I had the great fortune to sail with my good friends and fellow AYC members John Morran, Doug Kern and Mike Haggerty in the finals of the 2008 Mallory Cup held at San Francisco Yacht Club on the Tiburon peninsula of San Francisco Bay. The finals this year were held in evenly matched J-24’s with 11 teams competing which represented most of the regions around the country with some entries competing via the resume route. The championship consists of 11 races with a round-robin format and no throw out races.
The four of us last competed in the Mallory together when we won in 1987 in Beverly Massachusetts. As a team, the four of us have only sailed together a handful of times since that event. We managed to get one practice session in on Lake Travis on Stephen Burke’s J-24 (thank you Stephen!) the day that Hurricane Ike was coming ashore in Galveston. Even though the northeast wind was extremely puffy and shifty, just having a couple hours together on the boat was a big help. We had so many years of sailing a J-24 together that our teamwork came back very quickly.
Fortunately, we were able to sail a practice race in San Francisco the day before the 1st race. We were sailing on the Berkeley Circle which is located in the lee of Angel Island. It is an excellent place to race and typically there is a 15-20 knot breeze blowing. The tide / current can be a bit of an issue but nothing like sailing along the San Francisco City Front where there is a huge difference in the current velocity depending on the depth of the water. On our course, there was very little current in the shallow water where the starting line was set up but the current increased in strength as you got closer to the weather mark which was anchored in substantially deeper water.
The practice race was held in fairly strong breeze. As would be the case during much of the regatta, the left side of the course usually had an advantage when the wind was from the normal direction. We eventually concluded that both the wind and the current tended to bend in a slightly counter clock-wise direction around Angel Island which made it easier to approach the weather mark from the left side of the course, particularly late in the windward leg, even though the right side of the course often looked like it a stronger breeze and a better angle to the weather mark.
The practice race certainly followed this pattern as the two boats that got left of us on the first beat, led around the weather mark. We were able to gain a lot of ground on both boats downwind (as would be the case through much of the regatta), but each time we let them get left of us, they would make gains. We finished a close 3rd in the practice race and coincidentally, the top 3 in this race would end up as the top 3 in the regatta….but not in the same order.
Going into the 1st race, we were wary of the teams that had a lot of J-24 experience as there were 3 teams that had placed highly in major J-24 events over the last couple of years. We were also concerned about the team from the Gulf Coast which was helmed by Ken Kleinschrodt, a top Flying Scot sailor with his crew Dave Bolyard who had been the winning crew on four Mallory Cup wins and who finished a close 2nd to us in Marblehead in 2006.
With the memory of the OCS we received in San Diego at the Mallory finals last year, I wanted to be fairly conservative with our starts. I felt like we would have the crew work and boat speed to make up for a cautious start. The first race was a little overcast and the breeze had not really filled in yet. We started pretty conservatively near the middle of the line and were forced to tack to the right. The Gulf Coast team hit the left corner of the course pretty hard and they were way ahead at the weather mark. We rounded in top 3. Over the course of the race, we were able to leg-out on the rest of the fleet and ground down the leader. We were eventually able to whittle the Gulf Coast team’s lead down to only a couple of boat lengths by the end of the race. We came on so strong at the end that I think we got inside their heads a little bit. I think they knew we were going to be tough!
After a 3rd in the second race, we walked away with the third race as the breeze increased and then won the most important race…..the race to the keg (which the regatta organizers conveniently placed on the dock as we arrived each afternoon). After 3 races, we were in second behind the Gulf Coast team with a 2,3,1 compared to their 1,2,2. Third place was held down by Paul Wilson who has been a top Mallory Cup competitor over the last 3 or 4 years.
Going into the second day, we began to feel like the Gulf Coast team was going to be the team to beat. We kept an eye on them at all times and were always looking for opportunities to make their life a little more difficult. We remained careful on the starting line and again, tended for mid-line starts instead of fighting for the pin-end of the line which would have helped us get to the left side of the course. This strategy definitely hurt our ability to win some races but our conservative approach helped us avoid any major miscues. Starting near the middle of the line also gave us the ability to go either direction up the beat and gave us the flexibility to stay close to our nearest competitors and not allow them to get too much leverage to either side on the race course.
Even with this conservative strategy, we continued to sail well, especially downwind. We were usually able to pass a couple of boats on each of the runs by staying in phase with the wind shifts and working the waves well. At the end of the second day, we had finishes of 3,2,1 compared to Kleinschrodt’s 4,4,2 finishes. After two days, we held a slim 3 point lead over Kleinschrodt and Dave Klatt, the 2007 J-24 North American Champion was beginning to get untracked and had worked his way up to 3rd place overall.
Going into the 3rd day, we decided to attempt to hurt the Gulf Coast team if we got the opportunity. The first start was delayed by a couple of hours while we waited for the wind to fill in. When the wind finally started to fill, it looked like it would be the typical day on the bay, but soon, clouds came in and the wind was very puffy and shifty with many wind lanes spread out across the race course. Every so often, we would get teased to go to the right side….sometimes it would work…but eventually, the left would pay at the end. In the first race of the day, we again started conservatively and were definitely keeping an eye on Kleinschrodt. He didn’t have a very good start and was forced right early in the leg. We decided not to let him get too far away and found a couple of opportunities to tack on him and force him further right. In doing so, it forced them to the wrong side of the course and they rounded the first weather mark pretty deep. Meanwhile, even though we were playing the wrong side of the course, we were still in touch with the leaders and were able to sail a decent race to finish 3rd while Kleinschrodt had to take a 7th. A four point swing with the scores this tight was huge!
The 2nd race of the day was started in similar conditions. Our strategy was going to be much the same. Soon after the start, we tacked to starboard and our jib halyard broke in the middle of the tack. We immediately pulled the jib down and hooked up the spinnaker halyard and re-hoisted the jib. At this point we were last and in bad air. We radioed the race committee to see if they wanted us to withdraw so they would have the time to repair the halyard for the next race. They told us to keep racing. At every mark rounding, we had to drop the jib (or spinnaker) and hook-up the spinnaker halyard to the sail that we needed to use for that leg of the race. Even while doing this dance at each mark rounding, we managed to catch three boats and finished 8th in the race. We just assumed that we would file for redress and be awarded average points and got ready for the last race of the day.
In the final race of the day, we again wanted to get a conservative start and thought we were setup pretty well with boats slightly covering us from above and below. At the gun, the individual recall flag went up and the race committee started hailing boats. We were completely surprised to hear our number as the last one called. By the time we got back to the line to restart, we were dead last. To our team’s credit, we didn’t let it get us down and we just started sailing as hard as we could to try and catch boats. At the finish, we worked our way back to 6th, just a few boat lengths out of 4th. With our so-so day, things had gotten a lot tighter in the standings. The 2nd place Kleinschrodt team was now only a few points behind us in the standings (subject to what our final redress award would be) and the two California team’s and gotten back into the thick of things. Klatt and the Pat Toole team from Santa Barbara had taken advantage of our conservative starting and the attention we were paying to Kleinschrodt and had both put together a string of good finishes and was now suddenly in the hunt.
Meanwhile, things began to get very interesting on shore with our redress hearing. We had only asked for our average points for our jib halyard breakdown. As the judges began to read their decision, they spoke of seeing our halyard break and that they were keeping track of the time we had lost associated with the broken halyard beginning with the initial break, and then added in the time we allegedly lost at every mark rounding while changing out the halyard. I did not like the direction this was going and started to interrupt to remind them that we were in bad air the entire race, etc. etc….thinking that they were going to award us a place based on our elapsed time as opposed to average points. The judge politely interrupted my objections and asked me to be patient and let him finish.
The conclusion was that we had lost approximately 3.5 minutes around the race course due to the break-down. At the finish however, we were only 1.5 minutes behind the first place finisher. Therefore, we should be awarded 1st place points. I was in shock and at first…I felt like we had won the lottery. As it sunk in for a minute, I realized that this was going to be a very unpopular decision with our competitors. I decided to try and privately talk to the judges and asked them to reconsider their decision and award us the average points that we had requested (which would have been a 2nd based on the protocol they had been using for calculating the average points). The judges would not consider my argument and insisted that we were deserving of 1st place.
Justifiably, the Kleinschrodt team immediately filed an appeal to re-open the hearing. I did not fault them in the least. I fully expected that by the next morning, we would be dropped to average points in this race. The next morning, the judges announced that they were not going to hear the request to re-open until after the races were completed and the racing was over. We immediately strongly objected and we argued to the judges that all of the competitors wanted to know what the points were before we left the dock. The judges claimed that they were one judge short and could not have a hearing until the end of the day. At that point, I approached the 2nd and 3rd place team and coordinated an informal meeting with the judges (that were there) and the competitors. We suggested that as a way to bring closure to this issue, we would voluntarily take our average finish if the Kleinschrodt team would drop their request to re-open. After about 30 minutes of discussion, everyone agreed that this would be the best outcome considering the circumstances and we were awarded 2nd in that race.
As a result, going into the last day, we had 23 points and a 5 point lead over Kleinschrodt, 7 points over Klatt and a 13 point lead over the 4th place Santa Barbara team with two races to go. With no throw-out races, anything could still happen.
The first race of the day was in fairly light to moderate conditions. We got a pretty decent start again in the middle of the line and stayed with Kleinschrodt. As the race developed, we were narrowly in front of Kleinshrodt and Klatt in 3rd place while the Santa Barbara team was able to win the race. This was a good result for us in that we increased our lead to 6 points over 2nd and 9 points over 3rd. The Santa Barbara team was now in the hunt for 2nd or 3rd overall with their win.
For the final race, the wind began to increase to the normal San Francisco conditions. With a 6 point lead, we elected to hold back at the start and not risk an OCS, knowing that we would be able to stay near our closest competitors in the increasing breeze. We were able to round the first weather mark in the top 3 and just sailed conservatively to finish 3rd in the race which gave us the overall victory by 5 points over Kleinschrodt. By virtue of winning the last race, the Santa Barbara team jumped into 3rd place overall.
I can’t begin to express enough thanks to John, Doug and Mike for the job that they did. Doug sailed almost the entire regatta with an injured knee (that he is getting ready to have surgery on). He never once complained and did an incredible job tacking the jib and flying the spinnaker. John handled the bow to perfection and in tandem with Mike, called brilliant tactics.
This win may have been our sweetest Mallory Cup win ever and we are extraordinarily proud to have represented Austin Yacht Club in this prestigious event. Additionally, many thanks to the Austin Yacht Club for the wonderful recognition we received at the Mallory Cup Homecoming held during the Leukemia Cup weekend.
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