GoSailing SF Meeting at GGYC March 8, 2011

The AC34 in San Francisco

Yesterday a group called GoSailing SF (formerly Sailing Renaissance) held a seminar at the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco. Gary Jobson and ACRM PRO John Craig spoke and then 3 panelists, Ashely Tobin (ACOC counsel now, BMOR prior), Howie Shiebler, and Eric Holzeimer gave 10 minute talks. The seminar was targeted to people in the marine industry and the room was standing room only ~ 150 or so people.

John Craig reviewed the slides (we’ve seen most of these from the NOP) of the bay and fielded questions about the race course. This for him was a friendly audience and he went from slide to slide and took questions along the way. He deflected questions that weren’t under his purview, like what will happen to USA17, what the status is of the EIR right now, and others. The below are not direct quotes, but my notes are contemporaneous. He went through an overview, which we all know, so I’m going to jump in where I think folks will be interested.

On Spectator Areas:

Similar to fleet week week, but with spectator areas on the north of Alcatraz and to the east of Alcatraz, but not infinging on the traffic lane. We feel that there will be a push at the finish line so we are working to figure out how to cope with it. As for the course: We don’t know. We don’t know what the boats are gonna do, we don’t know how many laps, we’ve thought about marks inside the gate, outside the gate, reaching marks, leeward marks at blossom…etc

At end of April or beginning of May we will run a test event in NZL with 4-6 boats and will figure out how to set up the courses and how to work with the media, the public and get them close to shore.”

Then we will have an idea of how narrow the corridor should be. if we move in the spectators, it will force them to tack more, which may be something we want to do. (crowd laughs)

Q: How will spectator spots be allocated?

A: We don’t know what the interest will be. I’d love to see a lot of boats out there, but I’d also like to see people on shore.

Q: From the image it looks like the spectator fleet goes all around the shore, but I’ve also heard from the AC that you want people on land to feel like they can reach out and touch the boats. How will you accomplish this?

A: We may limit parts of the spectator fleet so that teams can go in at certain piers along the city front.

Q: Any idea on mega yachts?

A: Not yet, we think there will be a lot.

Q: Did you hear about the tonnage change for piloted boats that went into effect on January 1?

A: Yes and were were happy to hear about that. Thank you. Tonnage went to 750 from 300 for mega yachts. Meaning that they <750 can come in without a pilot.

Q: Do you have concerns that the races will be less than an hour (given that in the AC there will only be one race per day)?

A: No…we have the pre start, the race, it will be an hour and a half, two hour tv show.

Q: One course or two?

A: We are anticipating one course. There may be two, but that would add another layer of complexity. He presented a few more slides (from the NOP) and said “follow the blue box.” In 2012 the teams will be housed on Pier 80. In 2013 The team base will be at 26-32. At 30/32 the back of the bases will have “wing retrieval and hull launching”

Q: Any chance of there being a defender series here?

A: Yes, we hope so.

Q: Will the defenders be moored with the challengers?

A: Yes.

Q: Will the wings be up while the boats are moored?

A: “Work in Progress” (crowd laughs) We are still figuring that out with the 45s. (He reviewed their so far successful mooring projects in NZL. We are hoping that will work with the 72s.

Q: Will we keep Reds Java House? (crowd laughs)

A: I have no idea.

Q: Will teams be practicing here?

A: Only if they have additional boats (meaning the 45s).

Q: When and how will the 72s be practicing on the bay?

A: I don’t envision restricting any practice area for them.

Q: When do you think the 72s will come in?

A: He expects they will come in pretty close to the date of the first race.

Q: How many 45s will be built? I hope a lot.

A: There’s a desire to see that class develop.

Q: How many teams are there – I see you have 10 blue circles, what if there are 12?

A: We have 6 declared teams and 2 undeclared. So 8 for sure, and we are hopeful of 10-12. We are hoping to see more. We will find a way to make it work if we have 12 teams.

Q: What happens to BBS and the YRA schedule?

A: Some events will move to other dates, some can co-exist, we just have to go through that calendar and see what we can do. Our goal is to make it such that the bay is not shut off for racing. The Circle, South Bay and North Bay are all open. He went into an explanation about how they planned to hold the rectangle area for the racing and keep spectator boats from drifting in. He said they will need to have what he called “Marshall Boats,” who will protect the perimeter, similar to what’s done for Fleet Week. We will probably need 150-200 marshal boats.  We know we’ll have about 50 from the Coast Guard, 30-35 from the ACRM. The rest, we will ask clubs to help us maintain that zone, part of what we will be doing at the YRA meeting with representative from all of the clubs on Thursday. We will probably begin training boats to help with this.

Q: What kind of boat would be best for this?

A: It could be any type of 25-35 ft boat range with good operators. It’s one big piece of the puzzle we’ll be looking for help with.  We’ll also be looking for help with the races. All of these sorts of notices will be posted on the America’s Cup web page.

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Thank you to Paige Brooks for the meeting summary. See Facebook page: The AC34 in San Francisco.