Sometime in the middle of the night, a mass of warm air had the sleeping crews throwing off blankets and turning off heaters. The warm air mass, of course, was the forerunner of the big storms which we're enjoying (or not) this week. Down at the club in the late morning, flags pointed north with much enthusiasm. (Instruments onboard one boat recorded a morning high gust of 27 knots.)

With the starts scheduled to begin at noon, several boats left the raft-up shortly after 1100, despite the stiff southerly. Shortly before 1130 the race committee signaled a postponement ashore, together with the flag for 'come within hail', flying from the clubhouse deck.

The RC chair got on the PA and announced that they were seeing a storm front coming in with 40-knot winds. "We are considering our options for a fun, fair and safe race. We may design some new courses." The docks were all abuzz at that. "They can't make up new courses this late." "We may have to hit the ATM and start drinking." On the VHF weather channel, they were calling for gusts to 46 knots - on Monday.

At 1205, the PA announced: "Attention Corinthian Racers. We will go off postponement at 1230. We will start off the race deck. We're going to take advantage of this wind to give you a good windward leg. We are printing revised instructions for your convenience."

After noon several more boats left the harbor, some to drop out and head for home waters, other to get ready to race. The RC said on the VHF that they'd called the Coast Guard at Yerba Buena, who reported winds of 10-15 knots there. The winds in the starting area were oscillating between the low teens and just over 20 knots - and it turned out that they stayed that way for most of the race.

The RC sent the first divisions off to Blossom Rock as a windward mark. After the first two divisions started, they announced on the radio that although that course called for the finish to be at a race committee boat stationed off Point Knox, all the divisions would finish off the race deck at the club.

In the third division, Bruce Nesbit's Olson 34 Razzberries had a messed up start, having to tack onto port to make the pin, and then quickly tack back onto starboard to avoid the Farr 36 Petard. The final turning mark of the course was the Knox buoy. The Razzberries crew were all in agreement that the instructions just said they had to take Knox to port, and if they took Angel Island to port they were taking Knox to port. While all the other boats dropped their spinnakers at the leeward mark east of Angel and went back to the west side of the island, Razzberries continued on under spinnaker, not dropping until they were well into Raccoon Strait. They had good wind the whole way, except for a brief light spell at the edge of the Strait. They hardened up, sailed to the finish pin, jibed around it to finish in the opposite direction of starting, and finished just behind Petard. Did the flyer pay off? Only so-so - they got fifth. Did anyone protest them? Of course not - they sailed a proper race. (Yucca won their division.)

Did anyone protest the race committee? We don't honestly know. The race committee violated #4 of their own Sailing Instructions, which calls for any changes to be made “no later than 1030 hours on the day of the race." They compounded their error by failing to change the finish area in the revised instructions. What do you think? Should the race be thrown out? Email us with your comments and we'll include them in a future story.

Our photo gallery of both days' racing is now online. Click here for Saturday’s report.

Results are available at www.cyc.org.