2011 Three Bridge Fiasco

By Rich Hudnut

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A little maintenance

Taking some time over the holidays to do some work on the boat.

The mast is down and I just finished sanding it down to the bare carbon ready for a new clear coat. That should start tomorrow. Three or four coats should do it. I'm taking advantage that the Doyle loft is shut for the week and they have been kind to let me use it. Indoors should be easier on my and should help with faster curing.

Having the standing rigging looked over to see if it needs replacing, hopefully it is good for a couple more seasons.

South Beach YC Winter Series - December Race

Today we went out to race in my old stomping grounds, the home of the South Beach YC and the World Series Champs.  It will be the last race of the 2010 season.  The forecast for today was less than ideal, with rain scheduled all day, however the wind forecast was a respectable 10 - 20 knots from the SW, shifting to the S.

Rob was back from school, and he joined Andrew and myself to round up the crew.  Started the day with our now traditional breakfast at Ole's, and after some good pancakes, waffles and bacon we were off to the boat.    Loaded the boat up and started the motor to San Francisco from the Estuary.  It was overcast, but no rain.  Maybe the rain would stay away.  We had a nice ebb out of the Estuary and got to South Beach with enough time to hang out at the guest dock for a little while.

We followed Wasabi and Wild One out of the marina and headed to the start area.  Course 12 was called, which had us going around Treasure Island, either way, and back to the finish.   We got a jump on the start and the big kite went up immediately.  Our lead was short lived as Wasabi quickly caught up.  We were a little higher and holding our own particularly during the gusts.   Wild One was close behind and constantly threatening.  The 3 lead boat all chose to round TI to port.   There was much change in position or distance between the boats, until we got under the bridge and the winds lightened up.  In this area every boat got to extend their lead on the boat following, opening the gap between the boats.  A few hundred yards from the bridge we dropped the kite to start making our way toward the end of the island.  

Breeze was now consistent between 10 - 12 knots and with the help of the current we were making good speed.  We got around the the north end of the island but stayed close to shore on the west side to stay away from the ebbing current.  We followed Wasabi close to shore, but Wild one headed to the city side.  Right before crossing the bridge we were able to host our reaching kite for maybe a mile, but soon we were back to white sails to make the finish.  It clearly payed to stay close to the shore of TI as we had made a huge gain on Wild One.  We were the second boat to finish behind Wasabi and corrected to first place.  Not a bad way to finish the season.

Merry Xmas to all, we will be back in the new year ready to go again.

Nose and Tail Job

This season we did a few upgrades to the boat to improve handling and lighter air performance.  The boat always rocked on strong conditions (over 18 knots), but we suffered a bit on the light airs.  Boat still moves well but its hard to race to its rating when in displacement mode as we are normally bunched with boats with larger waterlines.

We also had been suffering from a bit of helm.  The boat will always want to turn to starboard if the tiller was let loose.   It took a while to realize what was wrong, but after some close inspection it was obvious that the rudder was off the vertical axis of the boat.  I'm not sure it affected performance much, but going 18knots with the kite up, the last thing I wanted was for the boat to want to round down.  I could have just repaired it by realigning the  rudder post, but since the saws-all will be coming out I decided to upgrade the steering system on the boat, with a new rudder, beefier rudder post and bearings and a new composite tiller.  I already had the original designer of the boat, John Swarbrick, working on a design and production of a new bowsprit for the boat, so I added the new steering system to the order.  The rudder is a little deeper than the original and tracks quite nicely compared to the original one.

Original tiller

New tiller and rudder assembly

The second improvement was a new bowsprit, It is 3' long and we got an A2 and A5 to fit the new dimensions.  We got everything installed just before the end of the season and it is looking very promising.   We'll know more after a full season in 2011.  The bowsprit is pretty nice looking, and makes the boat look a bit meaner than it already looked.

Side view of bowsprit

Bow view of bowsprit

Some shots from photoboy

Vallejo 2

By Sue Estey

Sunday brought with it overcast conditions and some rain.  After a little breakfast with Mike at the Sardine Can, I met up with Mark at the Vallejo YC.   Mark crewed for the return trip to Richmond.  The forecast was to be from 10 to 20 knots again from the SW, but I don't think we saw more than 12 knots during the race with a few periods of no wind at all after some of the rain clouds passed overhead.

The wind at the start was just right to try out the new A5.  This is a reaching spinnaker, and with the wind just ahead of the beam it was perfect for the reach out of the straits.   We set up high on the start line to have some runway to set the kite, and as soon as we got a clear lane the kite went up.  We quickly passed most of the boats in our fleet and got to chase Outsider who got off to a clean start and was leading.   As far as I could tell we were the only boat flying a spinnaker and we were making good speed.  We got ahead of Outsider, but put the kite in the water during the douse and they caught up.  We again picked a high line to exit the river and it payed off well, leading the sportboat fleet out to San Pablo Bay.

We shore tacked off the north side of the channel to stay out of the main current, and took a hitch across before getting too close to the restricted area.  We were now chasing Arcadia and some of the Wylie 30's.  We had wanted to keep a loose cover on Outsider but we split sides at this point.  Initially the split worked for Outsider as they found some favorable current closer to the channel (a bit counter intuitive as it should have been flooding), but the angle was better on the left side and the wind eventually filled from the South ultimately giving us an advantage.

Around Pt. Pinole, a couple of rain bands started to pass through making things a bit miserable onboard, with the light winds and soaking conditions.  We found some emergency rum onboard to keep us warm through the worst of it.  We stayed patient and continued working the left side (South) of the course.  For the conditions we were holding our own as the lighter conditions upwind are not very favorable for JetStream.  The Hobbie 33, Olson30 and Express27, with their larger genoas were not far behind and well within the corrected credits.

We cleared the Richmond restricted area and set the reaching kite one more time to the finish.  It payed off again, allowing us to pass a few more boats in route.  We had a good finish boat for boat, but didn't quite put enough time on our competitors to correct strongly.  So the success of Saturday was not repeated on Sunday, but a good time was had nevertheless.  For the regatta we would finish 2nd behind the Express 27 Motorcycle Irene.  Link to preliminary results and race article in norcalsailing.

Closing the 2010 Season - Vallejo 1

This past weekend we had our final race of the Singlehanded Sailing Society 2010 Season.  The Vallejo 1-2  is a 2-day race.  The first day the whole fleet sails singlehanded from the Berkley Circle to the Vallejo Yacht Club, and on Sunday we reverse courses and sail doublehanded from the Vallejo Yacht Club to the Richmond Yacht Club.  Mark joined me on the Sunday race.  JetStream would have to defend its win last year.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day.  Day started as our usual sailing days with an early breakfast with Mike at Ole's.  A little grease and grits to take us through the day.  The new (used) 6 HP outboard, although a bit heavier, is both smooth and quite and showed great reliability.  It also pushes the boat at 7 knots which makes for a bit quicker deliveries and has an external fuel tank which eliminates the need to continuously refill.  The forecast called for a strong 15 - 25 from the SW, so we prepared for a fast race.   SW winds meant that we would be reaching across San Pablo Bay so we initially set up with our reaching kite.  But ten minutes before our start, the earlier starters looked to be in very light air so we switched back to the large running spinnaker.  We had a decent start with the whole fleet starting on port reaching up towards Red Rock.  With the T650 to windward and Outsider to leeward I choose to stay in the middle and stay in touch with both boats.  Soon it looked like we could set the kite and hold our course above the buoy marking the restricted area off the Richmond fueling docks.  With the big kite up in a beam reach we started trucking and passing some of the earlier starters.  It would have been better to have the reaching kite up for this leg, but right after the restricted area we would have to bear off and be in a full downwind run.  The boat is not set up for spinnaker peels so we committed to the big kite.  It was some hard work to reach above the mark while holding the spinnaker, but our center position paid off putting some distance between ourselves and the rest of the sportsboat fleet.  Before getting to the Richmond Bridge we had caught up many of the early starters, and only had about a dozen boats still in front of us.  The winds had stayed pretty moderate with about 10 knots as we made our way to the Brothers.

After rounding the Brothers there were now just three boats in front of us.  'True North', 'Arcadia' and 'Ragtime!'.  True North was sailing non-spinnaker so we quickly passed them.  Halfway to Pinole Pt we caught up with Arcadia and by Pinole Pt we were in the lead.  The wind had know picked up to the low to mid teens and we were in a beam reach fully powered up.We were sail a hotter angle than the rest of the fleet and we extended our lead through this section.  We sailed conservatively the rest of the way, crossed over to the Vallejo side of the channel and prepared for our spinnaker douse as we entered the Mare Island Straights.  I could have kept the spinnaker up a little longer, but didn't want to risk and emergency take down inside the Straights.  But the winds were light and we lost some of our lead here.   Still, JetStream was the first boat to finish the race and was received with the blast of a gun.  We made record time for us, getting to Vallejo before 1:30 PM.  It was a good start for our title defense.

Sunday's race report to follow.....

2010 SSS Richmond to South Beach

Courtesy of Stephen Buckingham

On Saturday we had the continuation of the SSS race series with the Richmond to South Beach race.  This is the  penultimate race of the SSS calendar with the culmination of the series in a month time with the Vallejo 1-2 race.    I'm racing the series in the doublehanded division, but my crew couldn't make it this time and a last minute attempt to find a replacement wasn't fruitful, making Saturday a day for me and the autopilot to get to know each other a little better.  The forecast for the day was for a mellow 5 - 15 possibly going to 15 - 25 later in the afternoon, and most of the race would be in a light ebb.

Good start to the day with an early breakfast at Ole's in Alameda with Greg and Karl.  And then we were off to the long delivery from Alameda to Richmond.  I'm using a borrowed outboard while I sort out a replacement for my now defunct outboard.  It is an old 2-stroke 2-cylinder 4HP Evinrude.  It runs like a dream.  The 2-cylinders make for a very smooth and quiet ride compared to my previous 1-cylinder 3.5HP Nissan.  It was an uneventful delivery with a flat bay and minimal currents.

The start of the race is inside the Richmond breakwater.  We setup for the start in lightening conditions and we suffered a bit.  A few boats with genoas roll over us and we are sagging and falling behind.  Had to take a painful clearing tack to get on a lane with clear air and little by little started picking boats back up.  But the damage was already done.  Both Outsider and Flight Risk were able to stretch a few hundred yards ahead of us on the light conditions.  After clearing the restricted areas around the Richmond fuel docks, I set the kite and start heading towards The Brothers.  I start catching a few of the slower boats that started  ahead of us and soon join the procession of boats rounding The Brothers and heading back upwind towards Little Harding.

I head towards the right hand side of the course staying right of a current line under the Richmond Bridge.  SOG confirms that we are doing better on this side.  We finally catch Flight Risk after the Richmond Bridge.  I probably came a little closer than I should have, prompting Flight Risk to try to pinch me out, but we were able to hold our lane and get ahead.  I see Arcadia and Uno in the distance and focus on them as the main targets.  Can't tell where Outsider is, but hopefully we'll be back in contact again.  Keep playing the right hand side footing down a bit to avoid getting too close to shore and fall prey of any windholes.  As I approach Racoon Straights I get a glimpse of Outsider crossing on port from the left side of the course a half mile ahead of us.  Not good, we have some serious catching up to do.  We have a fast traverse of the Straights, first staying close to the Tiburon side and crossing over to the Angel Island side mid Straight..  I nailed the lay-line to Little Harding and catch a few more boats in the process, and we are off on a reach above Alcatraz towards 2NAS.  I was hoping the wind would have built up a bit more my now, but we were still sailing in about 10 - 12 knots.  We are still doing 8 and 9 knots on the white sail reach, but not the full potential of the boat had it been blowing 15+.

Here we start to reel in the Wylie Cats and some of the bigger boats, and I can now see Outsider and Sweet Jane ahead.  We set the kite around Alcatraz.  It is still a beam reach.  I try to keep the sheet on the ratchet only to have a bit more control of the kite, but after a few minutes I'm spent and my driving is suffering, so I give it a wrap around the winch and settle down.  I'll probably get some snide comments from my crew, but the winch works better when singlehanding the boat.

We are able to sail a bit higher and hold the spinnaker quite a bit longer than Outsider and Sweet Jane.  We significantly cut their leads, with Outsider maybe a quarter mile ahead and just behind Sweet Jane as we round the last mark and head towards the finish.  This area of the South Bay is notorious for shifty and gusty winds, but only the shifts materialize and the winds stay on the moderate side.  It turns into a cat and mouse game, playing the shifts and trying to make some gains.  But I'm unable to get ahead of Sweet Jane and we finish in that order for our class.  Outsider, Sweet Jane, Jetstream.  The resutls aren't yet in, but I think I still corrected over Sweet Jane.  But Outsider, finishing around 5 minutes ahead should have covered his handicap.

A good, long day on the bay.