Fourth Annual CYC/TYC Friendship Race

By Harry Blake

The CYC/TYC Friendship Race (as we call it; they say TYC/CYC) was held in June for the fourth year in a row in the waters off the Corinthian Yacht Club. For those of you that may not know, this race was conceived as a friendly competition between the two clubs and is run by each club in alternate years. The venue will some day alternate also, but for now it was necessary to run it at CYC again. Also, racers who have dual memberships must alternate which club they race for.

The race has always been run in two divisions – spinnaker and non-spinnaker – and the finish places of each boat are averaged by club to determine which club wins overall and gets to keep the perpetual trophy for the year. TYC won the first two years while we won last year.

This year there were 27 boats racing, 14 from CYC and 13 from TYC. As usual the non-spinnaker division was the largest – 18 boats vs. 9 who used kites. The morning of the race was as good as it gets – warm, sunny, breezy, and smooth water due to a flood. An added bonus was the 5 America’s Cup boats that rounded a mark right in front of the club (Larry Ellison’s 1992 vintage Oracle was doing a horizon job on the other 4). Skippers and crew met in the CYC bar at 11am where the race committee looks out the window and tries to figure out the best course, sometimes asking for opinions from the racers. The forecast was for northwest winds of 10-20 in the morning, building to 15 – 30 in the afternoon, and by 11 it was already blowing 15, so the committee figured it would be a windy day. Given that, we sent the spinnaker fleet from CYC to Yellow Bluff (to port), Alcatraz to port, South Hampton platform to port and home (the non-spinnaker boats skipped Alcatraz).

The TYC–staffed race committee started the starting sequence at 1230 hours and the two divisions got started without a hitch. Fortunately, before the 27 boats finished, CYC members Jill and Trip Ames joined us fresh from a side-trip to Marin General Hospital where Trip had his ticker checked (he’ll live).

The first boat to finish in either division was Jan Borjeson’s non-spinnaker division boat, Basic Instinct with an elapsed time of 1 hour, 34 minutes. Jan also got a first on corrected time in his division. TYC’s Gerry Gunn on the J/105 Joust finished just behind, making him the first spinnaker boat in. Joust corrected out to 1st in the spinnaker division. The next-best performance by CYC in either division was Richard Korman’s Moore 24, Jimmy Riddle, who took 2nd in the spinnaker division.

Julle Le’ Vicki’s Smogen III had a good day, correcting to a 3rd place in the big non-spinnaker division, and Peter Birnbaum’s Morgan took 4th in this division. Finally another good finish was the Schneider’s Absolute which got a 4th in spinnaker.

So who won the perpetual trophy this year for best club performance? It went to CYC for the second year in a row, but man was it close! CYC had 7.9 points to TYC’s 8.1.

Thanks to all these CYCYC boats for coming out and making this such a success:

JIMMY RIDDLE, RICHARD KORMAN; ABSOLUTE, STEVE SCHNEIDER; SABER TOOTH, MIKE EAGAN; BASIC INSTINCT, JAN BORJESON; SMOGEN II, JULLE LE' VICKI; MORGAN, PETER BIRNBAUM; ANOTHER WILD BLONDE, MARCIA PECK; TENSION II, JOHN NOOTEBOOM; DONA, GREG QUILICI; ARIA, DAN CARRICO; GYPSY, DAVID JOHNSON; WINDHOVER, JOHN DODGE; CHICA, TED GOLDBECK; ZEN, WEN LIN