an hour and half of each other. But gusts in the Carquinez Strait caused some spectacular wipe-outs and gear failure.

Edda Rottscheidt on the Transat Mini Zero Poco Loco called the race “Minilicious. The best part was the first part of the downwind leg.” Partner Taylor Cuevas concurred. “We got knocked in the puffs pretty good at the end. We’d be doing okay at 15-16 knots [of wind] then a gust of 22 would hit us.”

Seymour Dodds, crewing and snapping pictures aboard Steve Seal’s Wyliecat 30 Silkye observed, “We were the lunch in this moderate to light stuff. We had Tim Russell in his freaking Wabbit, which on the short beat to the weather mark got absolutely sprung. We could hardly see him as we passed Pt. Blunt. At Port Costa we had lovely dicey moments where the 25-knot blasts out of the eastside canyons ragadagged the lead

sleds something fierce. The sportboats just made the jump into light speed and had a ball.

“Seemed as if the entire fleet had a brain fade: ‘Oops Should have stayed up. We've just overshot mark #25.’ Even Yucca in near broach had to work up to the mark.

“The small boats went first in divisionaI starts,” said Seymour. “It made for a lot of boats finishing in a short span. Kind of exciting, like beating up a crowded Cityfront.”

Jon Stewart on the Mancebo 31 Bloom County said that he couldn’t get enough crew and so went triple-handed. Although they were late at the start, they were second at the weather mark, behind an Olson 30 with six people aboard. “Going to the right paid off,” said Jon. “We had issues setting the kite, got that sorted out, then had a great ride. It was really windy at the last mark, boats running aground - that last beat to the finish was a little crazy. Everybody that’s done it knows it’s shallow there - it’s the newbies that were running aground.” On seeing the finish line video later, Jon thought their finish was at the peak of the wind.

For results of the Jazz Cup, see www.southbeachyc.org. For more on the Windjammers, see www.scyc.org and www.windjammersrace.org.