Newb Alert!

[BobJ]

It was good to meet Bryan and his wife. It's too bad they were subjected to a bit of SSS tension. I hoped to avoid it by sending my comments to the SSS board last week. I did not receive the courtesy of a response so I spoke up at the meeting, exactly because of up-and-coming skippers like Bryan. At one time we were all where he is, but apparently most have forgotten.
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[vanilladuck]

Sorry I couldn't stick around for the entire meeting. I definitely enjoyed the spirited conversation about AIS
I'm working on my boat most everyday. Come by E dock and say hi if you have time

[NATBF]

Hello Bryan-

I too am a newbie, I too trained at OCSC, have an Ericson (E34) and am on the Ericson website ("N.A."), am on SF Bay, and care a good bit about safety. Like you I've had my boat a couple of years and am still getting it set up (a future project is a new racor set-up, so I may ask you for advice after seeing your blog discussion). Anyway, it is very nice to see another newbie here; until your post, I did not know of any others.

Some tips I have been given by people here, in case they are of any use to you / save you effort.

- Apparently the 3BF (three bridge fiasco) is not really recommended as a first race -- too many boats, tricky to maneuver in the crowd. The "No Trophy" race seems to be the recommended entry point for those new to racing, though that may not apply to you.

- If you want offshore experience, the YRA (https://yra.org/offshoreracing/) may be worth looking at too. In particular, they have a nice sequence of increasing difficulty that complements what SSS does:

- YRA Lightship race (to the SF Approach Buoy and back - 25nm round trip.) This year same date (Apr 27) as SSS "No Trophy"

- SSS SHF: May 11. (Around SE Farallone and back; 58nm). See also below for a later YRA Farallones race.

- Duxship race (to SF Approach Buoy, then Duxbury Reef Buoy 1DR) then back; 32nm.) May 18; same date as YRA "Bluewater Bash" which is a 150nm out-and-back to Longitude 124, which sounds possibly like a shorter LongPac.

- YRA Farallones race (58nm, around SE Farallone and back). June 15. Note: the SSS SHF is a month earlier, May 11 -- so one can jump straight to that, or do the lightship first, or lightship/duxship/YRA Farallones for instance as a more gradual build-up (or if conditions/boat readiness/whatever are not ideal on May 11).

- YRA has a Half Moon Bay race the same date as the SSS Longpac (June 29+), giving options if one does not feel ready for the LongPac (400nm r.t. to Long 126 40') yet. SSS has a HMB race on Sep 7, so there are multiple options for HMB too.

- YRA and SSS both do Drakes Bay Aug 10-11.

Anyway, I list this here because I did not know about the YRA sequence at all until someone on this board explained it to me (by phone, or I'd point you to the post), for which I am quite grateful. The combination of races offers more options for building up slowly (which I need/want, but again may not apply to you -- I am trying to get myself and my boat ready for some of the above this year.)

Old-timers here surely already know all this, but for me there was enough information overload just going through the SSS stuff (outfitting the boat, Farallones info, etc.) that I did not manage to figure out that there were other related events that could be useful to me too.

[fauxboat]

For what it's worth, people have done Fiasco as their first race, but it can be a daunting melee. The April 27 race, whatever it ends up being called, should be pretty welcoming. Last year the North Bay version allowed "ghost" crew who could not touch anything while racing --- which was a nice way to have someone aboard if you needed them in an emergency or even for something mundane after racing, like docking.

The Vallejo 1 race in October is a very popular first race to singlehand, as it has few marks and is mostly downwind.

More immediately, Berkeley YC runs singlehanded and doublehanded starts for the Sundays of BYC Midwinters. The next one is January 14. See https://jibeset.net/BYC000.php?RG=T001609245.

And YRA runs Doublehanded Midwinters. The next one of those is January 28. See https://jibeset.net/YRA000.php?RG=T008873290. As the name implies, those stop in the spring, but YRA will have a similar "Shorthanded Sunday" series that runs through the summer, starting April 21. See https://jibeset.net/YRA000.php?RG=T002682629.

The first step to any of these races is to get a 2024 YRA PHRF Certificate, $100 from YRA, at https://jibeset.net/YRA000.php?RG=T036978841. That lets you compete againt other boats, and lets them compete against you, by getting you a handicap rating. It's also a contract, effectively, that you (and they) will sail with the sails claimed on the certificate, and no one will try to hoist some extra-large spinnaker or something not in their handicap. The woman at YRA who processes certificates gets a deluge of requests at this time of year, so I encouraage applying ASAP to get a better spot in the queue.

Richard
2024 Race Co-Chair