Sailing Education Adventures

SEA member Cathy Stierhoff skippered her Santana 22 Tackful in the Sausalito Yacht Club's first annual Champion of Champions race on Saturday, October 22, taking 3rd place honors overall.

 

The Sausalito Yacht Club hosts a "spring sunset series" and a "summer sunset series" every other Tuesday night from April through September. All of the skippers that placed first, second or third overall in their division for either series was invited to compete in the CofC this past Saturday. 11 of the 15 qualifying boats came out to race on a spectacular fall day. Tackful  had placed 3rd in our division in the spring series, so we got to come out and play again.

 

Joining Cathy as crew were husband, first mate (and okay, really the boat owner) Frank Lawler and Ted Miller, former SEA member recently returned to the Bay Area.

The start of the race was delayed for 2 hours due to no wind. Thankfully, we all toughed it out (don't feel too sorry for us....75 degrees, t-shirt weather, bopping around in paradise) and by 1400, a fresh breeze came in from the north. By the time we reached up to Yellow Bluff, it had turned around to a typical westerly and there was plenty of wind for the 6.5 mile course. There was only one start for all of the boats which ranged in size from the Santana 22, to a Wylie Cat 30, to a J105. Rather than the usual "time on distance" handicapping system, the club opted for a "time on time" method of scoring the boats. It's complicated, but it seems that more regattas are using this system these day. Click here for a description of how this method works.

 

Tackful wouldn't have made it to this regatta without the help of many SEA members. Regulars on board this past year were Catherine Boucher and Kaki Brzytwa. Other SEA members that crewed for Cathy throughout the summer included Matthew Davidchuk, Helena Ghez, Wayne McIntosh, Barb McVeigh and Mark Miglio. Yea, Team Tackful!