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.