2020 SSS Round the Rocks

Beginning of a New Era

There is not much good that can be said about 2020, it's been a challenging year and one that has required everyone to work outside their comfort zone and think outside the box.  Our normal routines have been upended, but if you look closely there are possibilities for new things to emerge.  In time of uncertainty, you best just play the odds.  We've taken some calculated gambles this year, but before we packed up for the Midwest we had a shot at one last sailboat race in the SF Bay.  The SSS Round the Rocks race is a nice Bay tour that starts us in the Berkley flats, takes us all the way near the South Tower of the Golden Gate, through the picturesque Racoon Straits in Tiburon, gives us a peak into San Pablo Bay as we round The Brothers and finishes up in the Richmond Harbor.

In any other year, one of my regular crew would have flown down to do this race doublehanded, but that wasn't going to happen this year, and further restrictions asked for doublehanded crews to be part of a household or 'social bubble'.   I could always do the race singlehanded, but there was another option.  My 10 yr old son had been lucky to join one of the only summer camps available this year, Encinal YC Sailing Camp.  He spent 4 days a week, for six weeks sailing up and down the Oakland Estuary on a little Opti.  He also joined me as crew for the Wed and Fri night races that started up mid summer in the Estuary.  He has been sailing/racing on board JetStream and Outsider in the Estuary for years, but the Central Bay is a different game.  After explaining to him that it would be a long day in the water, and windy and cold, he didn't hesitate when I asked him to crew for me on the race.

I'll let him tell the rest of the story:

MY AROUND THE ROCKS SAILING REGATTA

It began with a cloudy morning in Alameda, California, where me and my dad were getting prepared for the biggest sailboat race of my life. I was really excited for the race to start.

When me and my dad got out to the bay, it was really windy and wavy, and then I was starting to get a little nervous. But when it got sunny I started to feel better. At that point we were still motoring out to the start. But when my dad was lifting up the mainsail, the halyard broke, but luckily we got the sail up in time.

When it was our starting sequence we started lifting up the jib (the small sail in front of the boat) and I started cranking it in. When our start was at about 30 seconds I started taking deep deep breaths, Then our start was at 20 seconds, 10 seconds, 5,4,3,2,1 and then the start horn went off. We were off to a fine start at about 4th or 5th then started working our way up the fleet slowly. When we rounded the 1st windward mark we were currently in 1st place in our fleet rounding the mark and making our way upwind to the Golden Gate Bridge.

When we rounded Blackaller my dad handed me the tiller. We were moving quickly on the reach and hit a max speed of 19 kts on our way to these two islands called The Brothers. After The Brothers I handed the tiller back to my dad.

When rounding the brothers I thought to myself “almost there Alex, keep up the good work just 2 more legs to go”. The next mark we needed to round was Red Rock, and after that was the finish so this was the time we needed to concentrate, but when I looked back to see if there were any opponent boats, all I saw were some boats that weren't in our division, so that was a relief. Now all we needed to do now was focus and concentrate on rounding the next mark.

We finally rounded Red Rock and the finish was just a few hundred yards away and still no opponent in sight, and I started feeling good I just kept saying to myself almost there Alex, almost there. Then my dad stopped the timer and we finished the race at 2:36:05. But we can’t celebrate yet because we still need to sail all the way back to Alameda in even windier conditions than at the start of the race. When we were done sailing across the bay all we needed to do was sail down the estuary, park our boat at the docks and put the boat away and fix the halyard which would take my dad the rest of the day, as I went home to get warm. The day was complete. When I got home I was really happy and proud of myself, and stuffed myself full of candy.

Still in training, but he turned out to be an excellent crew, and yes, we won our division. That will keep him coming back.

2019 TBF

A happy TBF

Its been a while since we had an enjoyable Three Bridge Fiasco.  The last few years had been a story light or no wind, big currents and frustrating days.  With the bar set so low by the previous years, Rob and I were ready to go at it one more time.  With Rob doing the trek from Seattle just for the race (well and a little surfing on Sunday) the pressure was on to make it a worthwhile trip.   The forecast wasn't exactly encouraging, with a non-traditional NE flow.

We had the usual preparations, a nice meal and some beers to 'finalize' on the strategy.  A strategy that we nevertheless normally ignore by the start of the race.  With the veering of the breeze we were seeing on the wind charts for the day CCW seemed the best direction for us, IF we could make it past TI.  Many TBFs have ended for us by going to TI first, as it can be pretty light there in the mornings.

We made it to the start line with plenty of spare time and began re-strategizing.  With the large majority of the fleet choosing a CW direction, it put our original strategy in question.    We hung around the eastern side of the line to keep an eye on the boats headed to TI, while continuing to monitor the wind line pushing down from the North.  CW, CCW, CW, CCW, with 2 mins to our start, we could see the wind filling in to TI and we made the call to head CCW, as originally planned.

We had a nice close reach up the city front and soon after clearing Pier 39 we deployed the code.  The speedo jumped from 9 knots to 13 and we started reeling boats in.  Clearly we were having way too much fun to appreciate the size of the wind shadow behind Yerba Buena.  Even though we gave it a wide berth by going around the first tower, it was still too close and we ran straight into the vortex from hell.  We also showed everyone behind us where not to go, so the wise ones stayed way clear of us and ghosted around the wind hole around us.   We fought our way through the vortex but at a significant time cost.  We found a southerly behind YB that we rode way East, to get out of the current and trying to hook back up to the main NE flow.  We made that transition much more cleanly and made the Emeryville to Red Rock segment on a single tack.  At one point we tried to redeploy the code but the angle was too tight for us to hold, so we jib reached the rest of the way.  It was encouraging to only encounter boats coming from the other direction only past Richmond.   We were feeling pretty good about our position.  It was hard to see how many boats were in front of us until after we rounded Red Rock.

Next decision was whether to shoot through the straits or go around Angel.  The wind direction was pointing straight through the straits, so there wasn't much discussion.  We started picking up boats ahead of us, but we could still see some pesky little kites ahead.   We kept the pedal down and were able to pick about 10 more boats, but eventually ran out of runway.  We knew the Thompson was ahead of us, I had seen them on the back of YB when we ran into the wind hole, but they clearly had put enough distance ahead that we weren't able to see their finish.  So we ended up in second place for our Sportboats fleet and top 10 overall.   A pleasing day all around.  The big prize was within reach this time, just one bad transition.  We'll be back next year.

Be willing to throw away a perfectly laid plan

Its that time of the year again, last weekend of January and with it  comes the SSS Three Bridge Fiasco.  This years version attracted a record crowd of 368, all sailing single or double handed.  This year I entered JetStream in the singlehanded division.

We all knew it was going to be a tough race, with a strong ebb dominating the day and two wind main wind events during the day.  The first starters were to see a solid Northerly giving way to a Westerly at 'some point' later in the morning.

With the strong ebb in the middle of the race, the plan was set: take Red Rock out of the equation by knocking it out first.  For the other marks there is always a play regardless of the current, but getting around Red Rock on a full ebb can bring the toughest sailors to desperation.

I dropped and clean the boat Friday night as it would be an early start on Saturday.  All night Friday the wind was howling at our home on the Oakland Hills.   Good omen perhaps.   It was still blowing strong we I left at 6 am.  After breakfast at Oles with a few other crews we set off to the starting line.  A busier than normal delivery since there was no one else on the boat to rig it up and prepare it for racing.  Autopilot on, I got to the process of rigging everything up.  With a nice Northerly filling the bay I hoisted the main on the lee of Treasure Island and put the outboard away.  Took a quick detour to scout our escape lane.

The plan was after the start to head North over the top of Alcatraz and over towards the Berkeley flats (as a hedge for current relief).  Checked a few other boats on the earlier starts with the same plan and it was looking good.

But in this sport your best plans are often spoiled.  Not ten minutes after our start at 10:12 the Northerly on the Central Bay started to teeter off and five minutes later it was gone.  Shut down.  This left me drifting in 100 feet of water with no hope to anchor at the mercy of the building ebb.    And the ebb did build, putting us on a fast track towards the North Tower of the Golden Gate.  Would this be a repeat of last year??  It wasn't for the lack of trying... I tried the Code Zero, then the kite, then the Zero again, maybe the jib would be a better drifter, so we tried that again, as we continued on our West bound trajectory.  All that work got me pretty hungry so I decided to break for lunch before deciding my next move.  By this time the radio was already filling the air with drop out calls and things weren't looking that promising for me.  Around 11:45 the kites under the gate began to billow.  The Westerly was here, and in good time, as we were now just half a mile from exiting the bay.

What now, is almost two hours from our original start time and we are still nowhere from a racing perspective.   I was still hoping to get North and never thought of given my current position of abeam of Blackaller and less than a mile away to just knock that off (something to consider next time).  So kite up and we started working our way East, with an ebb already pushing pretty hard against us.   On my last gybe before heading North I noticed another parking lot just East of Pt. Blunt, while all the boats near Yerba Buena looked powered up.  I've lost races trying to get around Yerba Buena on a ebb but I though I had good boat speed to tackle it.  So there went the plan to take out Red Rock first.  Off to Yerba Buena.

I took another gybe just to make the approach on less current closer to Treasure Island.  It paid off, I made quite a bit of ground on the boats in front.  But at some point you need to stick your nose out, and the river was flowing....  The first attempt to clear the corner failed, but on the second try, only a few away from some really scary rocks we got through.

The next piece was some of the nicest sailing to be had.  Clear sky, nice 10 knots close reaching with full VMG towards Red Rock.  Took advantage of some ebb out of the South Bay, the hedging towards the Bekeley flats to avoid the ebb.    The ebb was there, as I quickly approached the whole Northern fleet just sitting there, a mile South of Red Rock, not able to make any more Northern progress.  And so we joined them.  It took us and hour and a half to cover that mile.  The 2 knots of boat speed just wasn't a match for the full ebb.  We finally managed to get around Red Rock at 4:30 pm.  Only two and a half ours to complete the course, we still needed to round Blackaller (wishing now I would have rounded it when the breeze first filled in).  We still had some (now) favorable current and so we started our beat towards Racoon Straits.  While most boats tacked South after RR, we stayed on port tack towards the Marin shore and better pressure.  This was the best move of the day.   It payed hugely.  We rode the last of the ebb to the South edge of Racoon Straits and played the shifts along the shore.  And as we exited the straits we got greeted by a solid SWesterly.  Even with the now building flood it was a fun and quick ride South across the Bay.   I started catching up some boats ahead of me.

It was dark now.  Even with an almost full moon it is nearly impossible to find the unlit Blackaller buoy.  There was an Antrim27 and a Synergy1000 just in front of me at mark, that did the mark finding for me.  They were both doublehanded so I wasn't officially racing them, but it was nice to pull a singlehanded gybe set at the mark, get out the flood first and beat them to the finish line.  It was an exciting last run to close the race doing 12 knots in a moonlit night, finishing a little over 8 hours after we started.

2014 Vallejo Season Opener

Rob, Andrew and I raced the Vallejo Season Opener this past weekend.  The forecast for the race was a little mixed with a couple of fronts coming through the weekend.  We would have a very competitive fleet in the Sportboat1 division with a couple of heavy hitters: the always competitive J90, a pair of Tigers, a pair of 1D35 and the new Melges30 Rufless.  It was going to be a fight.

Saturday started really light. After a 1 hr postponement the RC was able to start two fleets, but as the final countdown to our start was about to expire, with all boats drifting backwards on the line, the RC was kind enough to postpone again.  No complaints on our side, we were happy to sit it out and wait for the westerlies to fill in.  After another 30 minutes or so, it did start to fill in and we were sent on our way.  We almost pulled off the port start, but not making it cost us dearly.  It was still pretty light and the better light air boats started to pull away as we struggled to find a good lane.  Halfway up to the windward mark we recovered a bit and set our sights for the long downwind run to Vallejo.  We set the kite at the mark and started chasing the boats ahead.  Rufless and AlphaPuppy (1d35) had extended out at this point.  The breeze hadn't fully filled in so everyone parked it up behind Angel Island.   We took advantage of the restart.  We stayed to windward, with Rufless and AP to leeward.  They hooked up to the new NW breeze first, but it wasn't long before it got to us.  Back to white sails and back on the chase.  We closed reached all the way up Richmond to San Pablo point.  After the bridge we dove down to shore to get some current relief and it paid off for all the boats that did it.  We were still running third on our fleet at this point.  We got to the San Pablo mark and turned right towards Vallejo.  We could see that the two leading boats in our fleet hadn't set their kites... The wind was far enough back that we could hold our A2 so we set right away and got to chasing again.  We started making some big gains.  Halfway to Pinole the breeze started to build and we could no longer hold our angle, down with the A2 and up with the Code0.  This transition across San Pablo Bay has become the deal maker for us.  In this mode we separate from the fleet.  Up ahead still, Rufless now had their kite up and were extending.  That Melges 30 on the right hands is one hell of a fast boat...  Past Pinole Pt we went back to our A2.  We passed AP, but Rufless has still leading and we weren't closing the gap.  We would have to see how the correction worked out at the end.  We stayed right by the fuel docks, but switched over to the left at the wall and short gybed all the way down the wall to the Mare Island entrance.  It got pretty exciting down the wall, we were steadily holding 17s and 18s through this section.

Around the point it got a bit frustrating.  There was a strong ebb coming down the Napa river and the wind was just a set of gusts from 0 - 20 with 30 degree shifts...  We stayed close to the middle not wanting to risk having to tack later on.  But the current relief close to the East bank payed off for the boats willing to risk it.  We crossed the line behind Rufless so we will have to wait for the results to see if we would correct out in front or not.

All week we had been trying to figure out what to do overnight.  Both marinas at Vallejo had depth problems as they hadn't dredged and we didn't want to sit in the bottom all night.  The folks at Glen Cove marina had assured us that they had 8 - 9 feet of water at low tide, so we turned back and headed there.  A bit of a bummer as we like to hang out with our friends and fellow competitors after racing.  20 meters after entering the Glen Cove marina we found the %$#*^& mud !!!!  What do you need to do to get accurate depth information from harbormasters???  We tried everything, outboard out, Rob hanging out on a halyard, forward, backwards...  Nothing.  And the tide was still running out.  Monti from the big powerboat on the end tie came to the rescue.  He got on his dinghy and tried to pull us in, nope.  We were close enough to get a line to the dock, and with Rob still hanging from the halyard Andrew as able to pull the boat next to the power boat where we rafted up.  A quick cleanup, a couple of cold beers and all was good with the world again.  Kristen picked us up and we headed to the yacht club for a little socializing before all of us going to my place for a nice steak dinner.

Fast forward to Sunday morning and everyone is hitting the bottle of profen.  Egg, sausages, croissants, coffee and more profen for breakfast and we are back to the boat for the race back.  There was already good breeze all the way across San Pablo bay, so things were looking good.  We had a bit of time to kill as we are the 15th start of the day.  The wind is too far forward, so its only white sails out the river.   This time we edge to the East shore for the current relief but it doesn't really pay off, the folks on the right found enough pressure to stay ahead.  The current was still flooding pretty hard so we played the wall out of the river.   Rufless has pulled ahead already but we are in close touch with the J90, the Henderson, the Tiger and the other Melges30.  The wind is now a bit from the SW so we pick a lane and start the fetch towards Pinole Pt.  Not much tactically to do at this point, just keep your eye on the speedo and keep the boat moving fast.  We had lost sight of Rufless (not a good sign) and both the Henderson and the J90 were ahead of us.  After Pt. Pinole there was a bit of a transition, with a new NW breeze filling in.  The J90 was further North so they just took off, Rufless was further South and got hurt by the transition, we were mostly down the middle so lost a bit to the J90 but gained huge on Rufless.  Rufless, the J90 and the Henderson, bet us to the finish, so again we would have to wait on the corrections to see how it all panned out.

With the results in, we corrected to first on Saturday and second (behind the J90) on Sunday.  A tiring but competitive and successful weekend on the water.

Unofficial Doublehanded Lightship

Earlier this year JetStream got denied entry to the Doublehanded Farallones even though it met all the objective criteria and equipment requirements for the race.  For the Doublehanded Lightship we would need to get some waivers from the race committee for a couple of the items on the NCORC list that it used for its required equipment list.  We requested the waivers from the committee and they were respectfully denied.  Oh well, we wouldn't be allowed to participate on the race but we are free to go for a sail around the Lightship any time we want.  My crew Rob and I already had our schedule open for this race so we decided to ghost the fleet as they raced.

The Lightship buoy stands about 11 miles Southwest the Golden Gate bridge.  We had officially done this race two years ago in 2012 on JetStream without any problem, but this year with the 'new' rules and without any waivers the boat no longer qualified.

We had an early wakeup call Saturday morning.  With a start scheduled for 9am off the Golden Gate YC, we would need to leave the dock in Alameda by 7.  At least be boat was already in the water from our Friday night race.  But it still took us three trips to the car to load up all the offshore gear and pretty much the full 1.5 hours delivery to the starting line to set it up and stow it.  The list of equipment we don't keep onboard for our bay racing is quite extensive:

- offshore flares and Epirb Jug
- large dry bag with:
  - sail repair kit
  - radar reflector
  - extra flashlight
  - search light
  - spare nav lights
- autopilot
- danbuoy
- offshore hatch
- jacklines, tethers
- 8' vhf mast/antenna
- full sail inventory, #3, #4, A2, A5, C0
- extra fuel

Rob found space for every piece in our shelves while keeping some of the key emergency items at easy reach.

The forecast had been quite promising all week.  Early in the week it was showing 15 - 25 and by race day it had moderated a bit to 10 - 20 with higher gusts.  During breakfast the lightship was already reporting 20 knots of breeze from the NW.  This would make for a quick fetch once we cleared Pt. Bonita and hooked into the NWesterlies.  With remaining ebb pushing us out at the start it would make for a very fast trip.  On the way to the start we could already see a more Northerly direction on the breeze than usual.  This would be great for the ocean but it meant NO wind inside the Bay.

Smartly, the RC did not postpone so that the fleet could still use the remaining ebb to get out of the Gate.  Initially I was planning on starting just after our 'division' (of course we wouldn't cross the starting line to avoid confusing the RC), but since there was literally no wind, we didn't want to interfere with the guys racing and decided to stay a few hundred yards away from the starting line towards the center of the Bay.  We were in a bit better current so we started to drift ahead of first fleet.  Caught a few SW puffs that help us inch towards the Gate.  It was all a little painful as we had just our #4 up, preparing for the smackdown we were expecting outside Bonita.  But we stayed patient and drifted along taking advantage of whatever breeze we could find.  Close to the gate we started getting a light but consistent Westerly breeze and we got on our upwind leg to Pt. Bonita.

We wanted to exit lands end on the North side.   But at Bonita the wind backed down again.  That made for some uncomfortable sailing.  The seas, though not big, were pretty confused in the area and with all the bouncing around we couldn't keep much flow on the sails.  We were back to less than 2 knots of boatspeed, bouncing around in the chop.  But we knew the NW breeze was out there.  So we tacked back to starboard to try to get it as quickly as possible.  At Bonita, both Condor and Outsider were beginning to come up behind us.  Condor pulled the plug and Outsider continued on port tack for a bit longer.  Our tack payed off and little by little we started to get the expected lift and a few moments later the breeze began to fill in gradually.  We were now on a very comfortable high teens fetching the mark.

We were sailing straight up the channel with the building breeze.  The waves weren't particularly big and once we got in the channel they got more structured.  We were now screaming at around 9 knots straight at the mark.  We cleared the channel and had both the Lightship and the Pilot ship in sight.  I was thinking that the sea state would mellow out in the deeper water but we came across a couple of steep sets.  Between the steepness and our speed we had a couple of decent slams and with the Lightship about a mile away (another 10 minutes at the rate we were going) we decided we had enough distance to enjoy the downhill ride back and turned the boat around.

By now we were in the solid 20s and our decision to just put the #4 was rewarded.  We soon jumped to the mid teens in boatspeed, with just the white sails up.  With a couple of the surfs we would jump to 17-18 knots touch 20s a few times.  The boat was effortless in this conditions.  It still amazes me how well behaved the boat is.  With the white sails up I could pretty much take the boat anywhere.  We could come up hard for speed and to big bear aways to hook up to the swell and surf down.   We set our A5 as we exited the channel and had a really fun ride back to Pt Bonita never really dropping below 13 knots.  At this windspeed and angle the boat required very active trimming.  With the big accelerations down the waves the apparent wind changes were pretty drastic.  Inside Bonita the wind backed and dropped a bit, so we had a pretty mellow spinnaker run.  We cleared the South Tower and headed towards Crissy.  By 12:10 we were back inside Gate.  A little over 3 hours to cover the 23 (for us) mile course.

It is certainly a physical boat in the upwind conditions, and rewardingly easy on the downwind portions.  We learned a few things.  For me, my offshore gear is just to bulky.  It is fine for spending the night on the rail on a big boat or standing behind the wheel, but for the active sailing on the JS probably a bit lighter drysuit, or moving to an offshore smock would feel less restrictive.  Also, need to streamline and better plan the offshore gear particular with our limited space.

Bottom line is that the boat performed very well under the normal Gulf conditions of 20+ knots and reasonable seas.  For short duration, near shore races (like the Lightship, HMB and even Drakes) waivers should be granted so we could officially participate, and even some of the shorter downwind rides to Santa Cruz and Monterey would be very doable (if I had a road trailer to bring the boat back).

Thanks to Rob for his excitement and energy to take the boat for an offshore ride.

The No Bridge Fiasco

It was supposed to be the Three Bridge Fiasco.  Rob is rejoining the doublehanded crew on JetStream.  We had a very frustrating day.  We knew this was going to be a race to finish in time and not necessarily to beat any particular boat.  The whole day started wrong.  Our racing day routine got broken up and we should have known these would be bad signs of things to come.  I was running a bit late, and Rob had an early encounter with the law.  We missed our breakfast window at Ole's and nothing good comes from that.

But we were encouraged by the early breeze.  We tied up to GGYC before the race to get sorted out.  I went upstairs for a quick look and already saw boats struggling sail against the ebb and it wasn’t even max ebb yet.  We had a strategy in place, try to reach TI quickly to minimize our fight against the ebb.  We would try to round TI clockwise as with the Easterly there was a nasty whole in the SW corner of TI which would make it impossible to round counterclockwise with the ebb.   Take a little flush from the south bay with the left over ebb, get to RR on the current relief of the Berkeley flats and try to get to Blackaller with the late Westerly hopefully before the full flood started. 

Well, needless to say that plan went down the drain pretty quickly, as most 3BF plans tend to do.    We felt pretty good in our decision to hit TI first as we were in good company short tacking up the city front.  We were making good progress and catching boats along Fort Mason and Aquatic Park.  The light air machines Mumm30 and Azzura quickly caught up to us and passed us, but we were doing good against the rest of the fleet.   After the Aquatic Park, Easom split left and Nelsen right along the shore.  Starbuck also seemed to be doing well away from the city.  We started getting diminishing returns short tacking in the easing breeze so we tried to find pressure further North.  Well that didn’t work long.  Soon the fickle breeze completely died and we started moving backwards.  I’m happy to report that our anchor works fine in 55 feet of water.   We had lunch and watched the non anchor boats drift towards the gate (Stephen how far did it take you?) and boats still shore tacking on the city front not really making any progress.  There were two bunches, the crowd stuck at the Fisherman’s warf breakwater and the crowd that made it to the Pier39 corner.   

Some of the folks ahead of us were showing some Northerly breeze so we were hoping for it to fill from there.  Meanwhile our friends on the Wiley 24 had pull the plug after trying to go straight to RR and getting flushed to the Marin headlands.  They joined us for a quick beer and a bit of a raft up.    A fickle Easterly began to fill in and we gave it another shot.   It still looked pretty light on the Bay Bridge so we decided to head North and see if we could knock RR.  Had a great sail under Code 0 from Alcatraz to Pt. Blunt.   There we made the mistake of staying close to Angel thinking the flood would push us across. What flood?  It was 3PM and we were still fighting the f’ing ebb.  Set the kite and head east on the lightening westerly that was now filling the central bay.  At these point we could see the boats that managed to get past TI, lead by Nelsen way inshore with a private westerly breeze.  They were cooking on tight fetch from TI all the way to Richmond.    We also saw the 1D35 with their red kite, already around RR and headed to TI.  A bit after that we saw the Can also on the run from RR to TI.   

By know it was already 4 PM, we had reached the Southampton shoals, but had yet still to round any of the marks.  Wind was looking that exciting around RR, reports from retiring boats on the South Bay with a building flood didn’t look encouraging either, and even with solid conditions it would be a miracle for us to get around the course in 3 hours.   We still had 2 hours to get home, so we called it a day.  Had a nice reach back down to TI but right after the bridge it was glass.  A J111 was working TI to get around, and I think I saw Synthia in the Hawkfarm unsuccessfully fighting the flood trying to go West.  I was happy to be able to crank the engine on and power home. 

A bit disappointing.  I believe this is the first 3BF that I didn’t finish.  Kudos to Dark and Stormy.

Torturous Vallejo

This last weekend got complicated real quick.  A late season change to the SSS schedule meant that I was home alone with the kid for the weekend, a new Sportboat championship regatta was setup for Saturday (with my guidance) and the SSS season closer of the Vallejo 1-2 all coincided.  What would get dropped?  Well the kid trumped the sailing (what kind of sailor am I), it can only be a 1 day sailing weekend.  Next, what race to do, the sportboat regatta on Saturday or the return from Vallejo on Sunday.  Rob and I were leading the double handed season coming in to the last race, so we decided to try to secure it.  Babysitter lined up for Sunday with mom returning early afternoon, so Vallejo it was.  I had tried to line up skipper for Saturday Sportboat regatta but that didn't work out.

Thankfully Rob and his buddy Charlie were available to deliver the boat to Vallejo on Saturday.  They have their own story to tell about that.  Instead, I did soccer, pool, and a lot of driving.   We made a brief cameo to the race committee at the Vallejo Yacht Club taking some of the finishers of Saturday's racing.  That too was hard to watch as boats just yards from the finish got swept back from the strong current and the light breeze.   Sunday eventually arrived, little breeze and strong adverse current.  At least we didn't get stuck on the mud trying to exit the marina.  We were only leading the double handed fleet by a very narrow margin.  We would have to beat the second place boat, Arcadia, or finish behind them in corrected to keep our lead.   We knew it would be a torturous day that we will have to see through to the race deadline at 6:00 PM.

After a 30 minutes postponement the race got started.   I know the RC was hoping for more wind that we knew wouldn't come, so all it did was result in even more current.  Oh well, they had good intentions.  We had a good start, we decided to go with the Code 0 hoping for a more stable sail to catch the little wind available.   We thought we were going to escape the current, but with no place to seek relief in the river whenever the breeze dropped, so did we, back to the starting line.  Eventually, we switched over the A2 and did a little bit better.  At the end we lost track of how many times we switched sailplans, from Code0, to A2, to jib.  Only the Farr36 cleared the river on the first pass.   The rest of us saw G5 multiple times.  There was a transition zone at the river entrance that proved difficult to connect without getting dragged back.

Eventually we crossed it, but not before Arcadia had caught up to us, even after starting 10 minutes behind.  The lack of breeze and current pretty much erased that gap.  We probably had 8 lead changes (just between JetStream and Arcadia) before leaving the river.  We finally got past G1 at the river entrance, this was well past noon.  It had taken us over two hours to cover 2.5 miles.  An exhilarating 1knot VMG.  It wouldn't get better for the next hour, barely making over 1knot of VMG along the sea wall on the North side of the channel.  Short tacking on 5 knots of breeze against a 2 knot current its not JetStream strong point.  Sailing by brail trying to keep a couple of feet of water under the keel, Arcadia stretched out a lead to a few meters, and even the U20 started gaining on us.  We were trying hard, rolling every tack and fighting the ****ing battens to get them to pop to the new tack every 60 seconds.

At this point the odds were starting to switch agains us, given how much time we've already been on the water and not being anywhere close to the halfway point, the likelihood of us correcting ahead quickly diminished.  We started hoping the the clock would just run out.  But no, just to dig in the dagger a little deeper we could see the breeze filling in across San Pablo.  Both Arcadia and us got the breeze at the same time and we started making our way to the shallow water on the South side.  At this point we were the leads of the pack as the two trimarans in front of us retired.    The U20, just hanging around behind us.  Arcadia smartly kept a loose cover on us.  At this point it was still a light fill and we struggled to make any gains, but as the breeze continued to build we began gaining.  Just past Pinole we were to be beam to Arcadia about 100 yards to the North, in a bit deeper water and more (now favorable) current.  This was going to be a race to the finish if the conditions held, and they did.

By the time we hit the Brothers we had gotten a bit of a lead.   We wouldn't beat Arcadia, so the plan now was to get to the finish as quickly as possible and hope that the time would run out for the rest of the fleet.   But the same current that conspired against us at the start of the race by holding us back, would conspire again with a favorable current to allow the boats behind to finish in time.  And so it went.  Arcadia had a hell of a race and so did the U20.  Ultimately, three boats would place between JetStream and Arcadia, more than enough to secure Arcadia's win for the DH season, a well deserved win.   We gave it a good fight in difficult conditions.  It was a nice consolation to be the first boat over the finish line, but that wasn't the ultimate goal.

Big thanks to Rob for awesome crew work, movie making and overall great attitude.

The right tool for the job

This last Saturday we participated in the 25th running of the Jazz Cup, a race from Treasure Island to Benicia.  It is about 26 miles of downwind sailing and one of our favorite races.  This year, Rob and Roscoe would join me for the run down.

The forecasted conditions called for a moderate breeze and a building ebb.  We needed to get to Benicia before 3:30 to have enough depth to enter the marina.  We got to the starting area early and watch the early fleets start.  There was some confusion on the early starters and many rounded the wrong windward mark.  We double checked our charts to make sure we knew where we had to go.   Start was a little exciting.  We wanted the pin end, preferably on port tack.  The Thompson 650 was also tooling around the pin end with similar intentions.  With a minute to go they switched tactics and decided to attack the pin on starboard tack.   We were committed to port.  I thought they were going to be a bit late and committed to the pin.  We didn't quite make it.   The Thompson had to bare away to avoid clipping our stern.  Its been a while since I've been in the wrong end of a crossing.  We cleared the rest of the fleet and once we had room we took care of our penalty.   Still, we had a smart upwind leg and managed to claw our way back rounding the windward mark in second place behind the Henderson 30.   There was a nice breeze in the mid teens, and after reaching for a 100 yards or so we sent the kite up.

The reach had us pointing straight to Richmond, lower than most of the fleet.  Always counting on the wind clocking left to clear the restricted area along the Richmond wharf.   With a new trimmer and me a little rusty we lost it a few times.  Can't remember wiping out so many times.  I might have been pushing a little too hard with the knot-meter showing 20 a couple of times.  But we had quick recoveries and continued the charge.    Near Richmond we hit the normal wind hole, dropped the kite and climbed upwind for a bit to get on the building westerly.  Kite back up, up the East side of Red Rock and along the Richmond side to San Pablo.   The folks at the Brothers decided to blast their fog horn (there was no fog) as we sailed by, making me almost jump off the boat.

Up to this point we still had a few boats in front of us, and the Melges 24 and Thompson 650 charging hard from behind, bringing more breeze with them.  It lighten up for a bit after rounding San Pablo, but the fun ride was a about to begin.  We could see the fog inland and could see the breeze filling in from the Southwest just ahead.  We quickly set up the secret weapon, our Code 0, for the reach across San Pablo bay.   That was the race for us.  We just took off pointing straight to Vallejo.  The folks behind, either struggle too deep with their kites or dropped down to white sails.  We still had some early starters in front of us, but we did a good job reeling them in.  The last boat in front was a well sailed Moore 24,  we came up their stern and used that opportunity to reset the kite.  We worked both sides of Carquinez Straits looking for breeze and managed to keep the charging 40+ footers behind us.  An uncrowded couple of roundings and the first monohull across the line.

Sailed to the dock slightly scraping the bottom on the entrance to the marina.  We finished by 3 so just enough water to let us in.  We stayed for drinks and the awards party, waiting for the tide to come back up and release us.  A 10 PM departure, a pleasant motor back under autopilot and crew and boat safely back in Alameda by 3:30 AM.  Long, but fruitful race.  I don't think we'll ever leave that Code 0 behind.

SSS Corinthian - got Moorified

Courtesy of pressure-drop.us

Saturday proved to be a beautiful day for sailing in the San Francisco Bay.  The SSS Corinthian Race is an 18 mile tour of the central bay.  The race starts off the deck of the Corinthian YC in Tiburon, sends up past Alcatraz and along the San Francisco city front, over towards Richmond to South Hampton Shoals and back around to Tiburon.

Rob joined me for this Doublehanded race.  The race was postponed by 30 mins to wait for the Westerlies to build, and though they made a valiant effort by the time of our start 25 minutes later they had mostly faded away.  We had a clean, good start, but in the light conditions we lost some ground to the better light air boats.  Both the 1D35 stretched ahead and even some the Moore24 with their overlapping genoas managed to beat us to the first mark.  By the time we reached Little Harding the Westerly was building to the mid teens and we had a good screaming reach across the Bay towards Blossom.  We deployed the Code 0 halfway down the reach, once I knew I could clear Alcatraz and we started picking up boats.    I tried twice to get through a couple of boats lees, but that failed both times making us loose a little time.

But by the time we reached Blossom we had passed the Moore's that were ahead of us and where within striking distance of the 1D35s.  Here we split the majority of the fleet headed towards the city front.  It was still early in the flood and we decided to head towards Alcatraz and head to the city front later in the leg.  This payed off, by the time we crossed with the city front group we had significantly shortened the gap.

The tighter fleet resulted in a first for me in over ten years of racing in the SSS, I protested a competitor.    Not that I have anything against calling fouls and throwing a red flag, it is part of the sport and how the rules are enforced.  But the culture of the SSS, given that everyone is sailing shorthanded, is to avoid close situations.  In this particular case one of the 1D35 on port tack failed to give us right of way as the starboard boat.  Attempting this close pass was a bit uncalled for, but fine you try, but the reaction of the other skipper at failing the pass and fouling us was just ridiculous.   Not only did the other skipper did not attempt to avoid us (didn't even bother to change course) resulting in us having to do a crash tack, but later refusing to do his penalty circles and claiming to us later down the course that we had altered course.  Our two boats continued to cross tacks up the city front without further incident, until closer to the windward mark where they again failed to give us right of way as the starboard boat.   At the end of the day they withdrew from the race (DNF), but the protest form was ready to go.

The stress of short tacking up the city front gone, we rounded the windward mark and set the kite towards South Hampton.  We took a quick gybe to take advantage of the stronger pressure on the San Francisco side and that paid hugely.   By the time we got to Alcatraz there were only two monohulls and 2 multihulls ahead of us.  The multihulls we wouldn't see again, those two F-31s were gone, but we caught up to the two monohulls (Q and a J-44)  before reaching South Hampton.  This was some of the nicest sailing I have done in a while.  Sunny, flat water, powered up with 12 - 15 knots of boat speed, without a care.  I could have just kept going.

Now came the big decision, to Racoon-it or not.  You normally can get a better VMG going through Racoon Straits, as long as you can quickly navigate around the wind hole in the lee of Angel Island.  As the first monohull the decision was up to us, though we had seen the two leading multihulls choosing not to go through Racoon.  With a visible windhole and a flood current, we decided to stay in the breeze and go around Angel Island avoiding the Racoon Straits.

We tried to protect our position with the boats behind us, but with the longer waterline the J-44  passed us before Pt Blunt, and Q with its incredible pointing ability was closing the gap rapidly.   We managed to keep Q behind us, but by the time we reached Little Harding again they were only a few boatlengths behind us.

We prepared ourselves for a screaming run to the finish.  Rounder the mark, hoisted the kite and ..... WTF, what is going on, the kite is not filling, the wind is on our nose.  Took us a few seconds to realize  that we are in a massive wind hole.  The whole area between Little Harding and the finish is dead, nada.  We drop the kite get the jib up and try to work the zephyrs.  It is a very delicate breeze and we get into ghosting mode.   With the current in our favor, our main concern is to try to stay upcurrent of the finish line to ensure the current doesn't sweep us past the line without finishing.

I do feel for the guys on the J-44, they were clear ahead of us, maybe 2/3rs from the finish by the time we rounded Little Harding, but in these conditions they were just parked while we were ghosting at around 2 knots and were able to pass them within a couple hundred yards from the finish.  Close to the finish the breeze backed again and we hoisted the kite again and two gybes later we finished the race under spinnaker.

We probably could have hoisted a little earlier, though not clear if that would have covered the time needed to beat the two Moore 24 that got us on corrected time.  We did get the win in our division and were the first monohull to finish, with a respectable 3rd Overall behind the two Moore's that got us.  Great day on JetStream.

2013 Three Bridge Fiasco

The biggest race in the US.  365 boats entered for this version of the race all racing either single or double handed only, run by the Singlehanded Sailing Society of San Francisco.  There is a lot of anticipation and this year was no different.  Rob will be returning to crew for JetStream.  I spent a bit of time crunching some numbers to see if there was a strategic advantage on which way to run the course. For a Westerly breeze, running the course counter clockwise showed a slight advantage for our start time and the angles our boat likes.  But it wasn't a deal breaker, so conditions at the start would ultimately determine our course strategy.

We made it up to the start area with plenty of time, so tied up to one of the nice new docks at the GGYC and got the boat rigged up for some racing.  On the motor over to the start we could see the breeze was already nicely filled in around Treasure Island at around 10 knots.  On the starting area it was already blowing around 12, and we could also see that there was little to no breeze on the northern side of the bay.  This determined our course for the day, we would go counter clockwise: TI, Red Rock, Blackaller.

We set up for our pursuit style start, set the kite and were off heading towards the middle to take advantage of the remaining flood.  We didn't see too many people follow us choosing to go the other route, but we soon saw the Farr 30 set the kite behind us and we knew the race was on.  We got around TI smoothly and started to work our way North on a tight reach.  Everything was progressing according to plan.  Even better, we could see the folks that went the other way parked at the exit of Raccoon Straits.  Then, we caught up to the fleet ahead of us and the wind hole blocking our path.  The  solid Westerly dissipated around the Berkeley pier.   We could see a wind line on the north and the shore side so we tried to head to that.  The Farr 30 stayed on the west side as they eliminated the lead we had and separated for us.  So now a waiting game to see who will get the new breeze first.

The first sign of the bad things to come was seeing the guys on Raccoon take off on a new NW breeze.    That wouldn't bade well for us going CCwise.  It will transform the TI to Red Rock race from a beam and broad reach to an upwind leg.  While the clockwise folks would get a dream downwind run.  Our only hope at this point was for the clockwise folks to find a wind hole around TI.  But that didn't happen.  In any case, we still had a race in our hands with the folks going CCwise with us.  The Farr 30 and Farr 36 both got ahead and rounded Red Rock ahead of us.    At least, we could bare away and set our kite again.  In our rush to get up and going I called for the setting of the A2.  Had I thought about it for a second or two, I would have probably realized that it was a pretty tight reach and the A5 would have been a better call.  But we set the kite and started reeling in boats, passing the Farr 36 and gaining some back on the Farr 30.  We couldn't hold the angle to Raccoon Straits and were forced to drop the kite halfway down the leg.

The entrance to Raccoon Straits delivered on our own personal, special gift.  Our own private wind hole.  Even though we were following the line of the Farr 30 in front of us, we magically ran into a wind hole that had plenty of breeze just a few minutes before.   I lost my cool momentarily as folks behind us, particularly the Farr36 tacking the corner tight, squeezed by in better current and just got away.  After a frustrating beat through the Straits we finally punched in to the breeze and the reach across the Bay to Blackaller.   We were reveling in the now breeze conditions on a white sail reach.    We caught up with a few Moore 24s in front of us and got to the mark around some boats.  A bit too congested for the conditions.

This time we set the right sail as it was now blowing 25+.  A couple close encounters in challenging conditions while jibing down the city front.  A hundred yards or so from the finish line we blew the vang during a jibe, but managed to keep things together (most importantly the rig) through the finished. We quickly dropped the kite and jury rigged the vang to get us safely home.  Finished a little after 1:40, on course for less than 3.5 hours in a beautiful January day in San Francisco Bay.    We didn't get the results we had hoped for but were pretty satisfied with the performance.

The results are still not in, so hard to tell how far back from the leaders we ended up.  We also had some GoPros on board so there should be some footage in the near future.  Look for updates here.

Here is our non-winning course (counter clockwise):

JetStream's 2013 counter clockwise track

2nd Half Opener

This year's 2nd Half Opener provided great conditions for JetStream.  With Rob and Andrew as crew we set out to defend our win from last year.  We hung in there for the upwind leg to Pt Bonita and then let the boat do its thing for the run down to Encinal Yacht Club.

Here is another great video production from Rob.

2012 Silver Eagle

The Silver Eagle is an inside the Bay 50+ mile race.   It is the first time I do it and the first outing for JetStream.  It should be a favorable race for us as it has plenty of reaching and downwind legs as we criss cross our way around the Bay.

The regular crew of Andrew and Rob were out for the race as well.  The top move of the day was Rob perfectly executing a body drag.  He had previously threatened with a scuba diver back roll, but this time he would execute what I will call the 'Rob Swing'.  From the leeward rail, enter the water with your feet towards the bow.  Making sure the boat is traveling in excess of 8 knots, while maintaining a strong grip on whatever is available, submerge yourself chest deep.  The force of the water will swing your legs under you and back towards the stern of the boat with sufficient force to enable you to get one leg over the rail.  If you are strong enough to hang on and any of the crew is willing to lend a hand you will be back on the boat in less than 5 seconds, fully refreshed and without slowing the boat much.


Back to racing... 


The day started with a bit of a rush with only minutes to spare to make it to the warning signal on time.  Decent breeze at the start.  We started with our new #4 for the short upwind leg to Blackaller.  We played the shore side tightly and were the first mono to round, one of the big cats had passed us already.  We immediately set our A2 for the run to Little Harding (there was a bit of South in the breeze) and we stretched away from the rest of the monohull fleet.  By the time we hit Little Harding all the big three cats had screamed right past even with us doing low to mid teens.  The cats were flying.

We couldn't hold the kite on the leg from Little Harding to Blossom, and in a rushed douse shrimped it momentarily.  So we white sailed reached to the mark.  We rounded and set up our Code 0 to try to stay high and in the favorable current.  We stretched a little more with Outsider and Wild 1 chasing behind.  We had to go back to white sails as the wind increased a bit through the slot., but past Angel Island it was back to the A2 for the downwind run to the Petaluma Channel.  The wind lightened up a bit and we started getting a bit concerned with Outsider and Wild1.   We  ended up cutting the lee of Red Rock too close and gave some of the lead up.  On the remainder of the run in 12 - 15 we managed to stay in front of Outsider.

On the way back up San Pablo Bay we headed to the deep water for the beginning of the ebb.  We mostly did a loose cover on the boats behind us and built up our lead.  It was a very pleasant upwind leg with the sun out and enough breeze to fully power up the boat, now with the full jib up.  We played the right hand side after the Brothers and that paid huge while Outsider and Wild 1 stayed on the Richmond side.  We were able to crack off early on our way to TI.  With not much of a wind hole behind Angel Island we were able to go across West of the Southampton shoals with plenty of breeze as we entered the slot.  It was probably low to mid 20s with a decent chop from the ebb.
We had a couple of trimaran pass us in this leg, they were fully powered on and moving fast.

We stayed relatively close to TI as the ebb was now building.  We had plenty of breeze as we made our way to mark 34 in the South Bay.  Set our A5 for the run to 2NAS, by this point we had built a decent lead.  As we were making our way back to SC1 we could see both Outsider and Wild1 setting kites as they rounded 34.  Another A2 set for the run to and down the Estuary.  Really nice breeze as well down the Estuary, almost caught back a few of the tris in front of us.  Didn't catch the tris, but still good for the monohull gun.

Great day out on the water, a little sore today.

HDA-2 video

Epic Delta Ditch

Last Saturday was JetStream's inaugural Delta Ditch Run.  I had done the race previously on other boats but never taken mine.  The race is generally a downwind run from the Northern San Francisco Bay, up the Delta through the San Joaquin River into the city of Stockton.   About 65 miles.  Navigation is key to this race as there are mud flats hidden outside the marked channels and knowing what corners to cut is critical to do well.  Though sticking the boat in the mud could easily end the day.  I had been stressing about the navigation and memorizing and documenting as much as possible.  With a short crew of just 3, we can't always have someone focused on navigation and with the predicted strong winds the twists and turns will come very quickly at us.

For the race we had our regular crew with Andrew and Rob.  Andrew would be the trimmer, a long day on that spinnaker sheet, and Rob would do everything else while I drove.  I think at the end Rob ended up with the more demanding job, both working the pointy end, preparing the boat for the many transitions in the race and navigating us to the finish.

The start of the race was pretty hectic.  We didn't have a stellar start and were a few seconds late.  It was a downwind start and soon everyone was working to get their kites up.  We started at the pin on the leeward side in order to be able to cleanly bear away and set and we were off to the races.  With boats broaching in front of us, we chose a low line to stay clear of the mayhem.  With solid 20 knots and some flood current to help us along we were soon in San Pablo Bay making our way to Vallejo. 

Into San Pablo Bay there was a lot of South component to the breeze which make it impossible to hold the big kite up and stay clear of the Pinole Channel.  At this point we were even with the J125 Double Trouble leading the fleet out to Vallejo.  Over the protestation of the crew I called to switch down to our Code0 to come up on the course.  It was a good call.  DT below us carried the kite a bit longer but had to drop to white sails, same with the rest of the fleet behind us.   As we passed Pinole Pt. the wind started to clock back and we went back to our A2 leading the fleet into the Carquinez Straight.   By this point the wind had moderated back into the teens and DT, the Melges 32 and the Sierra 26 were charging hard behind us.  As we got under the Carquinez bridge DT had snuck ahead and the Melges and Sierra continued their chase through Benicia.

Into Suisun Bay the winds continued to stay on the lighter side the Melges had gotten in front of us and the Sierra was close approaching.  As we tried to stretch the edges of the channel to reduce the number of gybes we were always paranoid about the mud flats.  Rob did a great job keeping us in deep water.   Two of our close competitors wouldn't be as lucky.  The Sierra found the mud on the Northern edge of the channel, though after a few minutes they were able to free up and continue racing.  For DT the encounter with the mud on the Southern edge will end their day.  The wind and current pushed them into shallower water and they eventually had to use their engine to free themselves.  Through the Mallard Slough it was just the Melges leading the way (thankfully with strong local knowledge of the Delta) with us matching them gybe for gybe all the way through to Sherman Island.

The winds have kept of building from the latter part of Suisun Bay onwards and we were now clocking some good speeds over the water.  We were soon approaching a notorious mark of the course, Marker 19.  This section of the course looks like an upside down U, which forces a few sail changes and transitions.  We thought we could hold our smaller kite, but we had killer puffs coming over Sherman Island into the mid 30s.  The water in front of us was churning white and some of the multihulls ahead were in pure survival mode.  So down comes the kite and we are back to white sails as we reach up the back side of Sherman Island.  This was a crazy reach with winds now in the high 20s and 30s.  These are pretty good conditions for the JS and we were able to get ahead of the Melges again and leading the fleet of monohulls.  Around the top of the inverted U there are opportunities to cut some corners and reset for a short downwind section.  But without the lead of the Melges we decided to be conservative and stay in the channel.  We also didn't have a good chance to prepare for this transition and weren't prepared to set the small kite on the top section.  So we chose to reset the Code0 again.  It helped, but the boats behind us who got to set made up some ground on us.  We were still neck to neck with the Melges, but we had some issues as we came down the backside of the inverted U and they got ahead again.

We had an opportunity to catch them again when it was time to reset the big kite for the start of a long narrow downwind section to the finish after Prisoners Point.  Give the ferocity to the winds we had just experienced we decided to go back up with the A5, but as we entered the narrow channel the winds subsided.  We had to go back to white sails while we set up to reset the bigger A2 and by then the Sierra got back in front of us.  It is good to have all the options on the sails.  But managing all those sails with just 2 crew and a 3 foot wide foredeck showed some limitations.  It is something we will plan better the next time around.

This next section of the course, the final stretch, worried me a bit.  I wasn't sure how competitive we could be on a 300 - 400 ft channel doing gybe after gybe downwind against boats that could square back their symmetrical spinnakers and just go straight down the river.  But we built a significant cushion on the reachy legs of the course to hold them back.  The Farr 40 behind us made a strong push to catch us into the finish but they ran out of course.

@ Slackwater   At the finish

We were the 3rd monohull to cross the finish line, with the Melges 32 and the Sierra 26 in front of us by only a couple hundred yards.  It was a really fun battle with those two boats, exchanging places multiple times during the race.  We had completed the race just shy of 6 hours and were very satisfied with our performance.   Both Andrew and I had cramping arms, and Rob was both mentally and physically exhausted from all the demands we put on him.  It had been a good race.

Thanks to Rob and Andrew for a great race and helping delivering the boat back the next day.  That was mostly a 12 hr hate mission.  But I'll leave that for another post (or not).  Need to find a road trailer before next years race.

HDA-1 video

Rob Blackmore's finest so far.  We keep evolving the angle and the number of camera's onboard.  Fun to watch but a lot of effort to edit.  Thanks Rob.

Corinthian Redemption

The Corinthian Race, hosted by the Singlehanded Sailing Society, is a tour of the central San Francisco Bay with a Start/Finish line off the deck of the Corinthian YC in Tiburon.  Over 130 boats signed up for the race and with the new jib on hand we were ready to go.

From the Start, we head to Little Harding, followed by Blossom Rock, to Blackaller, up the North bay to Southampton Shoals, back to Little Harding before the finish.  Today the forecast was for light winds 5-10, starting from the North and eventually shifting to the West around 2 PM.

The start proved to be a bit of a fiasco.  With the wind blowing from the NE through Raccoon Straits it made for a light downwind start with a strong flood pushing East.  We, along a handful of other boats setup south of the line and approached it on starboard.  Most of the fleet was approaching from the East on port.  We were a few seconds late and were forced to gybe onto port as the fleet didn't budge at our right of way.  This unfortunately left us to windward of the fleet, and the same folks that fouled us by making us gybe closed the door on us at the pin end of the line.  The T650 just in front of us also got squeezed and touched the mark and had to come around as well.  By the time we got turned around and made our way back to the line against the flood we were the last boat to start the race.  Not how we wanted to start the day.

But we had some opportunities to make up.  By the time we reach Pt Belvedere we were back in the middle of it, getting around half of the fleet that have gone too far into the current.  Around Belvedere the wind filled in from the North and the spinnaker went up for the sail down to Blossom.   We intentionally overstood Little Harding to stay in the current relieve on the Sausalito side before cutting across to the San Francisco shore.   The boats in the middle of the bay closer to Alcatraz weren't looking that great so we kept working our way South.   By the time we reached Blossom we were on the top 5.

The leg from Blossom to Blackaller was a white sail close reach.  We edged towards the SF shore to get out of the worse of the current and it payed off well.  It was a drag race between ourselves, the Flying Tiger, Outsider, a couple of J boats close to shore and a couple of Trimarans enjoying the reaching conditions.  There was no hoisting of the kite around Blackaller (as we usually do) as the wind was still Northerly.  It was close hauled all the way up to Southampton.  There was  a wind transition between Pt Blunt and Alcatraz that only a few of us got through.   Roshambo had broken free early and had stretched.  The FT followed, with ourselves, the yellow tri, Jarlen and Outsider chasing.    There was no one else near. By the time we hit SH, Jarlen had gotten ahead of us and the Tiger being able to hold a higher line with their big genoa.  Initially both the Tiger and Jarlen looked to be headed on the South side of Angel Is, but after seeing we were headed through Raccoon they both came back.

We played the current and the N to W wind transition right through Raccoon and got ahead of both Jarlen and the FT before rounding our last mark on the way to the finish.   We saw Roshambo on the way to the finish as we were approaching Little Harding.  They will get the first to finish gun, but we would be the first monohull to finish, division winner and overall winner in corrected time.  A rewarding day after a frustrating start.

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.