Justin Chisholm Interviews USMCA Treasurer And San Francisco Fleet Captain Chris Farkas

Once a stronghold for our class, numbers of Melges 24’s racing in California over recent years had dwindled significantly. However 2010 has seen the beginnings of a resurgence for the Melges 24 class in there due solely to the enthusiasm and hard work of some of the local class stalwarts. This impressive rebirth initiative has been led by USM24CA treasurer and San Francisco Melges 24 fleet captain, Chris Farkas.

Thirty-four year old Chris grew up in Seattle and learned to sail while posted in London. A seven-year veteran of the Melges 24 class, Chris has owned Practice Girl (USA 222) for two years, campaigning her actively out of the San Francisco Yacht Club. Last year, Practice Girl finished the season 2nd in San Francisco, 4th overall in the SLAM West Coast Series, and 6th Corinthian at the US Nationals. In addition to his role as USMCA Treasurer, Chris serves as Captain of the San Francisco Melges 24 Fleet, he has been instrumental in the creation of the SFYC San Francisco Melges Race Week, and the Melges California Cup.

For the IM24CA, Justin Chisholm spoke to Chris recently to find out just exactly how he had gone about rebuilding the profile of the Melges 24 class in California.

IM24CA: Tell us about your history in the Melges 24 class? What attracted you to the Melges 24 originally?

CF: I saw the Melges 24 for the first time in Southampton in 2000 and simply knew I had to have one some day. At the time, I was working in finance in the City and had little time for sailing, except for the occasional big boat outing on the Solent. What struck me then was that here was a boat that required the athleticism and delivered the performance of an high-octane dinghy, coupled with the teamwork and tactical thought of a much larger and stable racing platform, all borne by a team of just four or five. Not only a pretty boat to look at, but also a machine designed for a purpose: to push you and your team’s ability on the water.

Ten years on, I still have much to learn from the boat: Melges racing is seldom boring. Even with the advent of other sportboat designs and classes, the Melges 24 remains an approachable opportunity to race against some of the best sailors in the world, go stunningly fast, and enjoy enviable camaraderie – all in a package that represents tremendous value, with boats available for (almost) any budget.

IM24CA: Where do you do your Melges 24 racing now?

We campaign Practice Girl out of the San Francisco Yacht Club in Belvedere. These days, I run a commercial development firm in San Francisco, when I am not otherwise surreptitiously inculcating the sailing bug in my eighteen-month old’s head – you can never start too early! Besides, there have been days when I could have used his extra twelve kilograms on the rail!

While our program’s focus has been San Francisco Bay, with an annual jaunt to Lake Tahoe thrown in for good measure (gorgeous alpine lake sailing), this year we are excited to be heading down to join our friends in San Diego for the SDYC San Diego Melges Race Week & Yachting Cup at the end of April. We are of course looking forward to joining everyone next year for the World Championship in Corpus Christi and in the meantime welcoming the National Fleet to San Francisco this August for the SFYC San Francisco Melges Race Week & US Melges 24 Gold Cup.

IM24CA: California was historically a hotspot for Melges 24 sailing and both the San Francisco and Santa Cruz Worlds are fondly remembered as classic Melges 24 championships. What is your view of what happened to Melges 24 sailing there over the last few years? What specific challenges do you think the Melges 24 now class faces in California?

CF: I suppose there is a natural ebb and flow in and out of, not just ours, but most classes, as major events are scheduled often years in advance by their governing bodies. Following a remarkable Worlds in Santa Cruz in 2007, there was something of a vacuum as attention shifted further east. With few big events scheduled in California, it would be easy to understand how our class here might have come to be perceived by some as ‘just-another-fleet’ at ‘just-another-regatta.’ A great boat granted, but the action and appeal that attracts aspiring crew and potential owners was often either elsewhere or even in competing fleets.

As for specific challenges, I don’t know that any are particularly unique to California. It’s certainly easier for teams from Europe to join us on the East Coast, but the venues of San Francisco, San Diego, and Lake Tahoe are world-class and hopefully compelling enough to warrant the additional effort and distance involved. What is somewhat unique is having a class comprised of such rich breadth: from sponsored professional teams competing on the international circuit to local club sailors enjoying their boats at the weeknight beercan. Same boat, divergent needs. The challenge for our governing body and local leadership is balancing those competing interests and working with each group of stakeholders to ensure the owners’ and their crews’ experience is truly compelling.

IM24CA: Describe the initiative to get the Melges 24 fleet in California re-energised?

CF: Following a continuing decline in numbers, a core group of concerned owners, old and new, in San Diego, Tahoe, and San Francisco got their heads together (77, 140, 222, 300, 449, 540, 632, 657, and 686) and started grassroots efforts to rebuild the California fleet on our own. Andre Peixoto (USA 300 Trezentos) in San Francisco, John Downing (USA 686) in San Diego, and Dan Hauserman (USA 657 Personal Puff) on Lake Tahoe have been positively instrumental, as have been Vince Brun and Seadon Wijsen at North Sails.

Also we couldn’t do what we are doing without the gracious support of the Race Councils, Boards, and volunteers at the San Diego Yacht Club, Tahoe Yacht Club, and San Francisco Yacht Club. Most of all it’s the owners and crews that work hard to be out there every time they possibly can that make growth not only possible, but also fun.

As you may gather from the above list, the key aspect of the initiative is outreach. Talking to people. And more importantly, listening. Last autumn, we surveyed every owner we could find in San Francisco – one by one – and started reaching out to the active boats along the Coast. We gathered their feedback, proposed a calendar, and got to work on a series of initiatives to bolster participation and raise the class’s profile in the region. We didn’t ask permission. We just got on with it. And while that may have ruffled feathers in some quarters, our events are better attended, feedback from participants is overwhelmingly positive, and we are seeing growth return once more to our Class in the West.

IM24CA: What are the overall goals of the plan? 

CF: I think what people appreciate most are the ‘little’ things that we are doing. Things like reaching out to skippers individually to see how we can help get them on the line and enjoying their boats more often. This can be helping with crew, parts or sails, organising private raft-ups for the fleet with crew beer on the dock every time, exclusive Melges 24 parties and clinics, write-ups in the press etc. Nothing earth shattering.

What may be a little different are some of the marketing and sponsorship initiatives we have underway. We partnered with Velocitek Performance Training Tools to get a Speedpuck on as many of the Fleet’s boats as possible allowing for, among other things, video replays of the races. Not only fun to watch, but quite instructive, as we seek to raise everyone’s level of performance and the Class’s profile. In addition, three of our top local Corinthian tacticians – Tom Rankin (USA 24 Smokin), Mark Aldrich (USA 449 Flying Circus), and Ryan Kern (USA 222 Practice Girl) volunteered to create the ‘California Melges 24 Regatta Report Sponsored by Velocitek’ for each weekend's racing. These take the form of informal banter, edgy blogs, formal press releases and video interviews, released alongside the video replays of the races and the day’s tides.

Working with Vince Brun and Seadon Wijsen at North Sails has been a pleasure. In addition to throwing their support behind our efforts, Seadon and Vince have helped us organize a series of Melges 24 Skipper and Tactician clinics to discuss current class developments, share local knowledge at key venues and explore the latest go-fast techniques. In conjunction with these clinics, we are piloting ‘Experience Melges’ events in San Francisco and San Diego to promote the Melges sportboat lineup, whereby a Melges 20, 24, and 32 are rigged and presented in the clubs’ parking lots (with refreshments, of course) on regatta weekends, with a pair of Melges 24s at the guest dock available for test sail.

As for the Melges California Cup, this sprang from the need to fill the vacuum mentioned earlier and to find a way to break out of the perceived ‘just-another-fleet’ at ‘just-another-regatta’ stasis. We took inspiration from some of the work being done by the Italian Class. In essence, our model is to partner with a prominent yacht club at an attractive venue to help leverage their investment in an existing marquee event by jointly raising participation for the club as well as the overall profile of the Melges 24 class. We do this by requesting the club add a day of exclusive Melges-only racing to the event and give permission to layer on the Melges Race Week label. We then work really, really hard to attract the boats and sponsors needed to ensure the event is absolutely first class. To that end, I owe an huge debt of gratitude to my partner in all of this, Andre Peixoto (USA 300 Trezentos) the San Francisco Fleet Treasurer and USMCA Secretary, as well as to Joy Dunigan, USMCA Communication Director, who works tirelessly to help get the word out.

Following the successful pilot of a combined event, we then seek to separate the Melges Race Week component and make it an annual fixture on the Club’s regatta calendar. This year, we’ve partnered with the San Diego Yacht Club and Tahoe Yacht Club to pilot a Melges Race Week in each location and combined the three events into one Melges California Cup.

IM24CA: Finally, what would be your pitch to dormant Melges 24 owners and prospective Melges 24 owners looking to join the class in California?

CF: It’s a simple message: Come join the action and the fun! Just get in touch and we’ll try to help you in any way we can.

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