Winter Break

We collected a string of first place banner for the YRA 2011 season.  Skipper and crew (Andrew and Rob) looking pretty happy in the picture.  For the winter we are taking it a bit easier.  We are entered for the Encinal Jack Frost series and taking some time to do some maintenance and small upgrades.  

The mast is currently down awaiting some work to install a new halyard for the code 0.  Will also look into adding a halyard lock for the main.  The latter should help reduce the sag we get from slippage on the clutch and should also help reduce the mast compression forces.

After doing some maintenance we found some cracks on the aluminum tube supporting the traveler track, so that is getting replaced and I'm installing an improved traveler with upgraded car, improved purchase and a center ratchet for the main sheet.

We also installed some nice shelving under the coamings.  These turned out pretty guccy, with Andrew and Rob putting their sewing skills to good use.  Very nice.  Now we can keep our sails and bags nice and dry and away from the bilge.

Our Swedish sistership

A nice interview, report and video from Sweden.  Introducing Airbender

Yankee Cup

The Yankee Cup is the culmination of the HDA series.  It's an invitational race for the top places of the various divisions raced throughout the year in the hopes to declaring an overall champion for the season.  As such, the boats lining up for the start is a very eclectic combination.  This year the roster included a 1D48 at the top of the fleet with a C&C 29 marking the other end of the spectrum.   The rating spread was 186 between the two afore mentioned boats, with the 1D48 at -12 and the C&C at 174.  On JetStream we rate 63, putting us as one of the fastest rated boat for the race, though nowhere near the 1D48.

Copyright Pressure-Drop

Since this race was late in the season, the weather is not as predictable as in the summer.  With Rob having more important things to do this weekend, Andrew and I decided to go out doublehanded as the forecast was for winds on the lighter side.  We were pleasantly surprised when we got under the Bay Bridge at 9 am and there was already a nice breeze filling in the Bay.  We would be racing in the central bay, between the Berkley Circle and Harding Buoy.   There will be some transitions in the tides during the race, going for a full flood at the start going to slack later in the day.  Particularly in the area we were racing, understanding the currents for the day would be critical.  I recently got a 6 month subscription to Tidetech as part of the Big Boat Series contest from Pressure Drop and would put their current models to good use.

The Yankee Cup would be a 3 race regatta.  The first race was a short 4 mile race to Mark 21 and back.  Had it not being for the flood it would have been an upwind fetch to the mark.  We had an ok start and got caught in some traffic.  We wanted to avoid tangling up with the bigger boats, but still were forced to take a clearing tack soon after the start.  There weren't many tactical options on this race and the extra tacks cost us a bit.  Upwind we do suffer, as we see equally or slower rated boats sail past and away from us.  But luckily there was enough breeze on the day for us to be able to make up our rating on the downwind legs.  It was a fetch back from the windward mark back to the finish.    We were able to catch up to Jeannette on the downwind leg and pass them just before the finish line to finish 2nd in the first race behind Bodacious.

To compete with Bodacious the rest of the days we would need to have clean starts, maintain clear lanes and avoid tangling up with other boats, as any boat on boat racing would mean time given to Bodacious as they were sailing pretty much on their own.

The second and third races had us sailing to Harding and back.  A longer race with more opportunities for strategic racing.  For the second race in a full flood our plan was to head to the East side of Angel Island and hug the South-East corner to avoid the worst of the flood.  The only question was when to tack over to Angel Island.  Ideally I wanted to arrive at Angel Island on the a 3rd of the way up on East shore to ensure we got good pressure close to land.  You have to time the tack and try to account from the drift of the current.  Once  you make the tack you are committed as taking an intermediate tack in the middle of the current would be disastrous.   I went a little too early and ended up father North on the Eastern shore that I would have liked too.  This might have been the difference between 2nd and the 4th place we finished on.  On this race we had a great upwind battle with Shameless (a Custom Schumacher 30).  They were just ahead of us when we got to Angel Island and we would be attached by a string all the way to Harding.  We traded a few tacks, we both misjudged the layline to Harding in the strong flood, and when we rounded Harding they were still just ahead of us.  The winds had lighten up a bit when we rounded and we couldn't get the boat into full plane mode.  So it took us some time to catch up to Shameless and even though we closed the gap with Jeannette we finished 4th.

Copyright Pressure-Drop

The last race would be a repeat of the second.  Except that by now our current models were showing slack water towards the South Bay.  So instead of the Angel Island route we took on the second race, we would stay on starboard tack until we were even with Alcatraz.  This will have us splitting with the fleet, as the rest took the Angel Island route again.  I often don't like to split with the fleet, but the only chance we had of beating Bodacious would be sailing to the best data we had as opposed to just covering the fleet.  Bodacious was forced out at the boat end of the line, while we had a perfect clean start towards the pin end with Jeannette to leeward of us.  It felt a little lonely heading to the left all by ourselves, but sometime later we could see Golden Moon coming in the same direction.  They were on a different start five minutes behind us, but it helped our confidence to see Kame coming in our direction.  The move paid off, by the time we reached the layline for Harding both Bodacious and Jeannette were within striking distance ahead of us with the rest of the fleet behind us.   By now the wind had increased to around 20 and we had a blast of a downwind leg, holding some 16 knots and topping off at 19.  We would go on to correct to first place in the last race, with the top 3 boats all within a minute of each other.

I wish we could have joined the festivities back at the club and congratulate the winners in person, but other commitments had us rushing back to Alameda to put the boat away.  But it was a hard, fun day in the water.   Andrew did the job of two fantastically

Bodacious won the regatta with a 1, 1, 3, we came in second 2 points behind with a 2, 4, 1 and Jeannette 3rd just 1 point behind us with a 3, 3, 2.  Full results available on the YRA site.

HDA Summer 3

The last race of the HDA series.  The course had us starting on the SW corner of Angel Island, we would head out to Pt. Bonita, across the central bay to YRA buoy 8 and back to the start/finish line.

Conditions started on the light to moderate range but strong enough to power us upwind against the current towards the Golden Gate bridge.  We only had two other boats in our division, the 1D35 Jazzy and the GP26 Peanuts.  With the small fleet we opted for a port start at the pin as we wanted to head towards the Sausalito shore for current relief.  We took the stern of the starboard tack 1D35 as we couldn't cross them.  It was a close upwind leg with the 1D35 ahead of us and doing a loose cover on us.  We played the shifts as we short tacked our way up to the North tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.

We continued our short tacking out the channel on our way to Point Bonita.  The winds got a little light and it paid for us not going all the way into Pt. Bonita Cove and as we got to round the point we were just ahead of the 1D35.  Here we made a small tactical mistake.  We were the starboard boat and we had the opportunity to force them to tack out into the current.  Instead, I chose to try to lee bow them (tack ahead and under them), but with their better upwind speed they were able to sail above us.  To make things worse, we were forced to tack out in search for clear air on the lightening conditions and into bad current.   They were able to gain about 100 yards on us, just on this move.  The wind continued to lighten around Pt Bonita and with the strong flood it was a struggle to get around the mark.

Jetstream Racing - HDA to Bonita (HD) from rob blackmore on Vimeo.

By this point, the Henderson who had started five minutes behind us was ahead of us as well, so the chase was on for both the 1D35 and the Henderson as we turned downwind.  A large tanker coming down the channel split the fleet, with the 1D35 and the Henderson on the South side of the channel while we were locked on the North side.  We also wanted the South, but we didn't seem to loose much by staying North.  Both the Henderson and 1D35 crossed the Gate ahead of us.  It had been sub-planning conditions from Pt. Bonita to the Gate.  But we got the welcome to the bay that we like, with the winds building as we approached the South Tower and we got the boat on its planning grove.  By the time we reached Alcatraz we had passed the 1D35 who had stayed on the city front side, and we were even with the Henderson who had gone North.  It was now a sprint to the leeward mark.  We had better speed than the Henderson on the freshening conditions and we were seeing boatspeed on the 15knot range.  We slightly overstood the approach to the leeward mark which caused us a short broach (doesn't happen often but it does happen).

We rounded the leeward mark first and now were on the last leg back up to the finish line.   It would be a drag race to the finish as we could make the line of a single tack.  The 1D35 closed the gap on the upwind leg but we were able to hold the off for the gun.   A great come from behind race for JetStream with Rob and Andrew doing excellent crew work yet again.

After our finish we could see the fleet from the SSS race coming through Racoon Straits on their way to Little Harding with our friend Greg on Outsider sailing singlehanded leading the way.

The wind was now in the 15 to 20 range so we decided to race back up to the Gate again for another downwind scream.  We had a great bridge to bridge run on our way back home to Alameda to cap off the day.

The Jazzy Cup

A labor day weekend tradition, the Jazz Cup takes the fleet from Treasure Island on a downwind slide to Benicia on the Carquinez Strait. Over 100 boats signed up for the race, and being on one of the latest starts we would have to get through most of the fleet on the way to the finish. The forecast was calling for light winds from the SW, but we were hoping the summer thermals would fill in and make for a more exciting race.

Rob and Andrew joined me for this race. We got out to the windward mark early and to check the angle to the next mark. We pulled out the Code 0 to try it out and it was perfect, we were screaming. The only problem with this choice is that it would require a bare headed spinnaker change further down the track as the wind clocks to DDW. We left the Code 0 hooked up and decided to make a last minute call on what to set.

We came back to the starting area and prepared for our start. We would have some larger boats racing in our division and it would be important to be able to hold a lane off the start. The pin was favored, so we chose a leeward position on the pin end of the line. We had a clean start and were able to hold our line until we got squeezed out by the GP26 to leeward and the Farr 36 coming over the top. We took a clearing tack and managed to get to the windward mark in the top 5.

On the way to the windward mark we could see boats from the previous start setting and holding their spinnakers. By now we know that if anyone can hold their spinnaker, so can we on the JS. So we switched plans and instead of starting with the Code 0 we will go straight to the A2. It was a tight reach and we could just hold our angle. Erik got a nice shot of us below:

This is a point of sail that the boat likes. While other boats struggle to hold the tight angle the JS just digs in an accelerates. We could sail a bit higher than the rest of the fleet and we were able to keep up with the front runners as we started passing boats from the previous starts. We chose the Richmond side of the course as the Tiburon side looked light. Here we started mixing it up with other boats and managed to keep the boat moving in the lighter conditions between Richmond and The Brothers. Past The Brothers we started the San Pablo Bay leg. Though we were staying on the inside, we could see Outsider, who earlier on had split to the West side of the course, now on better pressure and beginning to catch up. We took a painful gybe out get into the better pressure. This moved pay off, as by the time we converged with the boats that stayed on the inside we had made significant gains.


Jetstream Racing - Jazz Cup 2011 from rob blackmore on Vimeo.


Up ahead we could see a new wind line just before Pinole Pt. It was going to be a header with increase in velocity and we cold see some of the boats entering the new pressure struggling to keep their lane. This would be our opportunity. The leg from Pinole Pt. to the Vallejo Bridge was the funnest part of the race with the boat sailing in consistent 10 - 15 knots of boat speed. We were able to put some distance between us and the boats behind us while making some ground on the few boats ahead.

From Vallejo to Benicia it would be a more traditional downwind run (as opposed to the reaching legs across San Pablo Bay). The winds lightened a bit again and we were in a tight race with California Condor and Twisted ahead (the Farr 36 and the T650 though close were a bit out of our reach) and Outsider charging hard from behind. California Condor had a couple of bad gybes and we got past them, but we couldn't make the distance on Twisted. We had been able to hold off Outsider, but as we rounded G25 the got just ahead of us.

@ norcalsailing.com

From G25 to the next leeward mark it was another reach and we were the only boat in our group to hold the kite all the way to the mark allowing us to close the gap with the boats in front and sneaking past Outsider again. We would hold this position to the finish line and would end up as the 4th monohull to cross the finish line and would correct out as the 2nd monohull for overall behind the T650.

It was a great race and a significant improvement from last year. We stayed in Benicia for the awards and started our delivery back home around 10 PM to take advantage of the ebb. It was a pleasant motor home at night with a light breeze and a great moon. We got back to Alameda a bit after 2AM and was at home in bed by 3 and lights off.

Another great video by Rob

This one from our latest Encinal Friday night race. Enjoy!

Jetsream Racing - Estuary Noire from rob blackmore on Vimeo.

SSS Half Moon Bay Race

It had been a few month since the last Singlehanded Sailing Society race. The race to Half Moon Bay is one of my favorites. As a destination race it gives the fleet a chance to socialize and make new bonds. This year was no exception.

As usual the anticipation to the race starts a few days early, and by the time we get together for the skippers meeting the Wednesday before the race, most skippers have been tracking the forecasts and currents for the race. Even though we had a favorable current to exit the Bay under the Golden Gate, the wind forecast though moderate had the wind blowing from the SW. Once you exit the bay, it is a left turn to the South to get down the 24 miles to HMB. The winds outside the Gate are normally from the NW - W, so this race is often billed as a nice reach or downwind race (though I can barely remember the last time that was the case). So the SW forecast had the fleet worried of an all upwind race.

This forecast was also ruining my strategy and my new secret weapon. I had a Code 0 built in time for this race. The guys at Doyle (mainly Andrew) worked late into the night on Friday to ensure the sail was ready. It would be a killer sail for a light air reach down the coast. We were ready for action, and by Friday most of the forecast had the wind clocking to the W in the afternoon. We took the new sail for a quick night sail just to make sure everything work and it was a dream in the light air of the Estuary.

After breakfast with Tom and Karl, we headed down to the boat. Tom will be sailing with me doublehanded, and Karl was heading on Outsider. We waited our turn for the Sportboats starts and we could see the early starters getting flushed out of the bay quickly with a nice breeze and a favorable current. We had a conservative start, even though port was favored with the SW winds, we planned to enter the line on starboard and go for a quick tack close to the pin end (what would normally be the boat end). We didn't win the start but it wasn't horrible either, and we joined the parade towards the Golden Gate.



We had enough wind to be fully powered up and started picking up some of the earlier starters. We played the shifts while keeping a close eye on Outsider and Wild-1 which were the competitors with ratings close to us. Outsider had taken an early lead at the start, but before exiting Seal Rocks we were back to even. With the forecast having the long term shift to the W, we wanted to protect the right hand side and stayed on the offshore side of most of the fleet. But all the way to Montara we didn't notice any persistent shift. We were still enjoying good pressure all the way to Montara, traditionally known for its wind hole. We tacked back offshore to the layline of the Colorado Reef buoy and then tacked back. Except that there was no buoy where my chart said it would be. So we started scanning the horizon and found the buoy, probably around a mile or so farther offshore. The bad news is that it was going to be more upwind work, but the good news would be that we would have to bear off further to reach the next mark, G1 on the HMB channel.

The winds started to lighten up as we approached the Colorado Reef mark. We kept having to tack back offshore to stay in the pressure. We had a tight battle with a couple of Express 37 and a J105. We got to the mark in front of this pack, just to be greeted by a shift. Not the shift right we had been expecting and anticipating, but a shift left with the wind now blowing from the South. The winds today will make sure that the whole of the race would be an upwind race. With the shift the winds kept getting lighter making it more difficult for us. Now we were averaging sub 5 knots, often dropping below 3 knots.

Halfway to G1, the wind, though still light, began its shift to the West. We quickly put up the new Code 0 and managed to keep the boat ghosting along. But behind us there was trouble, both Outsider and Wild-1 had begun to make significant gains on the lighter conditions and even further back we could see spinnakers popping up, meaning the folks in the rear were bringing the new pressure. We never got the new pressure but still managed to finish ahead of most of the fleet.

We took a slip at the marina, as we had a room at a hotel across the street (hard to sleep over on the JS). We were received at the slip by Eric from pressure-drop.us with some nice cold beers straight from the HMB brewery and some home smoked salmon and tuna. We went back to the HMB Yacht Club to catch up with the rest of the fleet and finished the day with dinner and drinks back at the brewery.

The results are in, and though not great, not surprising as the race was purely upwind and our rating doesn't favor it. We ended up in 4th place in our Sportboats division and 15th Overall. But a good time was had by all. It was also the first ocean race we complete on JetStream and in the moderate conditions the boat handled very well.

Second Half Opener

The YRA Second Half Opener hosted by the Encinal Yacht Club is the second installment of the YRA Party Circuit 3 race series.  Andrew and Rob will join me for this weekend of racing.  Rob has been spending some time playing with the camera angles for this GoPros and we were lock and loaded.  Question was, would we be recording our success or our failures...  I was hoping for the former, as when the cameras go on, they stay on until the run out of juice.

Why mess with what ain't broke.  Breakfast at Ole's before heading out racing.  As there was going to be a long downwind leg to this race we were packing light, so outside of a bottle water each, the only consumables on board would be the ones you packed up in your belly before the race.  The race finishes right at the club docks so the cooler would be waiting for us there.

We had a better fleet of boats for this race with a couple of 1D35s, a couple of FT10s, the Henderson, a J90 and our JS9000.  We had a clean conservative start with plenty of room to leeward as we still continue to struggle to point with the fleet.   We sail a few degrees lower so its critical to keep some room.  Our strategy was to work on covering the fleet.  After a clearing tack to get away from the 1D that sailed over us we were back on starboard tack heading left.  As we entered the deep water most of the fleet tacked north towards Angel Island.  At this point we decided to stay on course as we were closer to enter the South ebb.  At this point we were behind both 1Ds and the J90, which all tacked to port.  We stayed on starboard with the Henderson and one of the FTs.   We hit the layline to Alcatraz and decided to go back and consolidate with the fleet now that we were in the strong current.  The Henderson kept going left a bit longer and that will pay off for them huge as the wind kept clocking left throughout the race.  When the fleet converged near the GG Bridge, the Henderson had a strong lead, and we had made up for our deficit when the fleet split and now were just ahead of the leading 1D and comfortably ahead of the J90.    We crossed a few tacks with the 1Ds around the GG and they eventually got ahead again.  The Henderson rounded Pt. Bonita first well ahead of the fleet, and we were close behind the 1Ds.

It was pretty mellow around Pt. Bonita, compare to the other times this year that we sneaked our bow out.  But still enough pressure to get a few surfs down a few 'smallish' swells.  We were sailing hot keeping up our speed and doing what we could to connect with some of the faces.  As we approached the bridge the pressure increased and the fun meter started recording high teens.  We pull a 'windsurfing' jibe down the face of a wave just before the bridge.  The boat accelerated throughout the jibe and the kite was in full trim as we exited.  FUN!

Jetstream Racing - Second Half Opener from rob blackmore on Vimeo.

We were having a good run down the city front trying to avoid what was left of the ebb, but kept running into light spots.  So we took one jibe out where we found better pressure and made our way towards Treasure Island.  We had good pressure all the way to the Bay Bridge where it started to lighten up.   We stretched our lead nicely on the windy section between the bridges, but now we could see the folks behind us getting bigger.  We could only hope that the pressure would hold in the Estuary before everyone rolled down on us.  We had to pull 17 jibes in the Estuary to make sure we kept our speed up.  But the pressure held and we got the gun at the finish.  Our competitors pushing hard behind us.

The great racing of the day was made even better by the hospitality at the club and the arrival of the family.   Gave AJ a tour of the docks and the boats before taking him to the club pool for a little fun time.  He then proceeded to spend the rest of his afternoon playing and wrestling with his future sailing friends.

Sunday we would repeat the day, but with a shorter race around Alcatraz, finishing back near the starting area.

West Point Regatta

July 16th was the 3rd Annual running of this regatta and our first appearance.  This time I would be joined by Rob and Erik.  The race is a tour of the Central Bay with a run down most of the length of the South Bay.  The race started at the NE end of Treasure Island, with Alcatraz as a rounding mark with the finish at the entrance of the Redwood City channel.  For me, it will be the first race South of San Francisco, but luckily the South Bay is Rob's home waters so we had all the local knowledge we needed for the second half of the race.

We started with the traditional feast at Ole's just to ensure we had enough energy for the race.  With a later start, there was no need to rush through the breakfast.  After loading up the boat we headed off to our delivery to the starting area.  I'm sure we got more than our usual share of stares as we had a few cameras mounted on the boat.  Both Rob and Erik like their cameras, so after a failed attempt of mounting a GoPro on the spreaders, we ended up with a GoPro mounted on the bow, another GoPro on Erik's head, a GoPro and a Flip on the stern antenna mast, and a handheld Flip with Erik.  I'm waiting for the editing of hours of footage, but I'll be posting the results in the future.

Being Erik's first ride on the boat we decided to get the kite up before the start for a practice run.  Good thing we did as we fixed a few bugs in the process.  We focused back on the race and started planning for out start and upwind strategy.

The pin was biased and I wanted a port start, but with a large number of boats and a smallish start line my first option was to lead the starboard boats and close the door on anyone attempting the port start at the pin.  We measured the 50 second line and came back early to the boat at the 1 minute mark.   Most of the boats windward of us were positioning for a boat end start, so we broke loose and reached down to the pin to go for our port start.  It worked perfectly.  We got enough separation from the starboard group and tacked on top of the only other boat at the pin end, crossing the fleet on port tack.  Our initial strategy called for hugging the TI shore for current relief, so after consolidating our port start we tacked back towards the island.  We found a stronger current near the island than expected, so we abandoned that strategy and headed towards the right side.  The runoff from the North Bay must still be quite strong as we had pretty good current until we reached the edge of Angel Island.  There we found the main flood coming in from the Gate.  At this point we had gained a substantial lead over the folks that stayed on the TI side of the course.  You only really get one shot to call the layline before getting into the 'river' and we went of what we thought was a very conservative layline.  But the river was really flowing and we weren't even close to clearing Alcatraz.  At this point you are pretty much stuck in the current and your only hope is that the rest of the fleet misses the layline as well.  After three more attempts we finally cleared Alcatraz and luckily hadn't lost too much to the rest of the fleet.

It was good to be done with the upwind part of the Race.  This race was billed as the South Bay downwind run, so we were ready to bear away and set some kites.  This course takes you through some of the most popular windsurfing and kiting venues in the San Francisco Bay, so we were excited about the wind possibilities.  Though the forecasts were pretty mild we still had high hopes.  So after clearing the edge of Alcatraz we set our A2 and head towards the Bay Bridge.  It is a beam reach but we are holding the kite and start separating from the rest of the fleet.  This is our sweet spot on the JS (well this and nuking downwind runs).  As we get closer to the bridge, we need to come up higher to stay on course so we decide to drop down to the A5 (probably should have called that to begin with anticipating the course change).  As we only have a single spin halyard and tack line, there is no peeling.  So we unfurl the jib, drop the big kite, hook the small kite, hoist and furl back the jib.  This is a process that we will end up doing a few times during the race as we would either be forced to change course and or the wind changed.

We really only had two tactical choices on the leg from the city to the San Mateo Bridge.   Either sail low of the rhumb line to keep the kite up, or stick to the rhumb line course.  With the flood current, the rhumb line course would give us a shorter distance plus better current.  The lower course would allow us to keep the kite up and take advantage of the right hand shift at the bottom of the course to make the channel for the bridge.   The low course also meant that you had to deal with a couple of shoals, so we decided to stick with the rhumb line.  That just meant that we had to keep changing gears between the reaching kite and white sails depending on the pressure and changes to the apparent wind angle.

We had built a nice lead on the reaching section of the course, but when the wind finally clocked a couple of miles before the San Mateo bridge, we could see the boat behind us sailing a deeper course with their symmetrical kites start to make some gains.  The pressure never really materialized and we were averaging around 8 - 8.5 knots on our run (in comparison to the 14 - 18s we can sustained in the 20+ knots known in this area).  But we were still ahead and not complaining (much).

After a couple of jibes we were under the bridge and on our final approach to the finish.  Rob called a perfect layline to the finish from across the bay and we gave ourselves and imaginary gun salute (you take your own finish time for this race as there is no RC on station).  After double checking and recording our finish time we enjoy a nice spinnaker run down the Redwood City channel.  We hit our top speed of the day at 13 knots (of course after we are done racing) and are having a great time in the new scenery.

We sail on to the guest dock of the Sequoia YC, where we are received with frosty cold beers by the Rear Commodore.  The results come out and it turned out to be much closer than we originally thought with the top 3 boats in the spinnaker division within a minute of each other after a 25 mile race.    Great day, great race with both first on time to finish and corrected.  I think we'll  be back.

6/18 Sailstice Day

Photo Latitude / Rob
© 2011 Latitude 38 Publishing Co., Inc.

Also a day of second chances.  JetStream did the HDA race that wasn't meant to be as I was supposed to be in Catalina after sailing the Coastal Cup on 'Invisible Hand'.  But we had to retire from that race back on Wednesday, which meant I got to come back and spend the weekend at home.  A bit of a disappointment, as the results are in for the Coastal Cup and I think we would have had a good chance to compete for first overall.  We shall try again.

Instead, I took JetStream out on Saturday to race on the HDA Sailstice Race with Andrew and Kristen.  It shaped up to be a great day with good breeze.   Our class is still a little weak, this time we had two other boats show up, one Flying Tiger 10 and the 1D35.  We had a clean start (easy with only 3 boats on the line) though I lined up a little early and ended on the pin end of the line when I wanted to be on the boat end.  I wanted the leeward lane as the bigger boats can point a bit better than us and squeeze us out if we are to windward.

The course had us starting by the Berkley Pier, up to Harding, down to R4, back up to Harding, with the finish on the leeward side of Treasure Island, around 14 miles.  With a strong flood of around 3 knots, the upwind legs felt like they lasted forever and not playing the current would result in immediate loses.  The 3 boats stayed pretty much in sync for the first upwind leg, with the 1D35 leading the way followed by us and the FT10.  The 1D35 had about a 300 yard lead on us when they went for the layline to Harding.  But they went too early getting into the main of the current and loosing their lead by the time we got to the mark.   We rounded first, with both the 1D35 and the Tiger on our stern.   We had a clean set and were off to the races with the big kite.  We build a bit of a lead, but a navigation error had us loose it.  We had been headed towards the wrong mark and by the time we realized and got back to the right mark we were following instead of leading.   Luckily we were still in contact with our fleet, now just behind the Tiger with the 1D35 on the lead again.   Rounding Pt. Blunt I thought I found a bit of a counter current and stayed out a bit longer.  Big mistake... by the time we tacked back towards Angel Island we had dropped back 50 yards and were too high to get on the favorable current.  The 1D35 stretched away from us, but we stayed in contact with the Tiger.  A good layline call had us catching the Tiger by the time we rounded Harding and we were off again to the finish.  A great downwind run, never dropping under 13 knots and hitting 18 a few times.   When we started the run, the red kite of the 1D35 was already past Alcatraz, so we had a lot of ground to make if we had any chance of making the time to correct over the 1D35 (about 3 minutes).

As we approached Treasure Island we saw the 1D35 drop their kite at the tip of the Island, but there was still another 1/2 mile reach from the tip of the island to the finish.  That was the opportunity we needed.  We kept our kite up all the way to the finish, and crossed the line just under 3 minutes behind the 1D35.  The results aren't yet in, but we think we got them in corrected time.

It was Kristen's first day on the boat.  Though a bit cold on the long upwind legs, she had a big grin on her face induced by the fast downwind runs, even when taking some water head on :)  Both Photoboy and the Latitude38 boats were out on Saturday, so I expect to add some photos to this blog in the next couple of days.

Today, spending Father's Day with the family and awaiting the arrival of the in-laws.  Time to go get some meat for the grill...

A full weekend

We had a full schedule for this weekend.  Friday night for the Encinal series, Saturday the fully crewed Farallones race on Ocelot and Sunday the HDA South Bay race.  Andrew and Rob would be on JetStream both Friday and Sunday.

Friday
After attending the life celebration for Rui Luis of Rooster Sails (both him and Rascal will be missed) I went to get JetStream ready for a little Friday evening racing.  Rob free climbed the mast to retrieve the main halyard that I accidentally skied after the last raced.   Rob indulged me by wearing a harness and a safety line, but the guy is a bit of a climber.

There had been plenty of breeze all afternoon but it went a little light towards the start of our race.  A windshift during our start sequence put us in a bad position for our start, and we were just half a boat length from clearing the fleet on port.  But we didn't and the boat that did ended up winning the race.  Instead, we were forced back to startboard (going the wrong way) and locked in that tack for too long by a boat that refused to tack and head up the Estuary.  Oh well, that was pretty much our race.  We had to pick through the fleet and manage to crawl back for a 5th place.

Saturday
An early dock call had Andrew, Rob and me eating breakfast at Ole's at 6:45.   A full belly and we were off to Ocelot for a race to the Farallones.  The forecast was calling for strong winds (20+) and on Ocelot that is ideal.  So the crew was pretty excited.

We got off the dock and I headed over to the 'daddy corner' to catch up on my sleep.  There are a few sleep deprived crew on the boat with small children, and the hour delivery to the start is an ideal time to crawl up on the forepeak and take a bit of a snoozer on top of the spinnakers.

As expected, as we got to the starting area the wind was already hovering on the high teens.  The #3 went up and we got ready for the long slog to the Farallones.  Kokopelli, Ocelot and Condor, left the gate in that order and we will remain as such all the way to the islands.  4 long hours of sitting on the rail beating in some significant wind chop and 20 - 30 knots.  It is not the funnest part of sailboat racing, but most of the time you have to put the time on the rail before enjoying the rewards of high speed downwind sailing.    A bit of a sidebar, the conditions outside Pt. Bonita were quite similar to the ones during the SSS Farallones race that we tried a few weeks back.  Amazing what and additional 10 feet of waterline and 3 feet of freeboard makes.  Ocelot gracefully powered over the tops of the waves, while JetStream tried to cut right through them.  Needless to say it was a bit more comfortable on Ocelot with no sense of being overly exposed.

Back to the race, we rounded the Farallones in second place and we got ready for our speed run back hoping to make some of the ground on Kokopelli.   Where did the wind go?  As we came out of the back of the Farallones our talk changed from 'would we need the A5 for the tight reach back' to 'why did we leave the A1 on the docks'.  The wind shifted to the West and dropped 10 knots...  aargh.    All that pain upwind for a mellow cruise back.  Shouldn't complain, as I was on one of the fastest boats on the fleet, and the rest of the fleet was looking at a really long day ahead of them.  15 miles later as we exited the longitude of the channel we found the pressure closer to shore.   We approached the bay entrance from the North and we were moving now steady in the low teens.  As we got close to the South Tower, the wind continued to build and we still had the A2 up.  At this point we were running on kite alone with the main out and vanged off.   The boat just kept accelerating toping at around 19 knots.  This is what we had hoped to do for a couple of hours, not just the last 15 minutes of the race.  At this angle we weren't making the finish and an attempt to try put us into a broach, which we conveniently used to get the spinnaker down.  We finished with main and stay sail still doing over 12 knots.   There were smiles all around.

Sunday
A late 1PM start allowed for some good family time in the morning.  Rob and Andrew were back on JetStream.  A beautiful day, the sun finally came out around 11 as the fog cleared and the temperature started to rise.  We headed towards South Beach for our HDA start.  After a few practice runs we were ready to go.  There was some really nice flat water and as the minutes ticked the wind continued to build which is always good for us.  I would estimate we raced in between 12 - 18 knots.

Today it would just be one race.   A huge disappointment was the low turnout for the race.   I have been hoping to get some of the other sportboats excited about coming out and getting a fleet established.  But out of the 6 boat entered only 4 showed up, and two of the 4 decided to race in the non-sportboat division, WTF?  The Henderson and the Ultimate 24 didn't race with us.  So our race would be a match race between JetStream and an 1D35, with the boats crossing the finish line within 3 seconds of each other.  The race would be Start - W - Reach mark - L - W - L -W - L - Finish.  So a nice long race (I think about 10 miles).

Both boats went for a pin end port start as it was highly favored.  We must have just made the line as the gun went off and slightly won the start.  We stayed in front 3/4 of the way to the windward mark before the 1D35 got ahead of us.  Those boats are an upwind machine with better speed and point and killer when the wind goes light (at least compared to us).   The next leg would make our race.  We had tried out the angle before our race and made the call of going with the smaller reaching kite (A5) as opposed to our big kite (A2).  That made the difference in the day.  We set immediately around the windward mark and went on a screaming reach into the mid teens.   The 1D35 instead reached high with its white sails and it was halfway up the leg before they set their kite.  In that leg alone we measured a 4 minute advantage between the boats.  We would need that buffer.

We held our lead down to the leeward mark before heading back upwind.  We worked a loose cover on the 1D35 and hedged towards the left side which seemed to have more pressure.  There was enough separation that both boats were on different wind so we just had to play our shifts.    We got around the windward mark ahead but the 1D35 had made a significant gain on the upwind leg, cutting our lead in half.

Now the big kite went up and with the building pressure we were easily doing 12 and 13s towards the mark.  Us playing our 'power' angles while the 1D35 was pretty squared back and going on a more direct course.   We managed to gain a bit of our lead back.

We repeated the upwind leg, with similar results.  This time the 1D35 rounded just about a minute behind us.   The wind dropped some for the last downwind leg so we didn't gain much back on the other boat, so it was going to be a tight upwind leg to the finish.   We got ourselves into cover mode and worked a tight cover on the 1D35, but little by little they chipped at our lead.  Up to about 100 yds to the finish we were ahead and went to protect the right hand side.  But it wasn't to be.  A tack duel ensued and in the lighter conditions they were faster and got the gun by something like 3 seconds.  At least we put a good show for the race committee and we will still correct to first place.

A nice spinnaker run back to Alameda and finished the day watching the Mav's beat the Heat while enjoying an all you can eat Prime Rib dinner.   I think I'm going to be full for the next three days...

JS 9000 Jetstream South Bay Racing from rob blackmore on Vimeo.

Coming up: Coastal Cup
My favorite race of the mid distance Ocean Series.  San Francisco to Catalina Islands starting on Wednesday.  I'll be back on the J111 'Invisible Hand'.

2011 SSS Farallones - First Attempt

After much boat prep ahead of the Farallones, JetStream was ready to give it a try, Plan A. After discussions in the morning with Outsider about the expected sea state, we decided to have a look for ourselves anyways. Made it to the start just in time. Had a great ride to the bridge and Bonita, by the time we got close to Bonita I could see the fleet ahead either well heeled or flogging their sails, even some boats were already on their way back. Would have been a nice spot to put on the reef. Within a few minutes we were in the middle of square seas and winds I would guess in the mid twenties. I tried to set the boat up to tuck a reef in, but in that sea state I wasn't too confident on the pilot as I was very actively steering around the worst of the waves. It would have massacred the main (and skipper) to continue racing with full main. Even though I really wanted to at least try to get to the organized swell to see if the ride would get more comfortable, the quiet voice inside my head kept saying that it was enough. So we turned around a few miles past Bonita before reaching the first of the markers. And... Holy Shit, is the end of the world really coming.... Surfing back through the confused seas with sustained mid-teens on the speedo and a couple of 20s. The fastest the boat has ever gone and we didn't even had the kite up. We did bail out on a couple of the steep drops, but surfed our way back to Bonita in no time.

I was really curious to test out the boat some more since we were already out, so once inside Bonita we turned back around, tucked in the reef and went back out for a second look. Not too comfortable either. The wind was manageable, but the sea state made me feel very exposed. Also learned that we need a better system to pull in the clew reef point. No purchase, and no access to the winch is not going to cut it even with no pressure on the main. So after a bit of abuse we bore off on startboard tack. This time I stayed on this tack for a while and could really appreciate the swells. Still screaming, pulled in a gybe and headed back to the gate. That was the end of Plan A.

Congrats to the skippers that got around the rockpile and back! It was a fast but difficult day.

JetStream was also entered for the HDA series. With a mid day start we still had plenty of time to go racing. A few phone calls and we had crew lined up. I pulled up to the docks at GGYC and waited for the crew to arrive. The skippers of Outsider and Starbuck, who had both also bailed from the Farallones race rounded up the crew. It was now blowing mid-twenties in the bay. Boats at the edge of control and we have to deal with a starting line right smack in the middle of the leeward gate for the team-racing folks. Someone wasn't really thinking.... Everyone did the right thing, but having all those boats in that close proximity is just not smart.

We were in our conditions, rounded the windward mark just behind the 1D35 and headed on a white sail reach. By the time we decided to set (and after a couple of budged attempts at hoisting) we had gone a bit too far and were struggling to clear Alcatraz. So a quick douse and we were power reaching again. Rounded the leeward mark first and covered the 1D35 all the way to the finish for the gun. So Plan B turned out a bit better. It was supposed to be a two race day for HDA, but at this point I was spent, we lost the spinny tack line on the quick drop, and decided to call it a day. Not a bad day.

After a beer back at GGYC, jumped back on the boat and jib sailed back to Alameda.

2011 Vallejo - Part 2

Sunday was the return race from Vallejo to San Rafael, normally an upwind affair but a little shorter and with favorable current this time.   Due to our late arrival on Saturday, my participation on the night festivities was restricted (though sufficient).  This meant that I felt pretty good Sunday morning.

I stayed with the family in St. Helena and was a little late getting to the boat, but Andrew had everything ready to go.  Something about my text messages at 7 in the morning (seemed reasonable at the time).  We got to the starting area with plenty of time and setup for the kite run down the river.   We had a good start windward of Ragtime and immediately set the kite.   Sailed to the lee of Ragtime as they hadn't set and didn't want to give them the opportunity to luff us up.   We started pulling away from the fleet with the 11-meter on hot pursuit.   We were about 100 yds in front of our fleet when we arrived to a wall of boats blocking the whole river struggling with the last of the flood and light air.  Here it was a crap shoot.  First we tried the West side just to see pressure and current relieve on the East side.  So we crossed over to the East, things look good momentarily, just to see the wind build on the West side and watching as the fleet walked away on us.    So we were in catch up mode.

As we exited the river I wanted to take a few tacks along the wall before crossing over, but Andrew convinced me otherwise (he reminded me how it paid off for me last year when he was racing against us).  It was a good call, it was still about another hour before any real ebb materialized and there was good pressure and angle on the South side.  We kept playing the shallows 2/3rds of the way to Point Pinole where the wind line shut down.  By then we had worked our way into deeper water to take advantage of the current.  There was barely a zephyr of wind, but with the current pushing us into the wind, the increased apparent wind meant we were able to keep the boat moving the whole time.  It was enough to allows to get ahead of the 11-meter and the Tiger that had beat us out of the river.

The wind did eventually filled from the West with good pressure to get us to the finish line.  We just tried to play the wind and current with various degrees of success.   The Tiger caught up to us and got ahead close the finish and we could see Ragtime not far behind us.

We never really saw much of the Henderson, mostly because as I would learn from the results they were plenty ahead.   They sailed a great race.   We had a good race ourselves correcting to 2nd in our division.
Sunday Results

The best part of the day was Andrew's run from the Richmond Bridge to the Alameda entrance on a tight reach on fresh conditions.  It doesn't get old.

2011 Vallejo Season Opener

This weekend Andrew and I raced JetStream on the Vallejo Season Opener. This year we got two Sportboat starts. We were on the fleet with the larger Sportboats including the 1D35, Flying Tigers, Henderson 30, Azzura 310, J90 and Hobbie 33. Saturday is normally a downwind ride to Vallejo, but this year we were welcomed by a Northerly that made it a beat to the Richmond Bridge and mostly to San Pablo point.

Andrew described the race quite accurately. Saturday we had three races, from the Berkeley Circle to the Richmond Bridge, from Richmond Bridge to Point San Pablo, and from San Pablo to Vallejo. We won two out of the three with the benefit of winning the last leg and taking a first in our division.

The first leg wasn't ideal as the wind settled from the windy delivery to the start line. In the lighter conditions we struggled with some of the bigger boats. We started on the right side of the course near Berkeley but with a remaining flood and more pressure on the left side boats, we cut our loses and headed left. We weren't doing particularly well until the winds really got light and we were able to coast, on a bit of private pressure, past the fleet on the West side of Red Rock. We were looking good at the end of the first leg.

After Red Rock it was still an upwind beat up to Point San Pablo. Here we split with Outsider. He tacked away and went right, and we stayed left. This turned out to be a mistake as we got caught on the center of the bay when the ebb started and the winds continued to lighten. We had to again made a painful crossing to the Richmond shore. Things weren't looking good under white sails, we weren't making any gains on the current. So we set our A5 spinnaker and sailed as high as we could. This finally got us to the current relief on the shore and we were again within striking distance from the leaders. But the winds continued to lighten and we encountered the main current. For the first time in JetStream we were forced to drop anchor just to hold our position and wait for the wind. We had a little food and drink. The wind made an attempt to come up and everyone started the beat against the current to get into San Pablo Bay. No one seem to be able to make it against the current between The Brothers and San Pablo Point, so most of the fleet worked their way down current of The Brothers to try to get some relief and get around from the West side of The Brothers. Greg on Outsider was the first to break free and he was gone... This was leg two and we weren't doing that hot. It would take us quite a while to get around The Brothers and even when we did, we just started sliding West as we couldn't gain any leverage against the current in the light air. At this point it was past 4 PM. We had expected to be tied up in Vallejo and enjoying some cold beers by this time. The large majority of the fleet, about 200 out of the 250 starters began to drop off. We almost called it of ourselves. Luckily for us, I didn't bring enough fuel to either motor home nor Vallejo from where we were. An even luckier, we didn't have any competitors motor past us and tempt us with throwing them a line for a tow.

Leg 2 - Red Rock to San Pablo

Out of nowhere at around 4:30, the sea breeze came in strong from the West. We put the big spinnaker up and started to make progress East towards Vallejo. The breeze continue to freshen and we were now screaming on a tight reach. Half way to Point Pinole we could no longer hold the big kite and dropped down to white sails to clear the point. Soon after we put up the smaller kite and we were off. We started picking up boats, the ones still racing and the others motor-sailing after dropping out. We could see two boats we normally race against in front of us. Outsider was closer and sailing with white sails, which made them a quick target. Then in front we could see the red kite of Head Rush, not in our fleet but a boat we have raced often against. They kept getting bigger and bigger, and soon we were side by side flying at 16 knots towards Vallejo. We played the south side of the bay to stay out of the deep water and the stronger ebb (with a sharp eye on depth, no need to repeat our encounter with the mud on last years Jazz Cup). We pulled a few fast gybes near the fueling docks before crossing over to the Mare Island side. A few more gybes and we entered the Napa River. We held the spinnaker a little longer but soon had to drop to white sails and beat up the river towards the finish line. We finished a couple of minutes behind the J90 Ragtime, but were able to correct out at the end to win the fleet.

Saturday Results

This trip across San Pablo was one of the most fun we've had, and well worth the wait and light airs for the first 4 hours of light airs.

Evening in the Estuary

This last week has had good wind in the bay. Though not all of it gets down to the Alameda Estuary there was still enough to warrant putting the boat in the water for a 2 hr sail. Here is a clip of JetStream with the Doyle crew getting the boat moving.

Its a bit frustrating in the Estuary, since as soon as you get the boat to speed it is time to jibe. But any time to see the spray fly straight up from the bow we are having fun.

I do need to find a better mount for the camera as this angle is too low. In this clip it is mounted on the tiller.

We will keep an eye on those 'Small Craft Advisories' and see if we can get better footage.

Enjoy!

2011 SSS Corinthian Race

A frustrating and sometimes even irritating day, with a decent ending.

@ Erik Simonson

Though light air sailing is not my favorite, nor my boat strength, its part of the sailors diet and you do the best with what you have.  Today, however, was a bit of a special day.  There was a gale blowing outside the gate, but inside the bay someone shut the switch.  How that can physically happen I still can't understand, but it was as if someone dropped a dome over the bay to shield it from the ferocious winds just outside.  My disappointment on the conditions was partly my own fault as I allowed myself to believe the forecast from the National Weather Service.  Last night calling for 15 to 30 knots, and this morning still calling for 10 to 20 with a Small Craft Warning for the bay.  None of which materialized.



But on to the racing.  Tom (aka Luchador Perro de Guerra) would complete the crew for today as we were sailing doublehanded.  We got to the club a bit early so had time to tie up and go to the upper deck to scout the conditions for the start.  LIGHT, with a decent flood near Angel Island.  We had chosen to do a pin start on port tack.  We were decently positioned with only one other boat to contend, a yellow Moore 24, also planning the same start.  He was a bit better positioned than us clear ahead and to leeward at the gun.  He was sailing singlehanded, so effectively we are not racing each other.  There was an opportunity for both boats to have a great start, but then he shut the door on us.  Now, I'm the first one to shut the door on bargers, but not at the cost of my own start.  The Moore had to pretty much luff head to wind to shut the door, which he effectively did.  I wasn't thrilled about that choice and probably had a few unfortunate words to share with the other skipper.  I just didn't see the point.  But we did a bailing tack in time to avoid a bad situation and got on with our start.

The leg to Little Harding was the traditional upwind to Point Belvedere, and staying North away from the worse of the current.  At this point the winds must have been around 8 - 10 knots from the Southwest, so the layline was more Alcatraz than Little Harding itself.   We recovered a bit from our late start, but still had some boats from our fleet ahead of us, both the Tiger and the ID35 were clear ahead by quite a bit.  We followed the procession towards Alcatraz on the way to Blossom Rock.  At the level of Alcatraz we set the kite.  Well, we had a bit of a problem with our first attempt, but got things sorted and got the kite up and pulling a couple minutes later.  We now started picking up boats, trying to get clean lanes through the fleet of boats in front of us.

We had  a clean rounding around Blossom and started headed towards Blackaller buoy.  Most of the boats ahead were headed towards the city front, but we found good pressure and current in the middle.  We picked a few more boats on the upwind leg, there was a bit more pressure on the southern edge of they bay.  We were know within striking distance of the leading boats.  We had a flawless set and started our run towards Point Blunt.  I allowed ourselves to get a bit tangled up with a couple of J boats and the Tiger, pinning us on port tack for longer than we wanted.  Eventually we were able to gybe away to better pressure and a better angle.   We were feeling pretty good now, we were with the leading boats with only Arcadia and Roshambo ahead of us.   We got to Arcadia just before Alcatraz.   The winds were now lightening up as we started sailing towards the northern edge of the bay.  We had to keep having to gybe onto starboard to avoid getting sucked into the hole in the lee of Angel Island.  These were painful gybes with negative VMG, but the alternative was to sit on a hole.  Sit on a hole we eventually did as the wind died a few hundred yards from South Hampton Shoals.  Any time we gybe towards the mark we will run out of wind.  Even giving the mark a wide berth did help us much.  Eventually the rest of the fleet caught up to us at the SHS restart.  This is the infuriating part.  At this point we are about 2/3rds of the way into the race, and having to make up your handicap in the last 1/3rd of the race would be a challenge.

Race wasn't over yet.  With these light conditions another big decision still had to be made.  Do we try Racoons Straits to sail around the South side of Angel Island.  By now the wind had filled from the South East.  Yes, the South East, it is not a typo.  So we gybed around SHS and aimed for the North end of the entrance to the Straits.   The choice wasn't easy, as there wasn't much sign of wind inside the Straits and the majority of the fleet had chosen the other way.  Surprisingly the wind held, and we were able to carry the spinnaker halfway down the Straits.   A new one for me, going West through Racoon's Straits with the kite up.....  Halfway down the Straits we met the Westerly, dropped the kite, and got on the ebb conveyor belt all the way to Little Harding. With this bit of luck, we had a huge gain over the folks that sailed around Angel Island.

One last set around Little Harding an on to the finish.  At this point we were the second boat in the fleet behind Roshambo and the first Monohull.   We finished in this order and got the gun for our class.   A nice reward for a very challenging day.

The results are already up, and though not bad, not as good as I had expected.  We finished 2nd in our DoubleHanded Sportsboat division just 5 seconds out of first.  We finished 5th Overall

Saturday at Big Daddy

Not in the original schedule, but Andrew and I decided to go out for the Saturday race day of the Big Daddy regatta sponsored by the Richmond YC.  They had scheduled 3 windward/leeward races so we would have our work cut out.  The forecast was for light winds 5 - 15 knots, so we decided to just go double handed.

We were the smaller boat (at 30 feet) on the PHRF D fleet, with the rest of the boats in the 33 to 40 foot range. With the light winds it would proof to be a tough day sailing in 'displacement' mode against the boats with longer waterlines.

The first race was called for twice around the buoys.  Soon after the start we tacked right while the rest of the fleet went left and that was the end of the race for us.  We went the wrong way and by the time we got to the windward mark we were just a boatlength away from being DFL.  A horrible set, the new kites are big and with the ultra narrow boat they tend to find the water very easy.  At least we got all the bad juju on the first race, and managed not to finish last.

The second and third races call for 3 times around the course.  We had good starts on both races and played it more conservatively with the rest of the fleet.  The upwind legs were a bit frustrating trying to keep up with the bigger boats in the light-med conditions.  The wind hovered between 10 and 15 knots and all the bigger boats were powered up with better speed and point that us.   We would make some gains back on the downwind legs but hardly enough to make up the loses on the upwind legs.  A few times on the runs we got close to breaking loose but still needed a few more knots of wind, adding to the frustration.

On the last race we rounded the leeward mark in second place, our best showing of the day.  We tried covering  Quiver and Encore to the upwind mark.  I tried too tight a cover on Quiver that was a mistake as they were able to poke their nose to leeward.  We were both on port tack when I see a starboard sail poke over the top of my mast (good thing we have a short rig).  It was Encore crossing us on starboard, F>>>!!! crash tacked and all was well, other than loosing two positions.    It was a surprise to see Encore that close.   We weren't paying as much attention to starboard tackers since we thought that Quiver would be our cover and signal if anyone was coming.   But the separation was enough that Quiver just took their stern leaving us with a big surprise.  To our surprise we never heard a hail, but it is very likely that we were completely hidden behind Quiver's sails.  Disaster avoided.

We weren't feeling too good after the race, boat for boat we were finished in 4th place on both races, but ended up correcting to 3rd, finishing the regatta in 3rd place.  We never got close to the J120 in these conditions.  Would have needed to be 'blasting' mode downwind to have any chance of closing the gap.    But it was a good day and great practice for the busy summer season.

Next, Cabo!

2011 Three Bridge Fiasco

By Rich Hudnut

This race is the unofficial start of the racing season in the San Francisco Bay, this year bringing out a total of 367 registered boats for the event. People in the know say it is the largest race in California and probably in the whole of the US. The race is characterized by its unorthodox course. Starting and finishing in front of the Golden Gate YC on the San Francisco city front, the course has only three marks near landmark bridges in the bay (Blackaller bouy near the Golden Gate Bridge, Yerba Buena Island which connects the two spans of the Bay Bridge and Red Rock just south of the Richmond/San Rafael Bridge) which each racers can round in any order and in any direction he/she chooses. This means that tactical racing decisions will only really help you if you made the right strategic choice around your the rounding order. Some homework is in order, although it doesn't always help...

The way I approached it this year is that there are three key objective variables, plus two subjective ones. The three objective variables are distance, wind and current. The subjective ones are the 'group dynamic' of where the 'good racers' and your key competitors are going, and where can your boat sail in the given conditions regardless of where you want it to go...

The break down in distance (simplified as the crow flies) gives the following options:
1. B-RR-YB (CW) or YB-RR-B (CCW), about 21 miles
2. RR-YB-BB, about 23 miles
3. RR-B-YB, about 26 miles
As you can see there is a strong incentive to do either the clockwise (CW) or counter-clockwise (CCW) course.

The current was going to be a strong ebb this year, going up to a maximum ebb of 4 knots around 2 hours after our start at 10:40. My thought was to try to minimize our exposure to the strong ebb.

Last, but not least, actually the most important, is the wind. The national forecast was for light winds. Sailflow, however, showed a more optimistic forecast with the wind building to the teens in the afternoon between Angel Island and Richmond. But most importantly, and the factor that I think ultimately decided our fate on this race, it showed for very light winds throughout the day just south of the Bay Bridge.

Before the Sailflow forecast the night before the race, I was leaning towards the YB,RR,B route. It hardly ever pays to sail extra distance, however, after reading the forecast I started hesitating a bit given the light winds expected around YB. The other option was to run to RR first. But from the start to RR it is almost an 8 mile leg, in the light conditions and with a strong ebb it would take us over two hours to complete and will get us there at the max of the ebb, in an area that is famous for large windholes. So I wasn't thrilled about that alternative. Going to Blackaller first was the distant third option as that will put is the farthest west, which would mean even bigger exposure during the large ebb. So unless something dramatic happened the plan was to go CCW.

Tom was to join me for this race and the rest of the double handed season. Breakfast at Ole's is becoming quite an enjoyable tradition with some fellow racers. Andrew and his Dad, Mike and Dave joined Tom and I this time. Boat was already in the water so cleaned it up a bit and we were off. The wind was already blowing from the S, SW and going past the Bay Bridge (already on an earlier than scheduled ebb, hmmm) we were happy to see decent pressure in that part of the bay. This further reinforced our plans of doing YB first. We toiled around the starting area before the start looking for the usual suspects, Yucca, Arcadia, Golden Moon, the Farr 30, all headed or lining up to head east towards YB. This is were the subjective factors come to play, as the fleet in general plus some key competitors were also heading in the same direction.

We had a good start in the light air, with a clear lane and on time. In the light conditions we quickly lost a bit of ground to Outsider and the Mumm which started a few minutes after us, but do better than us in the light air. As we head east we quickly found the first 'wall' of boats that had encountered the first of the ebb as they got to Pier 39. With the kite up and only feet from the sea wall we were able to sneak past the fleet (must have been around 50 or so boats) and break free from the current as we hugged the city front. We would do a few more tacks on the city front before we ventured across the 'river' to cross over TI/YB. A few boats tried to cross too early and got flushed out by the ebb (which for some of them was a blessing in disguise). We stayed on the city side a little longer and had no problem doing the crossing. At this point things were looking great. The Mumm was still ahead by maybe a quarter mile, and we were having a close contest with the Head Rush (the Antrim 27). We continued to short tack up the TI side until we reached the corner of Yerba Buena Island. At this point we were probably 1 of 6 or 8 boats at the lead of the CW fleet, and we were feeling pretty good about it. And then we STOPPED.

The current was ripping in the corner of YB island and the wind had dropped to less than five knots. If you dare venture into the current line you would get flushed 200 yds before you could get back into the small relieve area where everyone was jockeying for position. At first it was just 10 or so boats, but as more boats caught up to us it soon became a fiasco within the fiasco. Some boats anchored to avoid the musical chair game. Looking at our track I think we played the game about 15 times, it was exhausting as we are sailing a few feet away from the island, with anchored boats and sailing boats... I am surprised that it didn't end worse. Eventually, the current started subsiding, but we had lost about one and half hours here. So unless there was also a similar situation around Red Rock, all of our chances for a good placing overall were already dashed. As we rounded YB and started sailing into Emeryville, the answer was soon provided, as we encountered boats already sailing south. Oh well, that was it for the overalls, but there was still a race to be had amongst the clockwise fleet.

The first half of the run from YB to RR was in light and shifty winds and we lost a few positions. Initially we stayed close to the Berkley flats to stay out of the remaining ebb, but after seeing a westerly filling in decided to head west and go for the wind. That decision paid huge dividends as we caught up with most of the leaders by the time we got to Red Rock. We left RR to starboard and tacked back to the Tiburon side for our upwind slog through Racoon Straights. By now the wind had build to the mid to high teens (hmm, where did I see that forecast?) and we were in our element. But just as soon we started to hear reports of boats finishing on the radio and we still had around 8 miles or so of an upwind leg to complete, ugh...

We powered through Racoon Straights but found the start of the flood as we exited. This will further extend our race. Now, we would have to go all the way to the North Tower of the Golden Gate bridge before crossing over the the city front and avoid the current. Add a few extra miles to our course. Luckily the wind stayed up and we got across in decent shape. A few more tacks and we were around Blackaller. We were looking forward to put the kite up one last time and try to get a couple of places back on the run to the finish, but by now the wind had shifted again to the south which made for a tight reach to the finish. We finished with our running lights on around 5:57 PM.

In retrospect I underestimated the current around TI and undervalued the forecast information from Sailflow. But hindsight is always 20-20. There is always the luck factor in this race. Many of the people that ended up going to RR first had intended to go to TI first but couldn't get past the first encounter with the current which we were able to handle. This is were the second subjective factor comes into play, 'go where you can sail'. For us that wouldn't help, by the time we reached the corner of YB we were committed.

At the end of the day, we covered 30 miles on course. We had pretty high expectations for the overalls. We finished in 65th place out of 295 starters in the doublehanded fleet. Within our sportsboat division we did better with a 2nd place out of 30 starters, the only boat that beat us took a different route, so not a terrible result.

Plenty of more racing to do this year, with boat and crew working well it was a great way to start the sailing year.