Sunday, October 30, 2016

The Great Pumpkin Regatta Preview

J/24 sailing San Francisco (Richmond, CA)- Richmond Yacht Clubs’ Great Pumpkin Regatta, entering it’s 31st year, will be hosted from their newly remodeled and expanded Club House.  The regatta format is unique on San Francisco Bay.  On Saturday, they will have 3 well-run racecourses, and then on Sunday they have their highly popular PHRF Pursuit Race (where slowest boats start first and everyone else chases them down to cross the line first).

The weekend kicks off with Friday night's Family Pumpkin Carving and Pasta Feed.  On Saturday is the famous Halloween Party with great food, great drink, great band and outrageous costumes.  Then, it all ends with trophy presentation and free pu-pus after the conclusion of racing on Sunday.

J/24 off San FranciscoLooking forward to this bacchanalian festival are dozens of members of the J/tribe on San Francisco Bay.  First up is a fleet of J/24s with several famous local teams ready to do battle!  Who will win their perennial fight this time?  Who knows?  But, it’s certain that one of these three teams will sit atop the leaderboard by the end of the weekend- Jasper Van Vliet’s EVIL OCTOPUS, Val Lulevich’s SHUT UP & DRIVE or Darren Cumming’s DOWNTOWN UPROAR.

In the world of PHRF handicap racing, in the fifty-six boat PHRF Racing class is Richard Pipkin’s J/125 CAN’T TOUCH THIS, Bill Mohr’s J/124 SPIRIT OF FREEDOM, Nesrin Basoz’s J/111 SWIFTNESS, Gorkem Ozcelebi’s J/111 DOUBLE DIGIT, Bob George’s J/35 KIRI, George Sirogiannis’ J/35 MOJO, four J/105s (David Gross’ NIRVANA, Sergey Lubarsky’s RACE QS/ RUSSIAN ROULETTE, Charlie Abraham’s JAVELIN, Simon James & John Robison’s LIGHTWAVE), two J/88s (Gary Panariello & Ryan Simmons’ COURAGEOUS & Steven Gordon’s INCONCEIVABLE), and two J/70s (Mark Thomas’ PRIME NUMBER & Steve Cameron’s 6-PACK).  Hoping to do some damage in the SF-30 class will be Anthony Castruccio’s J/30 WINDSPEED.
For more Great Pumpkin Regatta sailing information