The Sailing Club, Inc.

San Francisco, California
September 13-20, 2003

What an exciting event we “happened” upon.  It was races of the America’s Cup sloops on San Francisco Bay.  We all knew from Jon Stufflebeem that they would be there.  However, little did we suspect that we would be sailing right along with them as they raced for the Moet Cup.  This trophy is simply a plain, large, silver champagne bottle.  The boats were Switzerland’s “Alinghi”, winner of the 2003 America’s Cup races held in January in New Zealand, and the United States’ “Oracle” owned by Larry Ellison of Oracle, Inc. and based at the Golden Gate Yacht Club.  The Moet Cup race was the first of a series of regattas called by the Alinghi team with their boat owner Ernesto Bertarelli.  This concept is new to America’s Cup racing in that trials leading to the next America’s Cup races in 2007 will not all happen as usual during the few months before the big challenge race. 

It was a beautiful day that Wednesday morning.  We left our slips in Vallejo and motored under no winds until we reached the Bay proper. Then we found nice winds, raised the sails, and as we passed Angel Island saw far ahead a glistening huge sail of what had to be an America’s Cup boat.  So, focused on investigating our sighting, we steered our boat “Free Spirit” directly toward that glisten.  Wouldn’t you know, a second huge glistening sail shortly came into view, and soon thereafter glistening jib sails appeared too.  Our natural beam reach got us to the start line near Treasure Island in a hurry.  We furled our jib, started our motor, and joined the gang of boats “milling-about-smartly“ near the start line.  No time now to drop our main!  The race committee on Channel 69 of our handheld radios kept all informed as to the start countdown.  So there we were, right on line when they started.  Wow, were we excited.  There they were, these sleekest of boats with their huge sails, coming together as predicted on starboard tacks in the last half minute and hitting that start line at the starboard mark within a few seconds of the start gun.  The Oracle and Alinghi crews were perfection in action, and we all had goose bumps.

We followed these beauties into the wind, them tacking as would be expected under sail, and us motoring direct on wind trying to keep up.  When we got in the lee of Alcatraz Island, we dropped our main and tried to maintain speed up the course which was almost to the Golden Gate Bridge.  After Oracle and Alinghi jibbed around the windward buoy, we were able to get up close again.  It was incredible how fast the crews could pop-up and retrieve their humungous spinnakers.  Oracle won the race, and did it by 38 seconds.  We soon learned that this race was the “owners”, Larry Ellison and Ernest Bertarelli at their helms, and their selection of crew members.  Incidentally, one non-participating guest is invited to sit onboard, but their price tag for the privilege is $90,000.

We docked then at the St. Francis Yacht Club, next door to the Golden Gate Yacht Club.  Excitement in the neighborhood ran high.  Our docking location gave us the opportunity to walk over the seawall and join the folks in the viewing stands to watch the second race of the day, this day being the third in the regatta series.  As our luck would continue, we stood in observation of the race as it passed us twice, and on the exact spot that later proved to be dead-on the finish line.  Our location didn’t matter too much however, as the contest was not close.  Oracle again beat Alinghi, this time by 40 seconds.  This second race was the “professional” crew, Gavin Brady driving Oracle and Jochen Schuemann steering Alinghi.  This day Oracle was on track to saving face from the America’s Cup results in New Zealand.  They eventually won the Moet Cup series 3 to 2 in the owner’s category and 4 to 3 with the professionals.

Seeing these America’s Cup class boats was mind-boggling.  Oracle has a sleek hull of 80 feet in length, but is only 13 feet wide, while its mast towers almost 120 feet over the waterline.  The mainsail is Kevlar and carbon threads in Mylar film and is 2200 square feet in area, about the size of the floor space of a moderate home or large apartment.  It cost $90,000.  The spinnaker is an awesome 5380 square feet.  It takes one of those new McMansions to have that much floor space!  The hull weight is 8000 pounds while the keel is 40,000 pounds.  Impressive!

Still reeling from the day’s excitement, we all enjoyed a luxurious dinner at the exclusive St. Francis Yacht Club as guests of Jon Stufflebeem’s close friend, R. D. Aikins, a very interesting gentleman.  Then after dinner, Larry Ellison entertained us with a three-barge fireworks display that outdid Macy’s fireworks on the Hudson River.  Some of us like to think that Ellison did it solely for The Sailing Club!  Ha!

All 30 of us on the San Francisco trip were thrilled to witness these beautiful America’s Cup class sloops, together with the Oracle BMW Team’s outstanding performance in edging out the Alinghi.  What an exceptional day in a perfect week.

Vic Oburg

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