Recidivist Rides Again

[Photoboy]

Colin Case's IMS 39' Recidivist is once again charging on the the Bay! The 1996
Carl Schumacher designed Ian Franklin (NZ) built epoxy/kevlar ocean racer was the
4th Schumacher boat Colin owned and campaigned locally. Other vessels were a CS 30 named Felony,
a CS 34 named Second Offense, and a CS 35' National Biscuit. Mr Case passed away
a number of years ago and his boat was sold, then later donated to the California Maritime Academy in
Vallejo, where she did hard time at the hands of the cadets before being acquired by Simon Winer
from Point Richmond.

Simon has given the boat lots of love, patching soft spots, rejuvenating the power plant, replacing parts and lines
that needed it and has her now in bristol condition. The plans are to enjoy fun races with friends and do some
"boat camping". The boat came with quit a quiver and Simon reports they have only just begun to work through
the inventory and see what the old girl is still capable of. At last week's RYC Intra Club event, a pursuit event around Angel
and Yerba Buena, Recidivist was "hitting near 10 knots just reaching with white sails and just a delight to sail" according
to Simon.


Below are some additional frames and you can see the results: HERE!

[Carl Spackler]

The previous owner an Aussie by chance?

[IOR Geezer]

Great to see she is in loving hands!

[El Capitan]

So she got sent up the river for past infractions?

[Carl Spackler]

No boat named "Jail-Bait" ?

[Nick Salvador]

Last Wednesday afternoon my phone lit up with a text message inviting me to stand in for Angie on Steve Cameron’s K6 sport boat, 6 Pac. Forgetting that I kind of had a dinner cooking commitment, I agreed.

Steve and I have done a couple of Big Daddy’s on 6 Pac, usually getting mauled on Saturday’s windward/leeward courses with upwind finishes. A K6 is an off the wind beast…upwind against longer boats, we get the crap beat out of us…especially when there is an extra upwind finish leg. Sunday pursuit races are kind of our thing, because off the breeze, a K6 is kind of frightening in a “hold the hell on when you pull the bow down” kind of way. And, it’s wet…with 10” of freeboard, it’s a 505 with a keel, and you get fire-hosed in any kind of seaway when reaching.

RYC’s Interclub series is set up as a pursuit, and the K6 was entered with a Cal 40’s 114 rating. This had us starting us about midpack, 30+ minutes after the slowest boats that still had 5’ of waterline on us. Saturday’s 14.8 nm course left Angel Island and TI to port, with a finish in front of the club. With 19’ of waterline, we needed to sail as few miles as possible, so we couldn’t explore the right corner of the course leading to Raccoon Straight. We pretty much felt our way up the middle, taking a big lift up the middle of the straight until we were passed by a 5.7 on the inside. One painful tack towards Florida put us back in favorable current, where we penetrated the standing waves off of Pt. Stuart.

To this point, the course had been ALL upwind. We had been passed by a few larger boats as we had expected. Once the wind got to our beam, we knew we had a slight advantage. 6 Pac is an off the wind rocket ship. We held high on the white sail reach across the slot towards TI. We couldn’t waste the time or distance to sail over the top of Alcatraz which would have given us a decent kite angle, but we were clocking kind of wet 11’s and 12’s across to TI, passing the bigger boats that had run us down on the upwind leg. We also didn’t want to soak down too far and have to sail upwind along TI towards the bridge. We launched, legging out on Baleinu and Lilith, both of whom had tens of feet of waterline on us.

Arriving behind the leaders at the Bay Bridge, we had kind of an ambitious set…we couldn’t talk ourselves out of it, and tried to get over the top of the Santana 22 Albacore…and flamed out…very very bigly. Recovering, we re-hoisted for maybe .5 mile until the fluky breeze went back forward behind TI. Playing the puffs and gusts got us to the N. end of TI slightly behind Kurt and kids sailing kind of overpowered with a #1 on Moore Wavohs…then we sailed into the breeze and things went a bit hairball.

Photoboy’s lone pic of 6 Pac was taken as we were passing through 12 kts…and the rest of the ride was pretty much underwater. We didn’t see 12 again until we approached the Richmond breakwater. We sustained 14 kts from TI to the RYC with bursts that were well above that, we just couldn’t see the Speed Puck. It was wet, as in; mackerel went flying by my head wet. Steve kept the bow up hoping to get the magic shift were we could set and sail really fast, but we never could get the wind far enough aft to set the kite. We were out of the main for most of the reach and for the most part, we jib reached across. In the gusts, even the jib couldn’t be held, then Steve would go about 10 down and the acceleration would be incredible. The blade harmonics were pretty wild. The building ebb combined with a pretty good breeze created a few torpedo like moments…launching into a trough, submerging (and holding your breath), then going bow down and launching out the back side. Disney would charge 30 bucks for this ride alone.

We finally set the kite at the entrance to the Portrero Reach, slotting ourselves in front of a couple of huge WylieCats, taking 2nd. Warming up in the sun on the dock with a cold beer, our vocabulary was kind of limited to “holy shit” and “hey, you can hike when you’re scared enough”.

It was about as much fun as you can have on a boat…with a bit more south west in the breeze and the kite up, it might have been totally terrifying. I’m keeping my fingers X’d and carrying my mask and snorkel next time.