Hosted by Encinal Yacht C lub
San Francisco Bay

September 10 – 11, 2005

Saturdays races were held one mile North of Treasure Island to not conflict with YRA races going on at the same time. We had a turnout of 8 local boats for the event. Encinal Yacht Club had set up a course around inflatable marks with leeward gates. The first race was sailed in 10-12 kts of wind and most boats were powered with their #1 genoas. Jens started conservatively, using his #3 expecting the wind to fill in and build quickly during the race. This turned out to be the wrong assumption and Tom Nemeth with his Clean Sweep finished first having better boat speed. Baleineau and its new owner Dan Coleman had shown good boat speed off the starting line but hit bad luck when losing three of its crew falling overboard caused by the failing of one of its lifelines. The crew was quickly recovered but Baleineau had to contend with seventh place. The second race saw everyone shifting down to # 3’s with the wind building up to 18 kts. Jens started to establish a comfortable lead on the second beat. However, he failed to cover Clean Sweep who got away on the left side on the last beat with a favorable wind shift and again, Clean Sweep sailed to victory. Our last race on Saturday took us on a long upwind leg to the Little Harding weather mark. Clean Sweep showed great upwind performance, leading the fleet towards Angel Island in search of tide relief. Jens followed a few boat lengths behind in second place with Vivace in third and Synchronicity, Baleineau and Samba not far behind.

Talking about Samba…..Roger thought he was doing ok on port tack in about 20 kts of breeze going to weather with about 15 degrees of heel when he sensed something was about to happen. He and his crew were looking under the sail periodically and it had been all clear below.  Well, not this time. TWO TORPEDOES ON THE STBD BEAM!!!!  Well, ok they were Olson 25s but they looked like they were going as fast as torpedoes. The impending collision was going to be Roger's fault.  Samba avoided the first boat, Baleineau, by at least an 8th inch (Dan turned Balieneau to avoid), but the second one was the problem. Shark on Bluegrass would hit Samba amidships, so Samba crash tacked over to starboard, and Shark did the same over to port.  Samba did their 720 and no one got hurt and nothing broke. Although Roger paid his debt to sailboat racing society, he still felt like he dodged a bullet. Roger later bought Falk, skipper of Shark, a beer before the trophy ceremony.  Falk said that incident did tick him off because his crew was all hiked out and most got their legs wet.

Tactics soon were thrown into the equivalent of rolling dice when the wind faded to a whisper in the shadow of the Marin Headlands. Tom (Clean Sweep) tacked early onto starboard to head for the mark. Jens and Larry Nelson (Vivace) held their course on port tack past the lay line to find new breeze. It paid off for Vivace, rounding Little Harding in first place, followed by Baleineau, Clean Sweep, Synchronicity then Samba and Hamburger Haus in sixth place. The search for pressure continued on the downwind leg, made more interesting with a container ship from Oakland crossing our path heading for the Golden Gate Bridge . Approaching the leeward gate, Baleineau had found the best line downwind and lead around the mark. Jens, like  Dan Coleman on Baleineau, rounded the starboard gate, which was favored and eked out his first bullet by narrowly beating Baleineau on the short beat to the finish. Vivace finished third with Clean Sweep in forth. At the end of the day Jens lead by one point over Clean Sweep with everything still open going into Sundays races.

Sunday greeted us with another clear day, blue sky and a moderate breeze. With the excitement building, a couple of boats were too anxious to get going and were recalled for being over the line early at the start of the first race. Clean Sweep and Synchronicity had to turn back to cross the starting line again. Carefully covering the fleet, Hamburger Haus finished first with Clean Sweep in second and Vivace third. Going into the last race, Jens was leading by two points and he needed to make sure to stay with Clean Sweep. Both boats sailed past the port lay line on the first beat, letting the fleet get ahead of them. This made for an exciting downwind leg with five boats being within 3-4 boat lengths off each other sailing towards the leeward mark. Again, Baleineau picked the starboard side of the gate. It turned out to be the winner and Dan scored his first bullet of the weekend. Jens followed in second place, winning the OLSON 25 National Championship. Two boats joined this years racing for the first time, Ralph Kirberg with “Ala Kazam” and Falk Meissner with “Shark on Blue Grass”. We look forward to having them race with us again next year.

I want to thank Tony Shafer and Steve Rienhardt for making it possible to have the Nationals at Encinal Yacht Club and also thank Roger Anderson and Bill Stettiner for having the idea and doing the tireless work taking pictures during the regatta and present every skipper with a framed picture of his boat. Finally, our regatta was graced by the presence of two very committed OLSON 25 sailors from Toronto , Canada ! Tom and Kathleen Kjaersgaard flew out West to San Francisco to gain first hand experience sailing in one-design competition. They crewed with Tom Nemeth on Clean Sweep. Thank you for sailing with us and come back any time!

Finally, for those of you who could not join the racing this time, we have a few Olson Nationals T-shirts left that I am happy to offer for sale at $15 each with free shipping. I have 9 size L and 8 size XL available in a mix of lime green and tangerine color.

The final standings are listed below.

Jens Jensen

SERIES FINAL STANDINGS
2005 Olson 25 Nationals

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Copyright © 2005-2008 Mike Wilkinson(2302)

The Olson 25 Nationals are going to be at Richmond Yacht Club in August 2007.

32nd America's Cup is over.

The 33rd America's Cup protocol stipulates all new yachts. They will be 90 ft and require approx. 20 crew members. The earlier races (Acts) will be held with the old AC class boats.

TBD.