Master Mariner's Race, San Francisco Bay, 2016

The fleet at Encina YC after racing

A few times a year the classic boat community on San Francisco Bay gathers to celebrate their lovely old boats with a friendly race. The grandpa of them all is the Master Mariner's Regatta. It's an event that has been run on and off since 1867, well before the more famous America's Cup race. Its origin was to raise money for the widows and orphans of sailors lost at sea.

Today marine industry companies still sponsor competitors, and folks rarely admit to the side bets our ancestors used to brag about. This year MAYAN was thrilled to be sponsored by Latitude-38, our local sailing magazine. Thankfully, there aren't many sailors lost at sea these days, but the comradery and fun of pushing classic wooden boats around the SF Bay in a breeze have carried on, as has the philanthropy.

The crew of MAYAN gathered at the StFYC docks early on Saturday morning on the 28th of May. Twenty-five strong and ready to sail. Some, the veterans of other races, guided the new crew to lines one simply doesn't find on a modern boat. Peak and throat halyards were pointed out, the Gollywobbler was tied into stops, and the art of flying trapezoidal sails was explained. Finally, the skipper took a few minutes to take the crew through a safety review and a preview of the strategy for the race. "Two primary rules." were announced. "First, keep the people inside the boat. Second, keep the water outside of the boat. If we do those two things, everything else will be a lot more fun."

Our course was the traditional Bay Tour style shown on the right. We would start between the StFYC "A" mark and the GGYC "X" mark, heading north to Little Harding buoy. Leaving it to port, we'd then sail upwind to Blackhaller buoy and leave it to port as well. From there it was downwind to Blossom Rock buoy, but a strong flood would encourage us to gybe out to the middle of the bay for the favorable current. After leaving Blossom Rock to port we'd sail a broad reach almost due north to Southampton Shoal and leave that mark to starboard. Once around we'd retrace our track to channel buoy "R4", sailing on the wind again, leave it to port, and sail a broad reach to the east of Treasure Island to find the finish line. This was measured as a 15.6 nm race course.

Lance, Chief Data Officer

For those who haven't sailed on San Francisco Bay, the wind fans out from the Golden Gate. (On the left of the chart above) This means that a wind direction of 270° at the start will have shifted to about 240° at Little Harding, and a wind direction of 280° at Blossom Rock will have shifted to at least 220° at Southampton Shoal. This, combined with a similar fanning out of the flood tide, means that sailing the rhumb line is almost never the fastest way to the next mark. Fortunately, we had two great navigators aboard. Stan Honey on deck and Lance Berc as "Chief Data Officer" manning the navigations computers below. (Hey, just because we're a 69-year-old schooner doesn't mean we're not up to date with all the latest navigational technology ;) This team allowed the helmsman (Beau) to focus on sailing the boat and delegate the details of where to drive the boat.

Starting a race on a 70,000 lbs schooner is all about maintaining boat speed heading into the starting line. Fortunately, the start was set as a beam reach and we could enter from the west end of the line. This meant we could get MAYAN moving nicely on a broad reach and make a nice smooth turn towards the line at the appropriate time. Synthia Petroka, our foredeck boss, let us know we were about four seconds late to the starting line. We'll have to work on that for next year!!

Skip Allen

As we gybed towards the starting line the crew set the large advance staysail, under the watch full eye of crew-boss Skip Allen. Grinding in the genoa and advance staysail kept the cockpit crew busy as MAYAN turned north onto a beam reach.

For those of you who've sailed on schooners, this will be no surprise. As the genoa and the advance drew full and by MAYAN accelerated to full speed and simply took off across the bay at 8.5 knots, leaving the other boats who shared our start in our wake.

LYDIA (left) and MAYAN at the start

Crossing the flood tide is always complex. On San Francisco Bay the flood starts first along the City Front, where the starting line was located. Then, as the boat sails north, she will sail into less flood and even a little residual ebb tide. Finally, as we enter the deeper water near Little Harding buoy the strong flood current will re-appear. At each of these tidal transitions MAYAN's leeway will change. To sail the shortest possible course, the heading of the boat must be adjusted to the new current. The chatter between the Navigator and the Chief Data Officer was continuous, with updates on the compass course the helmsman should steer being adjusted every few minutes.

From the left: Beau, Jeff Lawson, Stan Honey

As we approached Little Harding buoy on a port broad reach, the boats which started earlier were returning towards us on starboard tack. This made the combination of avoiding the oncoming traffic, which had the right-of-way, and continuing to sail the straightest possible course to the mark challenging. Fortunately, everyone kept a sharp look out and there weren't any close calls. Again, the absolute trust that the helmsman had with his crew meant that he could focus on sailing fast and avoid the distractions of looking around for the on-coming traffic.

MAYAN made a clean port rounding and beat towards Yellow Bluff under genoa, main staysail, and full mainsail. With only 25 knots of wind, we were short on sail area, but we've learned that setting the large advance staysail forces us to sail so low that we can't make up for the low angle with better boat speed. (More in a future post on how we plan on fixing that.) Knowing that MAYAN isn't weatherly and that there was a 3-knot flood tide in the middle of the Golden Gate, we took two port tacks which put us near Pt. Cavallo before we struck south towards Blackhaller buoy.

Blackhaller buoy with Pt. Cavallo in the background

As we rounded Blackhaller buoy and gybe set our spinnaker and advance staysail, there was some discussion about how close we came to the buoy. "Not to worry," the helmsman remarked. "The only thing that touched the buoy was the spray from our bow wave."


As the sloops with their symmetrical spinnakers ran close ashore down the City Front, MAYAN with her schooner rig was forced to sail out towards Alcatraz to keep moving and in the hope of finding a stronger flood tide. We found it and managed to pass a few more boats as we rumbled along at 8 to 10 knots.

Nadine Franczyk trim, Dick Watts grinder

It is always deceiving, sailing downwind on MAYAN within the flat waters of San Francisco Bay. The water looks choppy in the strong Bay winds, but the complete lack of swell means that MAYAN stands up straight and hardly moves as she plows along. With our boat speed steadily above 8 knots and a 2-knot favorable current, Blossom Rock buoy was coming up fast. Watching Nadine trimming and Dick grinding the spinnaker sheet, I was struck by the crew sailing the ponderously heavy MAYAN as if she were a small boat. It was great. We ground down a few more competitors.

The foredeck crew

The leg to Southampton shoal was too tight for the spinnaker, so the foredeck crew set the genoa and doused the chute. The sign of a great foredeck is that it's silent. Synthia, with the help of Sally Honey, Liz Kroft, Gene Sofen, and Paul Manning made it look easy. No drama, no yelling, just sails up and down right on time.

For those who've not worked a foredeck that includes a 14' bowsprit, this is no easy feat. No roller furling, everything is on hanks. Drop a sail from the bowsprit, it's under the bow. Lose the spinnaker, you've yards of shredded nylon. This team made it all look easy!

Our navigation team let me know that we couldn't lay the R4 buoy from Southampton Shoal mark, so we made a smooth rounding on to port and tacked back to starboard once we'd settled everything down. Discovering that we were still not laying R4, we took another port tack up towards Pt. Blunt before tacking when we were certain that we'd fetch the next mark. Then things began to get interesting....

Peter Mattsson inquiring why they hadn't tacked

As we approached R4 we noticed that the cutter BRIGHT STAR had struck the buoy and was slowly moving to windward of it while inspecting the bowsprit and hull for damage. At the same time, the ketch PEGASUS was approaching the mark on port and was focused on the injured BRIGHT STAR. Despite repeated hails of "Starboard" from MAYAN, PEGASUS was showing no signs of either turning to pass astern or tacking to avoid us.  Finally, when it was clear that PEGASUS wasn't going to give way, we crash tacked MAYAN to avoid a collision. One of our crew endeavored to find out why PEGASUS hadn't tacked or ducked, using the best of polite sailor language. ;)

MAYAN's track near mark R4

At one point the two heavy boats were only five feet apart, but calamity was avoided and the crew spun MAYAN around and eventually rounded the mark. PEGASUS did her penalty turn and not only apologized when we reached the dock but provided the crew with enough drink tickets to stand a full round for all hands. Everyone was aware of how close we'd come to serious damage, a lesson for us all. It is amusing to take a look at our GPS track as we sorted out our schooner rig following the crash tack. (right)

Elsewhere on the race course this day two boats did collide. The smaller was dismasted and the larger had her bowsprit broken. All these boats are large, heavy, and difficult to maneuver. If we have one cautionary statement it is: "Leave more than two boat lengths between all boats." It is simply too risky to cut things close.

Injured BRIGHT STAR (left) being passed by MAYAN

With R4 behind us, it was a broad reach in 25-27 knot winds to the finish. This is MAYAN's strongest point of sail and she loves a breeze. She started to rumble!  BRIGHT STAR, PEGASUS, JADE, and ELIZABETH MUIR lay ahead of us. We passed BRIGHT STAR first, making up the four minutes we'd spent sorting ourselves out at R4. Then, slowed by their penalty turn, we caught and passed PEGASUS.

MAYAN by 18" for the win!

There was less than half a mile to the finish line. To leeward ELIZABETH MUIR had become pinned to leeward of RUBY and was struggling to break free. As MAYAN overhauled them both ELIZABETH MUIR broke through and accelerated rapidly. But MAYAN managed to rumble by and get the gun by only 18". It was a hold-your-breath finish. The first three boats were only separated by four seconds!! Racing doesn't get much closer than that.

Cheers were shouted, beers were opened, and MAYAN sailed on to Encinal Yacht Club in Alameda to collect the Dead Eye trophy for first in Marconi 1.

Four men on the main sheet

Stacey and I couldn't be more pleased with the way the entire crew sailed. New hands and old, everyone pitched in and brought MAYAN home safely and into first place in class. We've learned that MAYAN loves a breeze, and she could have used a bit more this day, but with a breeze comes hard work. Glancing over my shoulder after I called for a bit more mainsail trim, I had to smile when I saw that it took four strong men to gather in that last six inches of the main sheet. We really do need to get a winch on that line!

Thank you to everyone aboard! Stacey and I really appreciate the great effort!

The crew: Alex Rickabaugh, Amy Manning, Carol Gordon, Chris Hofmann, Dick Watts, Elizabeth Anathan, Gene Sofen, Jack Gordon, Jeffrey Lawson, Lance Berc, Lisa Corsetti, Liz Croft, Nadine Franczyk, Paul Elliot, Paul Manning, Peter Mattsson, Sally Honey, Serge Zavarin, Skip Allen, Stan Honey, Synthia Petroka, Tom Lewin, Will Campbell.

Photo Credits: Liz Croft, Will Campbell, Serge Zavarin - Thank YOU!