From David Servais aboard the Santa Cruz-37 #5 in the 2009 Border Run

The day started out as expected with light breezes and overcast skies, typical conditions for a Southern California test sail/race for the New Santa Cruz 37. This was Southern California's debut for the boat as well as the "Border Run" race from Newport to San Diego. We all arrived at NHYC, and started getting the boat ready to sail. We had a great group of sailors including Jeff Brown (Owner and Santa Cruz Dealer), Norm Davant (Well known Sail maker and Santa Cruz dealer in San Francisco), Kyle Clark, Jay Cavalrri and myself. None of us had sailed on the Santa Cruz together before.

As we went around checking out the boat and inspecting all the gear aboard the boat for the race, we soon found a great boat by Santa Cruz with a full new inventory of North Sails and some great standing and running rigging that had been put together by Erik Rogers, Service Manager of JK3, The Santa Cruz Dealer in Southern California. We started discussing racing conditions and looked at the set up for doing peels with the spinnakers. We discussed some options and made a few minor tweaks that would set the boat up perfectly. We had two spin halyards, and a second set of Y-sheets. We added a second turning block in the cockpit for the spin sheets. Then we put another block on the end of the sprit for another tack line. We loaded the lunches and some drinks and we were ready to try this new Santa Cruz out.

It was a little over an hour to the start, so we headed out for some practice.
When we got out, we put up the code zero to see what it could do. All of our sails were brand new and we didn't have much knowledge on what angles or wind speeds they could be carried at. The code zero was a very big sail. I believe it was designed to be put on the short prod, rather than the retractable sprit, and the luff was definitely too long for that. In fact it was a bit long even for the long sprit. We were having trouble getting the luff tight enough for the hard reaching we expected which made the sail unstable, especially as the boat accelerated under it and the apparent wind went forward.

We took it down and decided that the knot in the tack line could be tied to the strop on the sprit, and then led the line in a 2:1 fashion through the tack ring of the sail. We did this, but still we wanted more luff tension. Norm then had the idea that we simply use a D-shackle and attach the code zero right to the strop in the end of the sprit. Obviously this would have its disadvantages while racing, in that I would have to physically go to the end of the sprit and attach or detach the sail. We decided this was a worthwhile concession in order to get proper sail shape.

Our start was growing near so we packed up the zero and got the jib hooked up on deck. As we started the race, we were perfectly lined up to win the boat end, and shut out half a dozen boats that were barging. The offending boats however, had different plans, and refused to come up when we called for our leeward rights. We resigned to, "Oh well..." and off we went anyways. We were alright with it though, it was a long race and we were focused on our boat. We got a clear lane almost immediately and started powering through the fleet with the light jib up.

The Beneateau 40.7 was holding pretty even with us on this upwind beat. So were the turbo Hobie-33's. This went on for about a half an hour before we decided we might try the code zero as we were starting to reach off a little bit. We had hooked it to the end of the sprit before the start, so it was easy getting it up and flying in under a minute. As we took the jib down I felt the boat accelerate. We had been doing speeds in the 7's and maybe touching 8's on the reach with the jib, now we were seeing speeds in the 9's. The sail was definitely faster. Unfortunately, we were heading about twenty degrees low of course. After just a few minutes we switched back to the jib. We were now much lower than the fleet, and we hadn't really gotten any farther ahead as we had sailed much more distance to get there.

We stayed with the jib, on an outboard lead setting for quite some time. We had a bit of lunch (which was delicious) and just tried to make the boat go fast. The apparent wind was still in the 50-60 degree range (the same as it had been when we first tried the zero). We had maybe ten knots of breeze, which ended up being the case for the whole race; lulls to maybe eight knots, puffs to maybe thirteen. Rhumbline was the obvious course, to sail as little distance as possible.

Hours into the race, the wind started to go back a little. Bit by bit we started easing the jib out, reaching more and more. We were discussing the zero, but we didn't want to go prematurely again. Finally, it was time. We were seeing the apparent wind angle consistently in the 80's. Boat speeds were in the high 8's. We put up the zero again. This time we were able to hold course. The apparent went forward, obviously, as we were now going faster in the same direction. 60-70 became the angle we saw on it most often, with touches in the 80's when we went down waves.

The zero was a very powerful sail. The sprit was deflecting slightly, but we felt comfortable with it. Norm commented that if the luff was short enough to put the sail on the prod it would probably be just as fast, and easier to handle. So we were making the best of this borrowed sail! We were starting to lose sight of our fleet. The Beneteau and the Hobies had been keeping up just behind us when we were jib reaching. Now that we were steadily going 9's, we were running away from them.

At one point we saw the apparent wind dip into the 90's. We thought we might try one of the spinnakers, hoping for more power. Since none of us had really used these sails in these kinds of conditions we didn't know what to expect, so it was a little bit of a guess as to what we should be using. We tried the A-2, thinking it was the biggest sail. We did a nice peel and immediately we flew down some waves with great speeds. We were once again going towards shore. This sail was huge. It was a great looking sail, just not for that angle. We peeled again to the A-3. This sail, while flat enough, actually looked smaller than the code zero. It looked like it might be made for reaching in twenty knots of wind, not ten. It was working on that angle, but after a few minutes of sailing and some discussion we believed the code zero was a bigger, faster sail. We put the code zero back up and it was definitely the right sail for those conditions.

We sailed through the day with the code zero, making great distance on our completion, as we watched the big boats come up to us, and slowly go by. We were very surprised at how long it took the TP-52's to get by us. The boat was definitely very quick in those reaching conditions. We had no idea where our fleet was anymore. All that we had around us were multi-hulls and maxis from the Ensenada race.

Around this time, I got my first turn on the helm. Immediately, I was over-steering the boat. After a minute, I started to get frustrated and even thought about giving the helm back. I pushed through and I figured it out. My problem was that I had never driven a boat that was this responsive before. Yes, I've driven responsive boats, 1D35's, Melges 32's, heck I grew up sailing I-14's, which ok, the I-14 is more responsive, but not much. The Santa Cruz wheels are small, and the way they are geared if you turn the wheel an inch the boat turns a foot. It's not like a normal wheel boat, where you freely throw the wheel back and forth over a range of a few feet. Once I got the hang of it though, it was marvelous. I didn't have to work my muscles very hard to make course changes, and the boat would do whatever I wanted. I could go down ten degrees if a good wave hit me, and come right back up to course in the trough of the wave. The boat loved it. It was one of the most fun boats I have ever driven.

As the sun went down we were off La Jolla. Finally, the wind came back enough for the A-2. We put it up and found it to be a great sail. Occasionally we would get headed and have to reach pretty tight to stay on or near course. We sailed this way all the way to SD Buoy 1.
As we approached the buoy it was dark. We got the light jib teed up, and discussed how we would do a Mexican as we gybed around the mark.
We executed perfectly. The A2 went right down the hatch in just a few seconds. As we jib reached we figured we could carry the code zero-"Let's get it up!", was Norm's yell.

I got out on the end of the sprit and hooked the zero up for about the fourth time that day. We got it up and sure enough, it was the right sail. Boat speed went up into the high 8's again (instead of the 7's it had been in with the jib). We reached in and finished just before 8:00pm. It was a very quick, very enjoyable race. We were the first mono hull to finish and amongst a bunch of multi-hulls and catamarans. We were very happy to be the first to finish in our class and corrected out second by about two minutes by a really well sailed Hobbie 33 that finished over an hour behind us beating the 1D/ 35 and Kiwi 35 by a couple of hours. We never saw winds more than 12 knots and for the most part, 8-10kts most of the afternoon. The results were not bad for a brand new boat in its first offshore race with no practice! Boat speed stayed in the high 7's to the high 9's the whole day. We never quite got to ten (I think I saw 9.93 once). Boat speeds were very steady, there wasn't much water noise, and the boat seemed to cut through the water extremely well. We headed into San Diego Yacht Club as the beers were handed out congratulating each other on the very first Border Run.

Overall, the boat performance was wonderful, plus great company made the inaugural race for the new Santa Cruz 37 just perfect.