On Board

Ditch 'Em

The 2006 Delta Ditch Race was everything we expected plus more for a bunch of Santa Barbara Yacht Club sailors on the new Melges 32 "Yabsolutely". The 65nm race starts at Richmond Yacht Club in eastern San Francisco Bay and finishes at Stockton Sailing Club via the Delta Waterways. The race had about 130 entries of all types of boats from the little Wiley Wabbits and Moore 24's up to a Santa Cruz 52 and a Prosail 40 cat. We were not sure what to expect as we had never done this race before. We came armed with all the latest navigation devices and perhaps our greatest weapon local sailor Kim Desenberg who expertly guided us without incident through the maze of turns, channels and the famous Pirate's of the Caribbean run into the finish. I would not recommend doing this race on a high performance boat without a local expert as sometimes we were screaming along at 18.5 knots in a 2 knot flood with dirt literally a stones throw away (and you would not have to throw hard!). Some of the navigation buoys went by like you were driving in a car, we talked about what would be left of the boat if you ran into one at these speeds, not pretty.

The start was a typical cold SF morning with fog and breeze on, we tee'd up the big 4A right before the start, and set to check the angle to the first bridge. It looked good and the boat was screaming down course on a full plane. We watched the "Heavy" fleet start 5 min before our "Light" fleet start, they were powered up and pushing a lot of water. Our start was filled with a lot of hot sport boats, Melges 24's, Cheetah 30, J-90, Antrim 27's, Mum 30, and the ol' Hobie 33. We were the big boat in the class and were racing with a PHRF rating of 18, which meant we owed everyone a LOT of time. But that was OK, we really wanted to be the first monohull to finish.

The whole fleet pretty much stuck together and we couldn't shake a lot of the smaller boats since they would plane just a bit before us. A couple of miles into the race we all jibed to starboard after the first bridge. The wind started to build and all eight crew on the 32 hiked hard as we took off down the course at about 16-18 knts. We quickly opened on our fleet, and passed all the "Heavy" boats. We chose a slightly higher course because of a restricted ship channel, dropped the chute and went to a jib reach. A few Melges 24's, including the local expert, Don Jesberg on "Ego" kept their chutes up, sailed low to the other side of the bay with incredible speed. "Ego" was actually just ahead of us at the entrance to the Delta. The San Diego Cheetah 30 was actually closing on us on the jib reach flying an Etchell 30 jib.

Once under the second bridge, we hoisted our code zero and regained the lead over the 24. The race at this point becomes really scenic, flat, and warm. It was time to enter the maze of buoy's, bridges, tugs and shoals. We thought we would keep track of jibes and sail changes, but we were to busy performing these activities to count them after the first hour into the Delta, at which time we already had over 20 jibes and about eight changes. We used all five spinnakers over the next 4-1/2 hours in the Delta. I would estimate the final tally at around 50 jibes and 20+ sail changes. It was rare to have one sail up for more than 10-15 minutes. The wind was from every direction aft of 60 degrees apparent and velocities from 6 to 20+ knots. A few of the straight portions were exhilarating spinnaker rides with speeds in the high teens, too bad they didn't last longer because a corner had to be turned.


The Cheetah 30, never far behind.
Even though we sailed hard and were usually in the right spot, it was hard to open any time on "Ego" the Melges 24 and the Cheetah 30. The smaller boats seemed to be able to change gears, accelerate, and jump on a plane a bit quicker. They were the only two boats we ever saw after about the ½-way point. The final 3nm run down the infamous narrow "Pirates of the Caribbean" was slow in about 6-8kts of breeze with a direction of pretty much directly down the channel. This meant a jibe was required every 2-3 minutes to keep the spinnaker out of the trees! The finish was directly in front of the beautiful Stockton Sailing Club, with many spectators cheering. Although we able to hold off the two smaller speedsters behind us for the "first to finish" monohull, we were really impressed how close they finished behind. After a few congratulatory remarks to both crews of the 24 and 30, we dove into the task of getting the 32 ready to travel down the I-5 to Santa Barbara. After a couple hours of hard work we were ready to hit the bar for a few too many Mount-Gay and Tonics.

If anyone has a chance to do this race, go for it! The Yacht Clubs and their members are truly fantastic, but most of all I'm sure this is one racecourse like no other. Congratulations the top overall winners, 2 Wabbits in first and second, of course to our little brother boat the Melges 24 "Ego" that took third place, and the Cheetah 30 "Spinout" sailed by The Ed's homeboys for winning our class. As for us, we were pretty deep in the overall standings; we just could not be competitive in a race like this with a PHRF 18 rating. But that didn't matter to us because we had one hell of a time and finished first to get "Yabsolutely" on the giant Harken Block Trophy in the entry of the Stockton Sailing Club. Many thanks to my co-Skipper (and Brother) Rick, our excellent Navigator Kim Desenberg, the two Young brothers Dave and Bob, Peder Lenvik, Loren Colahan and Jeff Otis.

Jim Yabsley
"Yabsolutely"
Melges 32
USA 127

Photos courtesy of h20 shots and the author.

06/14/06