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.