60th Rolex Big Boat Series 2024 - Another Windy Day in San Francisco

14. September 2024 - San Francisco, CA, USA - On the penultimate day of racing at the 60th edition of the Rolex Big Boat Series, the cool, windy conditions returned to provide two great races for the ORC classes racing on San Francisco Bay in the 2024 ORC West Coast Championship.

The first race was a long windward-leeward, followed by an even longer Bay Tour race of 20.5 miles for Class A, 19.6 miles for Class B and 13.3 miles for Class C. For the final day on Sunday there is only one long race planned.

On the strength of bullets earned in today’s two races, Sameer Gandhi’s R/P 56 VASARA has closed to within 1 point of the class leader Dave MacEwan’s Rogers 46 LUCKY DUCK. With Chip Merlin’s Lee 68 MERLIN another 12 points back in third, the winner of this class will come down to who beats who in the last race.

The leaders in classes B & C had another good day today and look in good shape for Sunday. This includes Drew Freides’s Cape 31 PACIFIC YANKEE in Class B and Zach Berkowitz’s J/100 FEATHER in Class C. However, it’s not a runaway for FEATHER: they would have scored another bullet in Race 5 but got in an altercation that cost them a 30% scoring penalty that dropped them to 5th place in this race.

As a result, they still need a credible performance tomorrow to take the West Coast title for Class C.

Complete results are at https://yachtscoring.com/event_results_cumulative.cfm?eID=16418.
Photos are on the event website at https://stfyc.pixieset.com/2024rolexbigboatseries/.

Racing resumes on Sunday at 1100 PDT with one race planned, followed by awards at 1600 PDT.