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.

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