Balboa Club’s Impact Retains Challenge Cup

The ancient San Francisco Perpetual Challenge Cup, oldest yachting trophy on the West Coast, will remain in the Balboa Yacht Club trophy case for another year.

That was settled Sunday in a sudden-death handicap match race when Tom Willson and his BYC crew steered Ron Melville’s Andrews-39 Impact to a 15-second victory over St. Francis Yacht Club’s Schumacher-38 Wall Street Duck, skippered by John Bertrand, over a 19-mile course off Huntington Beach.

The margin of victory does not tell the whole story. Actually, Impact finished 3 minutes and 24 seconds ahead of Wall Street Duck, but under the International Offshore Rule handicap system, it had to give the San Francisco challenger 3 minutes and 9 seconds.

The bottom line was that Impact did not clinch the win until the last weather leg, when the wind piped up to 18-20 knots.

Wall Street Duck got the early lead but was soon overhauled by Impact, which went on to a 1:26 advantage at the first weather mark. Bertrand and crew gained two seconds on the first reaching leg. Impact gained 22 seconds on the second downwind leg but lost it back to the San Francisco challenger on the second weather leg.

Impact’s longer waterline length paid off as the wind freshened. She increased her lead to more than two minutes on the square run and picked up another minute on the final leg to the finish.

The BYC crew: Willson, skipper; Melville, owner; Jeff Madrigali, tactician; Dave Johnson, bowman; Roger Ritzdorf, mast; Keith Kilpatrick and Robin Sodaro, trimmers; Alan Andrews (designer) main sheet, and Randy Nulle, grinder.

It was the same crew that went north last year and won the cup for the second time from St. Francis Yacht Club, defending with the yacht Coyote.

The San Francisco Perpetual Challenge Cup dates back to 1895, when it was deeded to Encinal Yacht Club in the Bay Area.