The Bay to Bay is a scenic, exhilarating, mostly downwind 31 mile point to point race from Mission Bay Yacht Club to Southwestern Yacht Club in beautiful, sunny San Diego.
This weekend 4 teams from SDYC, CBYC, and MBYC came together for the event. I was lucky enough to find time to stop in on my way back to Hawaii to get on the water for some classic fourteen fun. I’d like to give a huge thanks to Brad Reutenik, Terry Gleeson and Cameron Puckey for helping sort the logistics of getting boats and trailers to and from Mission Bay. Brad was very gracious in setting up my brother and I with a great b5 for Andrew Wilkinson’s first time out on a fourteen!!
We were blessed with champagne sailing conditions of 8-15kts, building throughout the race, and sunny clear skies. We started just offshore at noon this Saturday and set our kites in light breeze and following seas for a relaxing run, beer in hand (for better or worse). The fleet stayed very tight as we made our decent to Point Loma. After focusing a little too much on our beers and not enough on keeping the boat moving we flipped to windward and lost a good bit of ground on the fleet. Quickly we righted our boat, set again and cracked another beer. Michael Leitch and Liz opted for an early gybe back toward shore while the rest of us stayed offshore on starboard. Props to tangled up Terry and Devonn for being the first (we assume) fourteeners to catch a fish on their rudder foil! Some angry fisherman didn’t find it as comical. After our simogybe to lead back Cameron and Brad we found ourselves surfing up to second place just behind Mike and Liz who had made significant gains opting for the inside line. The racing stayed nice and tight between the top 3 boats as we made our way through the very puffy, shifty “Gauntlet” section under Point Loma. Unfortunately Terry ended up back a ways figuring out how to filet his fish.
Coming into San Diego harbor proved to be a bit tricky in avoiding many large motor yachts out to see the blue angels and shifty breeze. As we turned the corner to head down toward Coronado Bridge, Mike and Liz set their kite early in hopes to make a high reach over the point. As breeze picked up to 12-15kts they ended up under their layline forced to douse. We opted to stay on a fast two sail reach until we were sure that we could make it around the point with our kite up. Here we made our gain on Mike and Liz as they had to sail a longer distance with two sails to get away from the shoreline.
Once we set again, it was a blast ripping down the 3-4 mile stretch to the Coronado bridge, weaving between rental sailboats and Instagram models on jet skis along the way. Mike and Liz close behind split from us and rounded the eastern side of the bridge while we went to the west. Their upwind speed was quite good and with great crew work, Mike and Liz once again gained the lead.
The final upwind leg from Coronado Bridge to SWYC was fast and fun with 15kts+ of breeze, but tricky maneuvering through the busy harbor. At 3:26:30 we marked our finish time and made our way to the SDYC junior dock where JP Barnes was waiting to help us out of the water.
Terry invited us up to the infamous Loma Kai Sailing Club for a delicious (and dangerously strong) post sailing rum refreshment and pizza party. Mike and Liz were awarded the loosely glued together cup and filled it with wine for us all to drink from before breaking it over Mike’s head!
This was an incredible weekend of fourteens with good laughs and plenty of rum. I hope to be back next year to do it again and submit my application to join the LKSC!
Finishes
1. Mike and Liz
2. Patrick and Andrew
3. Cameron and Brad
4. Terry and Devonn
Write-up by Patrick Wilkinson
