When we decided to buy another boat the major criteria was being able to go fast, and being able to go even faster during deliveries; in other words we wanted something that was easy to rig, easy to launch, and easy to trailer; something that could go down the road at 60 and go downwind in the high teens. The Cheetah fits that bill nicely. We spent the winter months racing in the South Sound and Seattle area and by April realized that we really wanted to sail someplace warm. So over a few beers the Team Gladiator crew discussed the idea of the Ditch Run and the road trip was on!
Like many of you I have dreams and aspirations of sailing in far off and exotic places; never did I think that included Richmond, or Stockton, California! But racers got to go where the races are, and the Delta Ditch Run, aka the poor man’s TransPac, was one of those races on my have to do it list. The Ditch Run is a 68.5 NM race starting in Richmond, and ending in Stockton, CA. Nearly the entirety of the race is down wind; perfect for an ultra-light, over canvassed, sled like the Cheetah. What you don’t really grasp until you are actually there is that it also is a race in shallow water and on a very, VERY, narrow river.
June approaches and it is raining in Portland, but 80 and sunny in Northern California; good call on that road trip, but there has to be a few rules. So reproduced here with permission the rules went something like this: Things NOT to do in California … wear pants, get rained on, crash on the way to RYC, or home, run the boat aground, drop the boat off the hoist, run into other boats, tarnish the name Gladiator, remain sober, get arrested. Most of us followed the rules.
So Thursday after work three of us pile into big blue, hook up the Cheetah at RCYC and head out for Richmond Yacht Club. Leaving at 1800 Thursday means we have plenty of time to get to there. By 0500 Friday, 12 Starbucks double shots, 6 cans of Red Bull, 2 bags of jerky, 1 tin of cashews and 3 tanks of gas later we are at the gates of RYC. We collectively look at each other and think, now what? The sign on the call box says, “press 12 for the Harbor Master.” At 0500 and not wanting to make any enemies yet, we think better of it and decide to sack out in the truck for a couple hours of much needed sleep.
Around 0730, with three guys sound asleep in a completely fogged up truck, there comes a tap on the window. Opening up the doors, we find the Harbor Master standing by the truck offering to let us into the club. Once inside, he points out the cranes and says, “Cranes are over there, help yourself, bar will be open shortly, showers are downstairs in the clubhouse.” The man was a mystic! He read our minds and hit on every one of our basic needs at that time. A quick shower, change of clothes and a Bloody Mary later we were ready to drop the boat in the water. A quick and painless operation that goes like this: Park trailer here, lift boat, rotate crane, lower boat into water; keel goes down, mast goes up, boom goes on, 0945 and we are ready to go sailing!
Well not so fast. Now come the rest of the crew logistics. Since the race is a one-way trip we need to get the trailer to Stockton, and there is of course that other issue of getting the rest of the crew at the airport in Sacramento. So with the boat ready to go, it is back into big blue and off to Stockton. Two hours later we drop the trailer at Stockton Sailing Club and drive to Sacramento to pick up the other half of Team Gladiator that flew down Friday morning. After picking up the rest of the team it was back to Stockton to check into the hotel, get some food and plan our race strategy. Note to skipper: Don’t give an ENTIRE book of free drink tickets to the crew flying in from Seattle!
Well that was the plan at least. Once at the hotel the road crew promptly passes out from exhaustion, and 2/3 of the air crew passes out as well. It was Kim to the rescue! So a quick run to the store by Kim for food, beer, and rum while the rest of us slept and by the time she returned we were all ready to head to Stockton Sailing Club. All this and we haven’t even started the race yet!!
The best part about SSC is that they have a HUGE chart of the race on the wall of the bar. So over drinks and dinner we started to plan our route for the race with what turned out to be invaluable help from two of our gracious hosts!
Race day, Saturday, dawned slowly at 0530 as we began to ask ourselves why we were doing this. Into the shower, gear up, grab some coffee and whatever we can carry from the breakfast line and head to SSC to catch the 0700 bus to RYC. The logistical assistance for this race by the sponsors is absolutely fantastic! Off the bus and down to the boat, time to rig and get out on the water for some tune up and practice. Weather is great, sunny and warm, but the wind is light.
As we make our way out of the yacht harbor we watch the Thompson 650 sailing out run aground, then we run aground. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! is all I can think at this point. We are 300 feet out of the boat basin and 300 feet from the deep-water channel and we are stuck in the mud! The Thompson gets loose, but we aren’t doing anything but spinning around on our bulb. Finally after hiking the boat over as hard as we can we decide to crank up the keel. With the draft up about 1.5 feet we get out to deep water and enjoy watching the Melges 32, Flying Tiger 10M, Farr 52, Henderson 30, 1D35, and all the other boats in the light #1 and light #2 division do exactly what we did. Okay, I don’t feel like such a dumb ass anymore. I was even more relieved as we got to watch a Mac26x pull one of the Flying Tigers out of the mud; oh the embarrassment for the FT10 boys!
Out to the starting area and with sails set and chutes sorted out we began to plan our start. We were second to go in the Light #2 & Melges 24 division after the faster Light #1 and Heavy #1 Division. The start line favored the pin and we found ourselves with good position, but in a traffic jam of slow boats and a bit of a shouting match for rights. Our plan to get into clean air and away from the gaggle of Melges, since we aren’t technically racing them, worked well as we sailed a much hotter angle into fresh breeze before our spinnaker set. Once the kite was up we took the great circle route around everyone fighting for air and found ourselves in front of our division and in the mix with the division starting 5 minutes ahead of us. Everything was going great, we even had a few seconds to look around and see the Golden Gate and Bay bridges; to realize that we are in shorts and it was sunny as we went around Red Rock and passed under the San Mateo Bridge. We were clipping off gybes and picking off boats. A quick look at the chart plotter showed us in deep water as we took a hitch back toward shore and a shipping pier. Then came a thump and the boat stopped. Again I think, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! We are aground in what should be 20+ feet of water off of a deep draft barge pier and a J-105 is passing inside of us and an 11 Meter is passing outside of us. We are aground for the second time of the day and we still have something like 60 NM to go in this race and we aren’t even in the shallow part yet.
Fortunately the bottom is all soft mud; unfortunately it is very sticky. After wallowing around for 6 or so minutes we finally extricated ourselves from the bottom only to find ourselves in the middle of the fleet that started 5 minutes behind us with our fleet gone. Time to make lemonade with lemons and hope to work our way back into this. Smart sailing and, more importantly, a big compression zone from light air found us back with our fleet as we passed by the Brothers and turned right into San Pablo Bay.
Now it starts to get shallow as we run over Pinnole Shoal and aim for the Carquinez Straight. There is something a little unsettling about doing 7 – 9 knots when the depth sounder is showing 18 – 30 INCHES under the bulb; and I can tell you that it doesn’t get any more comfortable after you do it for 90+ minutes while watching boats inside of you plant themselves on the shoal.
Photo of the crew.Finally we reach the Straight and deep water; at least temporarily. The Straight acts a bit like a funnel and the wind picks up a little and the boat starts to come alive as we pass under the I-80/Richmond Bridge. We find a little room to start sailing more aggressively and we soon find ourselves hanging on to the Mumm 30s and the 1D35s with the Melges 32s & FT10Ms out in front, but in sight and the Melges 24s and Hobie 33s falling back behind us. Through a couple of turns, working from one bank to the other and soon we are under bridge #3 and into Suisan Bay and a Navy graveyard; another sight that can simply not be explained without seeing it. Raft after raft of ships from another era sitting at anchor.
We watch as a couple of the FT10M take the short cut around Seal Island, which is more of a marsh than an island, through New York Trench only to find themselves in a dying breeze and having to head back out to the main channel and then to find themselves firmly planted in the mud. A 1D35 strays to the other side of the channel and plants themselves at 12 knots. Score some points for the Columbia River Boys, red on the right, green on the left it isn’t rocket science; we decide that this race is rapidly becoming a war of attrition for those of us with deep bulb keels!
As we round Seal Island we approach the next official restricted area which is Port Chicago. We ask each other what the rules said about the restriction and decide that when they guys in the Humvees start to actually point their .50 Cal at us we are to close. We pass without incident and it is time to start looking to make our gybe into the San Joaquin River.
To call this ditch a river is a true compliment; it looks more like an irrigation canal and is about as wide as the RCYC moorage. With the wind building and getting us into occasional short bursts of surfing/planning we begin to question the wisdom of our entry in this race. So far it hasn’t been bad; three sail changes, 40 or so gybes and plenty of room to maneuver. This is all about to change as a pack of 10 – 12 boats all enter the river together. We collectively begin to negotiate our crossings; port and starboard while important as rules give way to common sense, good sportsmanship, cleaver tactics and, most importantly, old school horse trading. While you may have rights being on starboard, sometimes it is far better to wave across the port tack boat and “put one in the bank” for the next time you meet and are going to be the one in the give way column. We have many close crosses as we meander our way up the river and toward the finish gybing every 30 – 40 seconds, watching the chart plotter, planning our next two, three or even four gybes, paying attention to the shoreline and mostly treating the depth sounder as useless at this point.
The race continues as a battle of attrition as boats wander to far to one shore or decide to cut corners and becomes a bit of a drag race for those of us working the middle. Leads change back and forth on every crossing as we work our way along. We are in good company as all of the boats around us are from the start ahead of ours and owe us time, we can’t see any of the boats from our fleet except the 11 Meter that rates level with us and we only have to stay in front of them. Just keep the boat out of the mud and be conservative. Then about 3 or 4 miles from the finish, with the sun setting the 11 Meter makes a move that paid in spades; with local knowledge and what appeared to us as crazy they cut inside of a day mark, rounded the corner close, shaved ¼ mile off of the course and they were gone! Unfortunately for us there was no catching them as they poled back and sailed a straight course and we made another 40 gybes as we came down the Pirates of the Caribbean cut. We made it to the finish 3 minutes behind the 11M for a second in our division.
The race was over and it had just begun; 2100 and we had to break down the boat, drop the mast and get her on the trailer. Hurry up and wait. By 2300 the boat was loaded and we were in the rum tent watching the hoist antics as the fleet of 25+ Moore 24s, dozen Express 27s and dozen Wabbits all tried to get out of the water. By 0300 most everyone was out of the water and commenting on how long this years race was. Conditions we good for us although a bit light; guess there is always next year.
Eric Rimkus, Still Gladiator