Vallejo Race

149 boats showed up to race at the Vallejo Race in Vallejo, CA. After a short postponement on day one and with a fickle, light southwest breeze, the race committee sent the first two divisions off to fight a building ebb for the long 21 miles to Vallejo. Then the wind died. Once half of the divisions were started, the northwesterly finally arrived at 1330, as a wall of wind hit the boats, and within seconds they were off. Once around the windward turning mark, they had a one tack beat to get into San Pablo Bay for the real fun to begin. After Point San Pablo, the boats turned down just enough that some chose to set the chute. A building breeze, ebb and big waves created surfing all the way to Mare Island. The racers woke up Sunday morning under gray skies, and some drizzle fell before the sun came out. At noon the starts were off with a bang in plenty of wind to get out of the Napa River and into San Pablo Bay. Although it was building as the day wore on, it was nothing like Saturday’s 25 knots. On Saturday’s 21.5nm race down the bayou, PHRF 3 was won by the J/105 Racer X sailed by Mary McGrath. In the one-design J/105 class, the top three were Arbitrage (Bruce Stone), Godot (Phil Laby) and Advantage 3 (Pat Benedict). On Sunday’s 14.5nm race back, Bruce Stone’s Arbitrage continued their winning ways, bulleting the race and winning class overall.