VAN DER BORCH
PHIL UHL
Paul Cayard A life well lived
On 4 December 2022 St Francis Yacht Club lost an icon. Robert ‘RC’ Keefe crossed the bar at the age of 90. RC represented an era gone by in yachting: the yachts of the 1940s and ’50s, days of Sparkman & Stephens designs like Dorade and Santana, others like Baruna and Orient whose owners started the innovative
Barient Winch company which RC then ran for years. In 1964 eight yachts gathered in San Francisco, four from SoCal
and four from SF Bay, for the first Big Boat Series. RC was largely responsible for building that event into the most prestigious regatta on the west coast. He would contact and invite owners from the world over, many of whom passed under the Golden Gate to race in what is now the Rolex Big Boat Series. Blackfin, Kialoa, Ondine, Ballyhoo, Chubasco, Swiftsure, Sorcery, Windward Passage, Hawk- eye, Siska, Hitchhiker, Shockwave, Carat and so on. Then in the early 1970s RC gathered a group of members and
created the St Francis 6 Metre syndicate, which campaigned around the world for 25 years under the name ‘St Francis’. Tom Blackaller, John Bertrand, John Kostecki and myself all had the opportunity to skipper 6 Metres under the club’s name, thanks to RC Keefe. RC’s father was a founding member of St Francis. RC himself
was member number 450 joining in 1950 at the age of 18. He served as Commodore in 1975 and was Senior Staff Commodore number 1 for the last 10 years of his life. He wrote a monthly column in the club’s monthly newsletter for over 40 years, about the yachts that defined yachting, the designers, the builders, the races. He served as curator of St Francis YC for 20 years, commissioning
Ken Gardiner to bring his passion to life in the form of the many models St Francis YC now has in its collection. He was truly a historian and for those of us lucky enough to have been in his circle we got an education the likes of which is not to be found any more. There was a right way to do things on a boat and around the club.
RC stood for that. He carried it on his back. With RC passing, so goes an era. RIP, RCK!
The jury’s out It is two days before the start of The Ocean Race in Alicante. While I am aware the round-the-world classic is about to start, in its 14th iteration, I feel quite distant from this race. Nonetheless the legacy of the Whitbread Round the World Race lives on, albeit in a new form, and that race was formative for a generation of sailors who found their way to making a living around sailing. My friends and teammates from EF Language (1997-98 Whit-
bread), Richard Brisius and Johan Salen, took over as owners of the event four years ago. They made the decision to have an Imoca 60 division as well as to continue with the VO65s. Using the Imocas seemed like a good idea as the Imoca is the
healthiest offshore class in yacht racing today with 30-plus entries at their events. Being able to present a sponsor with a calendar that includes the Route du Rhum, Vendée Globe and The Ocean Race – a continuum of activity – seems like a value proposition. The VO65s are a good entry option, robust yachts, and you can expect close competition at a low cost with the one-design rules. However, the reality of getting a large group of Imoca 60s to com-
mit to The Ocean Race proved tougher than expected. Maybe the conversion deemed necessary to take a purpose-built, singlehanded boat, and make it a good ‘crewed’ racing boat, was too invasive. Today the singlehanded offshore racing classics are the kings of marketing properties in the Imoca universe. No fewer than 14 new Imoca 60s were launched in the second
half of 2022! There was one purpose-built, ‘crew configured’ Imoca – 11th Hour Racing committing early to The Ocean Race and design- ing their campaign around it. For training purposes they participated in some of the doublehanded events but their goal from the outset has been to win The Ocean Race. They should have the upper hand… at least at the outset of this race. An interesting aspect of today’s Imocas is that most sailing takes
Top: St Francis Big Boat Series in its heyday when IOR was at its peak – the event timed so that you could take in a regatta on ‘The Bay’ on your way back from Hawaii and the Kenwood Cup. Nice. And the 1981 St Francis YC 6 Metre team (l to r): Steve Jeppesen, Ken Keefe, John Bertrand, Bob Keefe, Paul Cayard, Craig Healy…
SEAHORSE 27
place ‘indoors’ – the winches and controls having been moved into an enclosed cockpit. That is strange to me as my strongest memories of going around the world were of getting a fire hose of water in my face, tethering myself on so I wouldn’t wash overboard for the force of the waves rolling down the deck, and having my hands and feet frozen almost continuously on the Southern Ocean legs. Compared to one-designs I enjoyed the development aspect of
the races I did, the sail shapes and configurations, mostly. Imoca is where the development is today. However, as the speeds of the boats have increased the apparent wind angle has narrowed and the number of sails onboard has been reduced to about five. Foil design is now the big factor in determining speed. Seaworthiness and reliability have always been qualities round-
the-world sailors bank on. In some ways the new-generation boats are simpler. They don’t hoist and drop sails; they roll them up. That improves safety for the crew as well as the sails themselves. Gone are the days and nights of reconstructing exploded kites with the onboard sewing machine. But, as we have seen, with two rudders, a keel and a foil, there is plenty of important stuff hanging down in the water to get damaged. Leg 3 of this race is 12,500 miles, passing the three great
capes… This leg looks to be massively important. First, any damage that keeps the boat from completing the leg could prove terminal, as shipping a boat to Brazil to catch up to the fleet is probably not an option. Second, the leg counts double in the scoring. I think this will be a race of many tales; the fastest out of the
blocks, the boat that develops the most, the boat with the highest speed and the boat that survives without breaking. We are a long way from knowing the winner. That makes it interesting for us who will watch on a couch by the fireplace.
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