Home	Summer Sailstice Rally 6/21/25

Three great Islanders, Luna Sea, Kapai and Wind Catcher, sailed the Sailstice Rally and were joined in spirit by Vanishing Animal. Commodore Egan provided a great write-up of the Rally, and we have keyed off his thoughts to inject some background.


From Kapai:

The days preceding this year's Sailstice rally were as gusty as I can recall for this time of year. Rick Van Mell shared the screenshots of the wind recorded at San Francisco airpot on Thursday, Friday and Saturday (below - bottom). Both Thursday and Friday had at least 1 50 knot gust and many gusts over 40 from noon to 1700 hours. This generated some pre-rally chatter:

Thursday from Rick Van Mell:
Rick & Dan,
Below is today's SFO wind, and I read the forecast as saying tomorrow will be similar (or stronger), beginning to subside on Saturday.
You all might be gung ho for 30 with gusts in the 40s, but I'm not sure about this kid.
My suggestion is that we see what is happening by tomorrow about this time and decide what we would like to do.
Thoughts anyone?
Rick

Dan's reply....
But wind makes the boat go...
At one point under the Golden Gate Bridge today my boat did say 47kts.
There was also less than 5kts wind east of Angel Island.
40 kts wind may be quite normal for the bay but I don't think my daughter would be pleased with 40 kts of wind. Saturday is also supposed to be a fun race not something to test our mettle and weed out the weaklings. As long as the wind stays below 30 kts and doesn't create too many waves we can reef our sails and probably be just fine.
Also as a reminder to always bring a real camera because cell phone cameras are no good I have a couple of pictures from today. It looked like a sea lion ate a harbor seal. (pics way down below)
Dan

back to Kapai's race report ...
Kapai was on the fence to participate given the forecast for Saturday but forecasts of crazy winds, it turns out, were greatly exaggerated. Kapai was doublehanded this year with my son Bryce joining me. We arrived at South Beach Harbor at 11am and sailed over to Bay Bridge start area around 11:40.

Luna Sea with Rob Blenderman and Justin, and Windcatcher with Dan Throop and his daughter Mary were already on the scene. I estimate that we had around 10kts of wind for the start.
This rally has a fun feature where the start is the shadow of the Bay Bridge at noon. We approached the start on port with Luna Sea to the lee of us but were over early and decided to come about and restart to make things fair. Luna Sea took the right side of the course with Windcatcher favoring a course closer to Alcatraz as we all headed to Raccoon Strait. The salmon fleet was out in force so we had to stay clear of lot's of anglers just past Alcatraz.

Luna Sea was first into the strait followed by Windcatcher who stayed west for better wind. Kapai was third into the strait. We all broad reached over to the Tiburon shore and jibed to head toward the east side of Angel with Luna Sea and Wind Catcher doing a good job of staying out of the wind shadow of Angel. Kapai cut the corner a little early and was in a wind hole for a bit.

Luna Sea took the lead after rounding Angel with Wind Catcher close behind. Luna Sea pulled way ahead and Kapai only managed to catch up with Windcatcher as we approached Treasure Island. Luna Sea crossed the finish first with Kapai second and Windcatcher close behind.

Bryce had an obligation later that day so we skipped a possible raft up and as it turns out we all congratulated each other for sharing an very pleasant Sailstice over VHF and headed home. BTW, I think around 15 knots was as windy as it got so a very typical summer day on the first day of summer.

And further from Windcatcher ...
(6/9/25:) I was sailing back from McCovey cove last Saturday (that was the Giants Game on 6/7) with a double reefed main, a furling genoa rolled up well past its designed reef point and a rail in the water for almost the whole way, thinking maybe I should be gentler on my boat or at least gentler on my genoa. After all, I have been watching the UV strip on the genoa shred to pieces as it sits in the wind and sun 365 days of the year and I regularly flog and roll and twist and stretch the genoa in the high (others would say) winds of SF bay.
(After the race, subject "White Triangles":)
Upon returning to the dock from the Sailstice I figured I would take my genoa down to store it inside the boat to protect it. It was worse than I thought. It is now at home in my garage awaiting repairs if that is at all possible.
So, I guess I'm back to thinking I should have a nice large genoa and a smaller jib. It shouldn't be too difficult to raise and lower a jib so maybe I will store my headsails inside the boat from now on and each day decide what sail I want for the day.

From Vanishing Animal ...
Though we had crew lined up, as an 83 year old skipper, I wasn't up for trying to push the boat in winds over 20, much less with gusts in the 30s. It wasn't so much the wind on the race course round Angel Island, where, as it turned out, it was beautiful sailing. It was our return to Brisbane Marina later in the afternoon that was the concern. For us, the SFO winds are a good proxy of winds in the five mile stretch from Hunters Point to our harbor, and even the channel itself as the wind accelerate around San Bruno Mountain. Even on Saturday the SFO winds were steady in the 20 - 25 range with gusts 30 - 35 from noon to 1700. Hats off to Luna Sea, Windcatcher and Kapai; but glad we are intact to sail another day.

Entry Data and Results

Here are the parameters that go into making this a fun Rally. (Parameters are listed in the Entry Form.) I had initially entered the entry form data and times and pics from Luna Sea and Windcatcher, before I had gotten Kapai's input. I was astounded when the results showed Windcatcher beating Luna Sea by 1 second with Fun Scores of 1:56:01 and 1:56:02! Ah, but when I realized that Windcatcher wasn't single handing and Luna Sea didn't fly a burgee, and lots more pics came in from Kapai, the real results are below. Congratulations to Luna Sea 1st, Windcatcher 2nd, and Kapai 3rd.

	Score					Std = 135%			Raw		Skipper	Virtual		Correct.	Pics	Pics	Drone	Fun
Sail #	Y/N	Boat Name	Skipper		P-Allow	Jib	J-Allow	Tall?	Rating	Skipper	Adjust	Crew	Burgee	Rating	Others	You	Vid	Rating
420	Y	Luna Sea	Dan Knox	E	0	135	0	0	144			0		144	5	0		149
38015	Y	Windcatcher	Dan Throop	I	10	135	0	0	154	Me			1	155	2	2		159
438	Y	Kapai	Rick Egan	E	0	125	0	0	144	Me		0	1	145	5	3		153
11543		Vanishing Animal	Rick Van Mell	I	15	135	0	-6	153	DNS	6	0	1	160				160

Results

Scratch Rating:

144

Course A =

11.2

Course B =

11.5

Start:

12:0:0

Decimal Second =

=1/86400

Finish

Elapsed

Raw

Raw

Raw

Correct.

Correct.

Correct.

Fun

Fun

Fun

Sail #

Boat Name

Skipper

Time

Time

Rating

Allow.

Score

Rating

Allow.

Score

Rating

Allow.

Score

420

Luna Sea

Dan Knox

13:57:3

1:57:3

144

0:0:0

1:57:3

144

0:0:0

1:57:3

149

0:0:56

1:56:7

38015

Windcatcher

Dan Throop

14:0:0

2:0:0

154

0:1:52

1:58:8

155

0:2:3

1:57:57

159

0:2:48

1:57:12

438

Kapai

Rick Egan

13:59:17

1:59:17

144

0:0:0

1:59:17

145

0:0:11

1:59:6

152

0:1:30

1:57:47

11543

Vanishing Animal

Rick Van Mell

DNS

153

0:1:41

160

0:2:59

160

0:2:59

Pictures from Rick Egan, Dan Throop, and Rob Blenderman.

Windcatcher from Luna Sea	Windcatcher from Kapai	Again.	Luna Sea from Kapai	Luna Sea from Windcatcher
Kapai from Luna Sea ...	Rick & Bryce	Windcatcher & Kapai Angel I. background	Approaching Raccoon Strait	Luna Sea ...
exiting Raccoon Strait	Windcatcher in the slot	Luna Sea in the slot	Kapai finishes	Windcatcher finishes ...
chart recording	Luna Sea after finish ...	and Windcatcher.	Windcatcher's track.	SFO 6-19-25
SFO 6-20-25	SFO 6-21-25	Sea Lion ...	feeding frenzy.