Friday Night Races Are On!

April 7, 2013

We are off to a rousing start to our Berkeley Yacht Club Friday Night Series with 14 boats on the starting (and finish) line. The days are getting longer and so will the Friday night courses.

Wait a minute – that's not a Catalina 34. It's Peter Beaudry's Dufour 34 Chrysalis. ©2013 Sharon Hind-Smith

We saw a light breeze of around 12 knots from the southwest turning to more westerly. A short course was set to get all boats back in as darkness took over. Megan Dwyer's Santana 22 Mad Max took home first in Division 1, Bob Gunion's Olson 25 American Standard first in Division 2 and Yellowfin first in Division 3. These are our series leaders so far... but we have more than 20 races left in the series!

Kurt Olson's J/105 Yellowfin won their division in the first race of the season. Here they are with Gael Simon's X-402 GravlaX. ©2013 Sharon Hind-Smith

This is truly the best time of the year to be out on the course and back at the club. Just coming back on the Race Committee skiff and smelling the barbecue got me stoked up. Seems like the racing spirit spilled over at the grill. It was like a very tight start line there.

We have set a goal to see 25 boats out for the starts as we get into the prime time of July and August.

- Patrick Hind-Smith, Fleet Captain, Berkeley YC