Latitude 38 Latitude VOLUME 424 Octo 012 WE GO WHERE THE WIND BLOWS OCTOBER 2012 VOLUME 424 2012 ROLEX BIG BOAT SERIES — Forget global warming. The earth shifted slightly on its axis this year. It's one thing to race mulltifulls in the along with six perpetual trophies and "thrilled spectators with their blazing America's Cup. but in the Rolex Big six Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner speed and daring moves, especially at Boat Series? watches awaited the winners. mark roundings where they sometimes The St. Francis Yacht Club's premier Ultimately victorious: IRC A — TP52 mixed with monohulls holding a slower, annual regatta has been held for 48 Vesper, Jim Swartz (Park City, Utah); IRC steadier pace." B — King 40 Soozal, Dan The level of talent was exciting, too. Woolery (Alamo); IRC C — J/125 Double Trouble, Peter Krueger (Reno); IRC D — IMX 38 Hawk- What got hearts eye, Frank Morrow (San thumping was the near- Francisco); Express 37 — Blade Runner, Michael miss at Shadow's finish. Shlens (Palos Verdes); J/105 — Donkey Jack, Shannon Ryan, Rolf Stoneberg brought together a star-stud- Kaiser and Steve Kleha ded crew aboard his silvery 25-year-old (San Francisco); J/120 ProSail 40 catamaran Shadow, including — Desdemona, John Olympic medalists Randy Smyth, Keith Wimer (Half Moon Bay); Notary, and Chris Steinfeld; interna- ELLEN HOKE / WWW.ELLENHOKE.COM Multihulls — ProSail 40 tionally ranked sailors Genny Tulloch The image of 'now': Urs Rothacher drives Shadow, Peter Stoneberg (Tiburon). and Katie Pettibone; and Mike Tosse of 'BridgeRunner' from a hiking tramp, while his Svendsen's Marine. GoPro captures the action. Multihull Madness years (save for its 2001 cancellation after Going into Sunday there may have the 9/11 attacks). Fleets come and go, been no question about the winner in but like all classics, there's a timeless- the performance multihull division, ness to this regatta. Big boats, big breeze, but there was drama through to the big names. finish, and talent galore. That tradition continued on Septem- St. Francis YC Commodore Peter ber 6, but the average boatspeed ticked Stoneberg gets credit for driving the up considerably. The 2012 edition of the inclusion of multihulls. But before the Rolex Big Boat Series kicked off with its race committee could even agree to first-ever multihull division of six boats the division, and long before the start blasting along in chilly 16-20 knot winds gun, was the challenge of defining among a 66-strong total field of entries the division. What class constraints? across eight divisions. What courses? Just catamarans, or For four days the winds stayed mostly trimarans too? in the high teens, the sun shone, the cur- Bay Area Multihull Association Staff Smokin'! Tom Siebel's Sig 45 'Vamonos' blasts Commodore and YRA Secretary Bob Nab- across the Bay. Early indications are that multis er was all in to help guide the process. will compete again at next year's RBBS. After all, BAMA has no small experience in the matter. Leave it to a TP52 racer, though, to express the handicapping challenge. Hogan Beatie on the TP52 Rio commented, "It's like trying to rate a maxi, a Re- ichel/Pugh cruiser, a Farr 40 one design, and a TP52." Sausage-making, clearly. In the end, the race com- mittee created a perfor- mance multihull category focused on boats with a particular size and speed potential — no ponderous rent flooded, and temps in the low 60s cruising cats and no Hobies. They were had that special San Francisco chill. given PHRF ratings, scored using time- It came down to the last day — Sun- on-time, and tris were allowed. day's traditional "Bay tour" — for most The regatta press office was certainly of the divisions. A championship title, pumped, writing about how the multis ALL PHOTOS ROLEX / DANIEL FORSTER EXCEPT AS NOTED FORSTER EXCEPT ROLEX / DANIEL PHOTOS ALL Page 84 • Latitude 38 • October, 2012 UNIQUELY DIVERSE Tom Siebel, founder of the Emeryville software company formerly known as Siebel Systems, worked with America's Cup and grand prix multihull racer Cam Lewis to assemble a reunion of Tom Blackaller's 1988 ProSail crew, along with racing multihull design guru Gino Morrelli, aboard the Sig 45 Vamonos. But Shadow was on a roll: four first- place and three second-place finishes Above: SfFYC Commo- over the regatta's seven races. dore and 'Shadow' own- That also put Stoneberg six points er Peter Stoneberg (on ahead of the bright orange hulls of Urs right) salutes RBBS el- Rothacher's SL33 BridgeRunner, and der statesman Sy Klein- man of 'Swiftsure II'. twelve points ahead of two boats tied Right: 'Shadow' shows for third, Siebel's Vamonos and Philippe her winning form. Kahn's blue-hulled Pegasus-MotionX, a Lightspeed 32. Siebel's first place in race came in first for that two was the tiebreaker to edge out Kahn last race. "We had three choices," said Stoneberg. for third. No, what got hearts thumping was the "Head up — flip — and kill the paddle Shadow's sizable point lead going into near-miss at Shadow's finish. Stoneberg boarder; run over the paddle boarder; or the final race meant that Stoneberg only was setting up for a Hollywood finish, go below the guy and miss the finish." had to make it around the course to win. sailing a little high so he could come in After accepting option three, Stoneberg So it wasn't a big deal that BridgeRunner really hot and fast, seriously flying a hull. and crew coolly recovered from the wild Biggest of the big: The green and gray 'Vesper' That's when Stoneberg spied a stand- detour and safely finished in 20 knots of leads the charge to the starting line in IRC A. up paddle boarder furiously stroking breeze, eliciting admiration and applause Left: Skipper Jim Swartz with Gavin Brady. directly across their course. from spectators on the race deck at St. 2012 ROLEX BIG BOAT SERIES — plus knots, and these boats really ries. We hope we can keep at it as long light up," he said. "Elbows were and as successfully as you have, Sy! flying at the start line. Everybody I saw was excited to have the mul- The Soozal Division — IRC B tihulls." We've nearly stopped tracking the co- He also said the handicapping pious wins of Daniel Woolery aboard his worked well for the catamarans, King 40 Soozal. But in RBBS, he had to although BridgeRunner had a clear advantage in lower wind. "These guys were ferocious. Well-equipped and well-staffed." "These guys were It never got old to see the mul- ferocious. Well-equipped tis fly by the monos. At one point Shadow was screaming past a and well-staffed." big TP52 with an army of more than two dozen crew hiking out. Stoneberg couldn't help shaking beat defending champion and archrival his head and getting a big laugh Brad Copper of Alamo and his Tripp 43 out of his six crew, "So many crew TNT. sandwiches, so little speed." Woolery and tactician Pete McCor- Cam Lewis summed up the mick of North Sails kept up Soozal's feelings of the multihullers about winning form to best the five-boat IRC ALL PHOTOS ROLEX / DANIEL FORSTER EXCEPT AS NOTED FORSTER EXCEPT ROLEX / DANIEL PHOTOS ALL racing in RBBS. "It's about time! B fleet, finishing first to TNT's third in Trimmed for success: Peter Kreuger and his We did this back in the Blackaller day!" Sunday's race and taking the City of San crew worked hard to put 'Double Trouble' at Yep, a quarter century ago. Francisco Trophy with a 1-1-2-2-1-1-1. the top of the IRC C rankings. Woolery felt "elation today when we fin- Francis YC. Biggest of them all — IRC A But that's not the punch line. When In the biggest of the big boats — the Stoneberg looked over at the paddle six-boat IRC A division — Jim Swartz boarder and got ready to read him the and his TP52 Vesper dominated from riot act as they flashed past, whom do the start with an impossible-to-beat you think Stoneberg recognized? Irony 1-1-2-1-1-1-1. Vesper took first in of ironies, none other than Jimmy Spit- IRC A, snagged the title of IRC North hill. American Champion for 2012, and Speaking of mixing it up at the marks, won the St. Francis Perpetual Trophy Jonny Goldsberry, who was crew on for the second year running. BridgeRunner, said wryly after they Swartz said afterwards, "This is hooked the windward mark on Friday, one of the great challenges in the sail- "I see why they don't do 360s in the ing world — the winds, currents, and America's Cup." beating them. It's all about teamwork, For Siebel, the whole series couldn't and we just have a fantastic team," have been better. "Get out there in 20- he said, mentioning crew members Grip with the toes! Making rigging adjustments Jamie Gale, Ken Keefe and Gavin mid-race out on 'Vesper's bowsprit is a delicate Brady as among the greatest sailors operation. in the world. "It really helps the pro- gram immensely when you have a group With the help of Pete McCormick (left), Dan- of people who know how to take care of iel Woolery's King 40 'Soozal' (spread shot) earned five bullets. each other." Keefe added that the team also won the IRC East Coast Championship earlier this year. "After having a successful sum- mer on the East Coast, and then to come here and do so well is just an incredible feat, and shows how strong our team is." In what has become an annual tra- dition, the crowd warmly applauded Sy Kleinman when he took the stage to accept his third-place award for his Schumacher 54 Swiftsure II, helmed by Steve Taft.