Two races sailed in perfect conditions for ORC class at Rolex Big Boat Series

12 September, 2024 - San Francsico, CA, USA - San Francisco Bay delivered its classic sunny and windy conditions today for the start of four days of racing at the 60th Rolex Big Boat Series, hosted by the St Francis Yacht Club. Among the numerous classes competing here are 25 teams divided into three ORC-scored classes who are competing for titles in the first-ever ORC West Coast Championship.

Under the guidance of PRO Dick Neville, the day’s racing started with a short 6-mile windward-leeward race held on the Treasure Island course area and scored using the 5-Band Low-Medium scoring model for an average wind speed of 9 knots.

The following race was on a much longer windward-leeward 14-mile course taking the fleet west of the Golden Gate Bridge and using the Medium-High wind range for an average wind speed of 16 knots.

Winners in both Races 1 and 2 were Dave MacEwan’s Rogers 46 LUCKY DUCK in Class A, Drew Freides’s Cape 31 PACIFIC YANKEE in Class B and Zach Berkowitz’s J/100 FEATHER in Class C.

By far the closest racing in corrected time margins was in Class C, where FEATHER won by only 10 seconds after an hour of racing in Race 1 and an amazingly close 13 seconds after nearly 2 hours or racing in Race 2. The top four entries in this class, all different designs, were within less than 2 minutes in corrected time in this race.

Results are at https://yachtscoring.com/event_results_cumulative.cfm?eID=16418.
Racing resumes on Friday, September 13  at 1100 PDT with two more races planned.