Dear Balboa Yacht Club Maritime Sciences and Seamanship Foundation,
Over the weekend of October 3-5,I took a break from college studying to travel to San Francisco to compete in the US Sailing Match Race Championship. The team met from all parts of the country. Brandon Folkman and I flew from Charleston, Mike Pinckney drove north from BYC, and Gregg made the long trek across the city to the yacht club. Due to school work, we travelled as late as possible which ultimately forced us to miss the practice day before the event. However, turns out we didn’t miss much; light airs and flooding currents don’t make for a fun practice.
On Friday, we arrived bright and early to St. Francis Yacht Club to register and check in. The forecast for the weekend looked marginal, and Friday sure did show us marginal! We started postponed ashore and shortly sailed out into a flooding current and an abnormal easterly breeze. Due to the easterly, it was very light sailing. The Race Committee was able to get off two races before postponing again. An hour or two later, after Mike had taken a short nap, the RC decided to tow us across the bay to Sausalito where we were able to sail in a very fluky northly breeze for one race. After that race was finished, we were again towed back across the bay to finish the day and round robin in front of the yacht club in the typical westerly. We finished the first day tied for second with a record of 5 wins and 2 losses. We were very excited with how we had sailed that day and were very eager to get on to Saturday. After sailing, we were greeted by friends and family who had also made the trek to San Francisco for the weekend. I’m not sure Mike was as excited as we were, but we were able to be with our parents again after being away at school. We had dinner with everyone later that night where we were able to catch up and talk.
The next day, we arrived again to a very abnormal San Francisco, the easterly had returned although it was lighter than before. The postponement on shore became longer and longer until the westerly finally beat out the easterly. We pushed off the docks and were pleasantly greeted with a steady breeze. However, today was not our best day. We never seemed to settle into our groove that we were able to sail so well in the first day. Unfortunately, even with as many close races as we had, we reversed our day one score and were only able to pull out 2 wins. This came with huge disappointment when we returned back to the docks only to hear we missed the semis by 1 point. Although disappointed, we still learned a lot from our losses and continued to push forward. We again were able to eat dinner with our parents and spend more time with them that night.
The final day, we arrived to the yacht club to find ourselves greeted by the ominous fog that San Francisco is well-known for. The westerly had already filled in and we knew that there wouldn’t be any postponement today. We were scheduled to race Don Wilson from Chicago for 5th place in a best of three knock out series. Don was able to take race one from the start. The second race, we battled back from earning a penalty in the prestart to win. In the third race, we reversed the penalty and forced Don into a mistake and to take a penalty. We sailed around the course to win the last race and ultimately earn 5th place overall.
After our knock-out, we sat with our families in the Yacht Club to watch the semi-finals and finals where Nathan Hollerbach and his crew were able to beat the competition and win the 2014 USMRC.
Competing against past champions like Dave Perry, Dave Dellenbaugh, and other top US match racers we are very proud of what we have accomplished and cannot thank you enough for the support you provided us with to compete. Not to mention we were the youngest average age team there by at least 10 years! We have learned more than we could have imagined from all the competitors and earned the respect from them for years to come. We cannot wait to race them all again soon.
Thank you again for all of your continuous support with all of our sailing. Without you, none of this would be possible. We look forward to representing Balboa Yacht Club in the future!
Sincerely,
Ryan Davidson
Skipper, Golden State Match Racing