The YRA Presents - Shorthanded Sailing in SF Bay 

Even before COVID made a full crew on board problematic, short-handed sailing in San Francisco was becoming more and more popular and now, it's one of the saferst ways to get back out on the race course. Join us for an in-depth look at short-handed sailing with 3 bay area sailors who have been doing it long before this pandemic disrupted our normal racing.

Lori Tewksbury, Jim Quanci and Bob Johnston will take us through the reasons Short-Handed Sailing was growing in popularity even before COVID hit, and talk about how to get started transitioning to racing with only 1 or 2 people. They'll talk about safety considerations, what types of races are ideal for short-handed crews, and tactics they've learned over their combined years of short-handed sailing experience.

It's sure to be an interesting and timely discussion and there will be a real time opportunity for questions and answers.  As a bonus, your registration helps support the YRA during this difficult racing season and will help us keep the lights on until we can get back to a full racing season.

All registrants will receive an email on July 21st, between noon and 1 pm, with the link to access the Zoom Webinar. It will come directly from Zoom so be sure to keep an eye out for your link that afternoon.

About our Speakers:

Lori Tewksbury

Lori has been racing on the Bay and offshore for almost 20 years.  She learned to sail at the Cal Sailing Club and moved onto racing keelboats on the bay and offshore, usually as foredeck.  She has experience doing foredeck on everything from Merit 25’s to Express 37’s and ID 48’s.  In October of 2015 she and her former boat partner bought the Express 27 Hang 20.  Lori has been racing double handed offshore  (OYRA short handed season winner in 2018) and fully crewed one design racing on Hang 20 ever since.  She is the current President of the Express 27 fleet  and still races on other people’s boats with two crewed Pac Cups under her belt.  She plans to race double handed to Hawaii in Hang 20 in 2022. 

 

 

 

Jim Quanci

Jim grew up on the east coast sailing and racing dinghies – Laser, Penguin, Thistle, Albacore, Lightning – and moved on to crewing on race boats – at first casually on the east coast and then more seriously when he moved to San Francisco in the mid 1980s.  First as crew and then on his own boat the Cal 40 Green Buffalo, Jim has a passion for all types of sailing and racing – bareboat cruising, racing crewed in the ocean as part of the OYRA series (which he is a board member of), bay racing including loving the Great Vallejo race, short handed sailing as part of the Shorthanded Sailing Society, and clearly an addiction to Hawaii races having done 18 crossings (15 PacCups of which 3 were doublehanded, 1 Singlehanded Transpac, and 2 LA Transpac’s).  He met his future wife (9 Hawaii races including doublehanded in 2014 PacCup) crewing on OYRA races and has gone to Hawaii with the “whole family” several times (he has two sons). Past board member and commodore of the Pacific Cup Yacht Club and Singlehanded Sailing Society.  Jim is a firm believer in sailboat racing being “safe and fun” first and foremost.

Bob Johnston

Bob is a Bay Area native who sailed small boats for much of his life. He began racing a keel boat in 2000 with the purchase of a J/33.  After one season sailing Troubadour with full crew he tried double-handing, winning the SHS division of OYRA in 2002.  Then with an eye towards singlehanding, Bob sold Troubadour and bought a J/92.

 Bob owned Ragtime! for 16 years and raced her to Hawaii three times, twice singlehanded and once double-handed.  He raced several OYRA seasons in the SHS (shorthanded) division, winning it singlehanded in 2016 and double-handed in 2017.  He's a long-time member of the Singlehanded Sailing Society and has been a SSS singlehanded season champion.  He's also a member of the Richmond Yacht Club.

 Bob enjoys sailing with friends, his wife Connie and their four (adult) children, but he continues to race mostly singlehanded, now with his Alerion Express 38-1 Surprise!

 

Register Now!