Windy Conditions on Day Two at Rolex Big Boat Series

13. Sep 2024

13 September 2024 - San Francisco, CA, USA - The breeze ticked upwards to a solid 20+ knots on Day Two of the 60th edition of the Rolex Big Boat Series, which is also the 2024 ORC West Coast Championship. Two races of slightly longer length and duration were held, and while there was no change in the overall standings in each of the three classes, the races were once again very close in corrected time, and some new teams emerged at the top of the results in the day’s second race.

Sameer Gandhi’s brand new R/P 56 VASARA © Daniel Forster

The day’s first race saw Sameer Gandhi’s brand new R/P 56 VASARA close to within 29 seconds of defeating class leader Dave MacEwan’s Rogers 46 LUCKY DUCK, and then overtake them to take their first win in the much longer 19-mile second race - but only by a 25 second-margin after over 2 hours of racing.

MacEwan and his team hold a narrow 3-point lead in this class after four races.
Class B continues to be dominated by Drew Freides’s Cape 31 PACIFIC YANKEE with bullets scored in both races, but by razor-thin margins: such as only 2 seconds over Chris Sheehan’s WARRIOR WON sistership in the first race and only 57 seconds after 2.5 hours of racing over Peter Wagner’s J/111 SKELETON KEY in the second race.

PACIFIC YANKEE holds an 8-point lead in the standings over WARRIOR WON after four races.

The leader in Class C, Zach Berkowitz’s J/100 FEATHER, also won the day’s first race by a thin margin - only 19 seconds after an hour of racing over David Halliwill’s J/120 PEREGRINE - but then a new team took the top place in the day’s 14-mile second race. It was Ron Epstein’s J/133 BACCHANAL that managed to defeat FEATHER by 1:14 after two hours of racing and come within 0.5 points of class runner-up PEREGRINE, who in turn trails FEATHER by 8 points in the overall Class C standings.

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 Saturday at 1100 PDT with two races planned.