A stark contrast between day one and day two, combined with confusion between the race committee and their fleets, marked the first weekend of the 2010 Corinthian Yacht Club Midwinters.

On Saturday, the mild northerly breeze was no match for the ebb which built to raging proportions as the afternoon wore on. The day started out in the area west of Angel Island near the Pt. Knox buoy where the catamaran Serenity served as Race Committee boat, aided by the inflatable Corinthian Spirit. The line was set east to west, and the RC picked a course with the Pt. Bluff buoy east of Raccoon Strait as the first mark. But as the IRC division started it was clear that the skippers were unclear on the start. Out of habit perhaps, they headed south toward the City. The RC recalled them, threw up the postponement flag, and told them over the VHF that they were to start in a northbound direction.

The starts were arranged so that the handicap divisions started over the course of a half hour. Then a break was scheduled, to be followed by the one design starts. By the time the last of the PHRF divisions got going, the gentle breeze had almost disappeared. The lightest of wind propelled the PHRF boats through Raccoon Strait, where the ebb was already evident. Before starting the one designs, Spirit zipped up into the North Bay to look for wind. Finally, the one design starts got going around 1330. Some confusion ensued over the November flag for the N3 division (the slowest non-spinnaker boats, scheduled to start after the one designs). The RC discovered that the November flag "means something else" (abandon the race), so they switched the signal flag for that division to Oscar and announced the change over the VHF. But apparently not everyone got the message, as at least one skipper hailed the committee boat about it.

The second group of starts got going so late into the building ebb that they were toast before they even started. A sailor on the Beneteau 36.7 Mistral told us that none of the one design boats finished. Actually, only one did. The Express 37 Bullet did finish at 1626. Most of the rest got stuck at the rocky point just west of Ayala Cove (and its attendant whirlpool) and couldn't get past it.

Meanwhile, the last couple of PHRF divisions that started before the break had a similar experience at the last windward mark, NR10, a channel marker east of Pt. Chauncey on the Tiburon peninsula: enough breeze to move north through the water, only to catch a freight train heading south over the ground. Only one IRC boat, Wasabi, finished. About half of the PHRF boats were able to finish.

Best of all was Steve Seal and John Skinner's Wyliecat 30 Silkye. Along with others who had made it around the windward mark and were riding the ebb back to CYC, the trick was to cross Raccoon Strait to the finish off the Corinthian race deck and not get sucked right past the mark. "John had a beautiful jibe," said Steve. "And we just slid into the finish with no wind." They were the first boat to finish on Saturday, at 1449.

Victims of the last-minute suckage included Gordie Nash's Arcadia, and Mike Mannix's Catalina 38 Harp. Gordie said that Arcadia stayed out in the middle of the Strait too long and couldn't get close enough to the north shore to finish.

The forecast rain held off until after the racing was over and twilight had fallen. Sunday would be a whole different day. Continue on to Sunday’s report.

New: our photo gallery of both days' racing is now online.