Sailing Aboard Dorade in The Leukemia Cup

by Paige Brooks

www.dorade.org

By now you all know why this particular race meant so much to me, sailing for my friends Catherine and Matt and for the family and friends of many of you.

One reason I think I will have a life long love affair with sailing is there is always something new to learn. I was invited to join the all female crew on the storied Dorade for the Leukemia Cup. This gorgeous classic is a 52′ long 10′ wide yawl designed by a 21 year old Olin Stephens in 1929. After she was built, she went on to win many ocean races. Her new owners, Matt Brooks and Pam Levy have lovingly refitted the boat and are planning to sail them all again. This race was a kick off race for Dorade’s re-introduction to San Francisco Bay. There is a lot to learn on this sort of boat.

My first lesson this weekend was the sails necessary to make a classic yacht go fast. Looking back on my job on the bow, I realized we hoisted one sail per person – a total of eleven sails. Learning the sails and their ranges was the primary focus of our Saturday practice. From back to front, we have a Mizzen Sail, Mizzen Staysail (not in any of the photographs, but it went up more than once on Saturday and Sunday), Main Sail, Inner Forestay Sail (IFS), and Jib. Then there are the 2A and 3A kites, and the only sail we didn’t use on Sunday, the spinnaker stay sail, which is of course the easiest one to deploy because it furls.

But back to the race at hand. The San Francisco Yacht Club’s Leukemia Cup event planners invited only 5 classic yachts to this event, Yankee, Yucca, Santana, Dorade and Copperhead. Dorade’s owners, upon this invitation, decided to bring together and all star women’s crew, many of whom were a part of an America’s Cup challenger team, and others who’ve won Olympic medals, match racing and world championships, Emmy awards, raced around the world, the list goes on…..

From stern to bow we had: Pam Levy (owner and mizzen trimmer), Sally Lindsay Honey (navigator), JJ Fetter (skipper), Melinda Erkelens and Genny Tulloch (head sail trimmers), Melissa Purdy (main), Liz Baylis (tactics), Pamela Healy (floater, mast), Susan Daly, me, and Laurel Gaudot on the bow.

At the SFYC guest dock on Sunday morning, Dorade and Santana were docked across from each other. Yucca was tied up stern to stern behind Dorade. Any one of these boats is spectacular to behold; together in one place, they leave one speechless.

But there was some competitive kerfluffle. The scuttlebutt on the dock was that Dorade’s handicap rating was changed after the Jessica Cup which they raced the prior weekend, from a rating of 75 to 120, evening her up with the schooner Santana. Yucca, the 8 Meter sloop, was rated 90. With the change on Dorade’s handicap from 75 to 120, we went from owingYucca 15 seconds a mile to Yucca owing us 30 seconds a mile.

Yucca’s owner felt the number was too high and that we should be more evenly matched, both being long narrow boats built to charge upwind. The PRO Bartz Schneider evaluated the results from last weekend and said even with our new rating of 120, we still would have lost to Yucca by 2 minutes in that race. In the scores for the Jessica Cup, Dorade lost to Yucca by 8 minutes, which is a lot. So he felt it fair (more on that later).

Thus there was that bit of contention among the crew on the dock until the luminaries, Ted Turner and Gary Jobson (who sailed together on the America’s Cup boat Courageous) arrived to sail on board Santana. Immediately behind them was an entourage of photographers, well wishers and a body guard, who traipsed up and down the dock talking to and shooting our group of gals on our 83 year old Dorade, Ted and Gary gearing up to race Santana, and the beautiful Yucca and crew. It was a moment I won’t soon forget. We asked Ted and Gary to come over and get a photo with us on Dorade and they snuggled up on either side of JJ. When he returned to Santana and sat down, Ted looked at us then at Gary and said with that twangy Southern accent, “I want to sail with the girls.” However that would have compromised our all girl race plan.

Around 11:30 all three of us cast off our lines and headed to the start just west of Angel Island, only to find flat water and teeny zephyrs. So we waited. And waited.

My second learning item: Classics have cannons.

Small cute little things, cast in bronze of course, and easily mounted on a winch. Laurel, who knows the boat backward and forward, pulled ours up from somewhere down below and mounted it while JJ steered over toward Santana. We worried that the noise may startle them, but they realized our ploy and took evasive measures. We caught up with them and fired our cannon (blanks). It got everyone’s attention in the area and nearly blew out our eardrums. Liz Baylis was our gunner and she was loving the action. We all saluted after our shot across their bow, and just as we did, Santana hit the mallet against their cannon and off it blew in our direction. Liz promptly returned fire. It was enough to get us all laughing, then the wind started to fill and we got serious.

Off the line, Gary Jobson called a perfect start for Santana. Dorade and Yucca weren’t far behind. Yucca tried to carry a kite, but were really overpowered which allowed us to pass them on the reach across the bay to Fort Mason. Upwind we traded tacks, and they came out ahead at the top mark, Blackaller. Parenthetically, the mark is named after another AC legend, Tom Blackaller, who was missed by many this weekend. We chased them to our next reaching mark, now with all 5 of our sails up. I am not sure what happened after that as we had set up to potentially launch the kite if our line was deep enough, then struck that sail and were consumed with dousing our light #1, the wrong sail for what had become much bigger breeze.

We changed to the #2 in an amazing feat well executed by our supremely skilled Laurel on the bow. Both sails have hanks and we hanked on the entire #2 below the first hank of the #1, dropped the 1, switched the halyard, unhanked the 1, hoisted the 2, and dropped the IFS before rounding Little Harding and heading back to Ft. Mason. I have no idea what was going on in the back of the boat, but they easily managed all the sheets flying their way and got the boat around the mark. Yucca was still quite close by. Santana was behind us both, the upwind leg is not the best for schooners, and we still had another short upwind leg to go. Again we traded tacks and Yucca was ahead by a little. One more reach to the middle of the bay and then another possible kite launch at the next mark. Meanwhile the mizzen stay sail had gone up and come back down too. At the last reaching mark we turned down to the finish, Yucca launched their kite and we followed suit. They finished 14 seconds ahead of us.

Whew what a race. The tension off, we knew we’d won the race and beat Yucca, thanks to the rating. The scores corrected out to a win of 4:04 ahead. Bartz later gave Hank Easom a mea culpa and by phone yesterday told me there’s likely to be another adjustment should Dorade race against Yucca in the future. I hope we do race them again. It was a well fought battle on the water. We were enthused and tuckered. And there were still eleven sails and their respective sheets to clean up. When we arrived at the dock, the entire Yucca crew stood up on their boat and applauded us. A commendable corinthian spirit.

At the trophy giving Gary Jobson called the Dorade crew up on stage to give us our trophy and then presented Pam with a special trophy for raising the most money in our classic class. So to all of you who contributed to my page or to the Dorade page, Thank YOU. The San Francisco Leukemia Cup as of Saturday night raised over $750,000, and I expect will reach a million dollars, all of which goes toward helping battle cancer. We talked about our cancer stories on board, those we’d lost and those we were sailing for. It was an incredible and powerful event.

Legendary Sailing Yacht Returns to SF Bay to Raise Funds in Fight to Cure Leukemia & Lymphoma

October 21 Regatta pits Dorade’s All-Female Crew led by JJ Fetter against Ted Turner on Santana

www.dorade.org

19 October 2012 – San Francisco, CA: Dorade(www.dorade.org): In 1936 Dorade helped put the Saint Francis Yacht Club on the map, winning the prestigious and demanding TransPacific race to Honolulu. This weekend she returns to San Francisco to sail under the St Francis burgee once again in the seventh annual Leukemia Cup Regattataking place on Sunday, October 21. JJ Fetter, a four-time Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year, will lead an all-female, all-star crew aboard Dorade, sailing in the invitation-only classic yacht division against another historic racing yacht, Santana, helmed by Ted Turner.

“What a perfect way to bring Dorade home,” said Dorade owner Matt Brooks. “She is the only boat to have ever won, handily, every major ocean race; and even today, she’s still competing and winning in races from Newport to the Caribbean, and now here on San Francisco Bay.”

Dorade was designed by the legendary Olin Stephens, creator of six out of seven successful America’s Cup defenders between 1958 and 1980. Olin and his brother Rod Stephens designed and built Dorade in 1929. In 1931 – at the ages of 20 and 22 — they sailed Dorade in the TransAtlantic Race, winning against a fleet of much larger boats and more experienced crews. That win was followed by an extraordinary series of victories in the Fastnet, Cowles, and Bermuda races. In 1936 San Francisco’s Jim Flood purchased Dorade and brought her to San Francisco. Since then, she has changed owners many times, sailing the west coast, Europe, and most recently in Newport, Rhode Island.

In 2010, Brooks and his wife Pam Rorke Levy went to Newport in search of a classic yacht, and were immediately entranced by Dorade’s history and pedigree. Rather than keep her as a museum piece, however, the pair decided to do something that many thought was impossible: restore her to full ocean-racing capacity.

“We needed to toughen up Dorade herself, but we also needed to develop a stable of crew members with the right skills, chemistry and experience to race a classic boat in trans-oceanic races.” said Brooks. “Races like the Leukemia Cup help us prepare both the boat and our crew for the kind of long-range sailing she hasn’t seen in decades, keeping in mind that while she may be game, she is also an eighty-year-old lady.”

“Our goal is to repeat all of her early ocean races, including Newport-Bermuda which we completed this past this June, the TransPac and Newport-Bermuda next year, and in 2015 the TransAtlantic, Fastnet, and Cowes,” said Dorade owner Pam Rorke Levy. “In her early years, Dorade won all of these ocean races, a record that stands unbeaten today. We are pleased and honored that her return to the Bay begins with the Leukemia Cup Regatta.”

Along with Levy and Fetter, Dorade’s crew for the Leukemia Cup is an all-star team comprised of Liz Baylis, Paige Brooks, Melinda Erkelens, Melissa Purdy Feagin, Laurel Gaudet, Pam Healy, Genny Tulloch and Sally Lindsay Honey – wife of America’s Cup technology director Stan Honey.

A native of San Leandro, California, Brooks learned to sail in Monterey Bay as a boy, and went on to race on San Francisco Bay on his first yacht Quarter Pounder, sailing under the St. Francis flag. Brooks is also a well-known mountain guide, and over the past forty years has racked up first ascents in the Sierra and the French alps, established a mountaineering equipment company, and has been honored with a Presidential Gold Medal and a lifetime achievement award from the American Mountain Guides Association. Since soloing as a pilot at age 13, Brooks has also set many world records in the air, including the record time for circumnavigating the globe (westward) and flying westward across the US, all in a specially equipped Citation business jet. Levy is an Emmy-winning filmmaker and creative director, well known to Bay Area audiences and the arts community for creating and producing such shows as KQED’s arts program Spark.

About The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society ® (LLS):

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society ® (LLS) is the world’s largest voluntary health agency dedicated to blood cancer. The LLS mission: Cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and improve the quality of life of patients and their families. LLS funds lifesaving blood cancer research around the world and provides free information and support services. Founded in 1949 and headquartered in White Plains, NY, LLS has chapters throughout the United States and Canada. www.lls.org

Election Night Party aboard Franklin Roosevelt’s Presidential Yacht “Potomac” Raises Funds for Historic Ship

100 People to View Presidential Coverage for Dinner & Wine Cruise on San Francisco Bay with “Presidents Bush & Obama”

www.usspotomac.org

19 October 2012 – San Francisco, CA: It’s the definition of bipartisanship – a real bipartisan ship. On Tuesday, November 6, 2012, 100 political partiers of both parties will board the National Historic Landmark presidential yacht Potomac to view the election from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “floating White House.” Special onboard guests that night will be two “Presidents”: George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama – courtesy of San Francisco’s Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. The election night fete will begin at 5pm when the Potomac sails from her home berth in Oakland’s Jack London Square just as the polls are closing on the East Coast. After crossing the Bay, the historic vessel will pick up additional political partiers at San Francisco’s Pier 40 in the City’s South Beach Marina at 6pm. During the three-hour cruise, guests will be treated to fine wines and “All American” fare for dinner. Also making a special onboard appearance that night will be four-time elected president, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt” joined by his faithful dog “Fala.” The cruise will debark passengers at 8pm in San Francisco, and 9pm in Oakland, just about the time the evening’s winner is expected to be making his acceptance speech. Tickets are $ 85 (-October 31); $125 (November 1-5); $200 (election day November 6). Tickets are available online at electionnightpotomac-efbevent.eventbrite.com or by phone at (510) 627-1215. Proceeds from the evening benefit the preservation and educational efforts of the nonprofit USS Potomac Foundation.

“What better place to enjoy an historic election than aboard FDR’s historic home-away-from home,” said maritime historian David Perry, 50, who conceived the idea for the benefit party. “No matter who wins, the wine will flow and the food will comfort our guests on both sides of the aisle, port or starboard. Also, being onboard with our wax presidents — WWII hero George H.W. Bush and current Commander-In-Chief Barack Obama – will be a great honor.”

“Preserving our maritime heritage was a passion of President Roosevelt,” said Potomac Executive Director Marti Burchell. “This historic party is a way to raise awareness – and funds – for FDR’s own historic ship.”

The USS Potomac was built in 1934 as the Coast Guard cutter Electra. The 165-foot vessel, weighing 376 gross tons and cruising at speeds of 10 to 13 knots, was commissioned as a U.S. Navy vessel in 1936, renamed the USS Potomac, and served as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidential yacht until his death in 1945. As former Assistant Secretary of the Navy, FDR had a deep love of the sea and the Navy tradition. He hated to fly and preferred to travel by train or ship throughout his presidency.

During the sultry summer days in Washington, D.C., he preferred to cruise on the USS Potomac rather than stay in the White House. The USS Potomac gave the nation’s 32nd president much-needed respite from the cares of governing the United States throughout the Great Depression and World War II.

After FDR’s death in April 1945, the Potomac began a long and ignominious decline from her former role in world affairs. After many adventures and many owners – including Elvis Presley at one point – she was seized in 1980 in San Francisco by U.S. Customs for her role as a front for drug smugglers. Towed to Treasure Island, the proud vessel’s hull was pierced one night and she sank.


After several weeks Potomac was refloated by the Navy, and dumped on the mudflats on the side of the Oakland Estuary. She lay there for nearly 12 years, rotting and abandoned. In 1982, in an effort to save her from the scrap-yards she was sold to the Port of Oakland for just $15,000. The Port of Oakland spearheaded a cooperative effort with organized labor, maritime corporations and dedicated volunteers to complete a $5 million restoration. Opened to the public in 1995, the Association for the Preservation of the Presidential Yacht Potomac now operates this National Historic Landmark as an active memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the momentous times through which he led our nation.