The 'Advil' party - Kers and Scott	The new fleet captain with the newest Fleet 12 toy...

Fleet 12 Opener starts with two bangs. Unfortunately over half the fleet didn't hear the two bangs, turning the first race from an epic to one with only six finishers.

Starting with 22 boats in 22 knots of wind, the noise level on the boats precluded those on the favored pin end of the starting from hearing the two bangs and seeing the recall flag. Six teams saw the recall flags and restarted, resulting id only six finishers. Light fog rolled in from the Golden Gate all the way to Berkeley during the first race, bringing a steady 20 -25 knots of breeze. Bikinis were not the order for the day.

The forecast was for light winds and most teams simply weren't ready for what they would get on the season opener. The good news was that there were no broken spars. The casualties included torn spinnakers, broken boom vangs, failed spinnaker pole fittings, jib cars, a broken backstay and a whole bunch of broken ropes.

The second race included 13 boats starting as the fog disappeared and it look like it was going to lighten up. The competitors behaved and there was no general recall. Peter Vessella was the first to finish in 50 minutes of racing. Most of the starting boats in this race were able to finish, as the naughty wind shifted to the left 40 degrees.

As the Race Committee set up for the third race, the lefty persisted, so up went the anchor and off to the right went the Race Committee. The wind doesn't shift left in San Francisco when the breeze is on, but it did this day. As the third race was started, the breeze went 30 degrees back right. The Race Committee picked up the leeward mark and the competitors followed back almost to the first location. The wind was down to 20 knots at the start and down to 25 knots at the weather mark.

After abandoning the third race, it was resailed in building wind. 8 boats were left for the third race and as they sailed toward the Gate, the big bang was in the making. Up around the weather mark, the leaders set their kites and lasted until the big bang where the wind gods asked 1091, 666, and 905 to leave. Out of the squall came one red and white spinnaker with the number 901 on it. John Sutak, running the middle of 901, won the race with a big margin with Skip Mc Cormick driving. We saw no other spinnakers but John's after the big crash. This, being the initiation to fleet 12 for Ben and Wayne, was a tough way to end the day. Please come back! The boats finishing the third race were Sutak, Vessella, new member Chuck Eaton, Vern Neff, and Dale Hoffman.

The Race Committee was treated to quite a show as they were able to sit downstairs on Traf'lo like watching an action packed T.V.

Half the fleet stumbled into KCYC after getting their boats put away, ready for beer and advil. The new members that were there were introduced to fleet 12 a little more graciously than they were on the water.

We welcome our new fleet members and promise this will never happen again.

By Kers Clausen