By JP Camille & the Beercan Team
Ahoy! We’ve had a windy and eventful first half of the 2023 Friday Night Racing season! Lots of fun and energy at the clubhouse every Friday since the first race on 3/31. The BBQs have been delicious and the drinks have been plentiful.
For this season we had a few minor changes to the Friday Night Racing Sailing Instructions:
RRS 40 is changed to read “Competitors shall wear personal flotation devices while on race course, except briefly while changing clothing or personal equipment.” Y flag will not be flown.
Handicap scoring changed to Time-on-Time with A/B 650/550. Note the non-spin and roller-furling credits have been maintained.
Added additional divisions for scoring: Dinghies (shared start with “Slow or small”) and Multi-Hulls (shared start with “Big and Fast”).
And some additional rule reminders for everyone:
Rolling starts: First warning 18:40, “Slow OR Small + Dinghy” division starts at 18:45, “Fast AND Big + Multihull” division starts at 1850. The start of the first division will serve as the warning for the second division.
In accordance with RRS Rule 23, racers whose warning has not been made are reminded to keep clear of boats whose starting sequence has commenced.
Boats claiming a non-spinnaker allowance must signal when crossing the finish line by waving a buoyant cushion or life jacket.
Heavy Weather Racing As we all expected, the conditions for Friday Night Races have been quite heavy all season long so far with very few evenings having declining winds. Early in the season we had several damaged boats including a dismasting during a race. We have even had races with no spinnakers at all (5/19) and several a single spinnaker:
Brave Spinnaker Days Olson 30 Maiden California sole spinnaker on 6/9 Olson 25 FLABSLAB sole spinnaker on 6/30 J/105 Resolute sole spinnaker on 7/7
Our diverse race committee volunteers have often chosen reaching courses this season, with the “westerly” windward/leeward courses #13 and #5 fewer times than usual. Popular reaching courses this season have been the shorter #14 (D, X, Finish) and #41 (D, X, D, Finish)
Mid-Season Awards The end of June marks the halfway point of the season, and to honor this milestone the following mid-season awards were given out on 6/23: Rookie of the Year Award – Paulo Juvara & J/105 Chao Pescao
Wettest Crew Award – Ian O’Leary & 505 O’Leary Construction
Where’s the Info?
With the transition of berkeleyyc.org to a new format, the Beercan Team has maintained some easy to remember URLs for important race documents and links. If you’re ever on the water and need to look something up you can always remember:
Courses: tiny.cc/beercan-courses
Map: tiny.cc/beercan-map NOR: tiny.cc/beercan-nor SI: tiny.cc/beercan-si Results: tiny.cc/beeresults Camera – Note the finish line camera is offline during the roof construction
Thanks to the Volunteers
On-the-water Race Committee duties this season have been evenly split between our super-volunteers Antoine Wright, Tim Collins, and Colin Thompson on the Bobbi Tosse and the race crews. We’ve also had participation from a few Officers of the Day – remember you can always volunteer to be OOD during a Friday Night Race and volunteer to help the RC!
The finish line has had enormous support this season, quarterbacked by Colin and supported by lots of members of the club. Teamwork really does make the finish-line work.
Thanks to all club staff and volunteers who make the Friday Night Races, and thus best night of the week!
Friday Night Racing 2023 Mid-Season by the Numbers (as of 7/7/2023)
SEASON Total Races – 15 Total Unique Participants – 31
Average Boats per Race – 8.5
SLOW OR SMALL 1st Place finishers – O’mar (9), Twilight Zone (2), Diva (1), Foul Air (1), Shadowfax (1), Joyous (1) Wins by Boat Type – Olson 25 (11), Others (4)
Participations – Diva (13), O’Mar (10), Mad Max (6), Foul Air (6)
BIG AND FAST 1st Place finishers – Yellowfin (6), Maiden California (3), Mojo (3), Lulu (2), Resolute (1) Wins by Boat Type – J/105 (9), Others (6)
Participations – Resolute (10), Yellowfin (9), Maiden California (8), Chao Pescao (8), Hattie (7), Mojo (6)
MULTIHULLS 1st Place finishers – Greyhound (2)
DINGHIES 1st Place finishers – O’Leary Construction (2)
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