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.

A trying Silver Eagle Race

We pulled the plug at TI at around 6:30, If the wind cooperated there was going to be at least another 3 hours of racing, and if it didn't who knows. It was an up and down race. There were multiple races in the race, if I look at them independently we did great, but if you put it all together, well it would have sucked.

Day started with a jammed main halyard, had to pull into the GGYC marina. With a locking main the actual halyard is really small and light and if its breeze and we are not careful it can jump the sheave and jam. Well it was breeze and we weren't careful. Didn't have to climb the mast. If we get a long line (which we now carry) and enough angle on it, we can give it a good pull and pop it out.

First race, start and central bay: OK start in good pressure. Had to do a couple clearing tacks to get on a good lane. A bit of a too close lee bow by a friendly competitor, way too early in a long race to call for a foul (and we didn't carry our protest flag anyways). Got to the windward mark first closely followed by the Melges 24 (those boats can point). Initially thought the reach to LH would be too tight to set so we had set up for a gibe set at LH, but we had it all wrong. Halfway up to LH we could have set but had everything in the wrong side. Kept high to give us enough room to gibe-set and and gibe back. Good pressure and started separating from the Melges and the FT. Gibed at LH and couldn't make Blossom with the big kite up. Kept on going a little ways to have a better angle to Blossom, dropped and had a fast white sail reach to Blossom. By the time we rounded Blossom we have built a healthy lead. We stayed middle-right to avoid the worst of the lee of Angel Island and as we neared Pt. Blunt we reset the kite to push us further East to try to get around the hole and avoid the remaining ebb. There was to getting around the hole and here we parked it for around 45 minutes, seeing all the folks behind us join us. We had lunch and waited and waited for enough of a breeze to get us to the other side. Kite up, kite down, jib up, jib down, repeat....

The folks on the island side got free first, but it quickly filled in to a let us loose too. We followed the Tiger for a bit and then broke to the right in search of more pressure near the Richmond restricted area. Not sure everyone respected the restricted area, but again, no flag and that one is a bit harder to proof unless you can get the right picture or have some witnesses. We quickly got in the lead again and led the fleet to PCM. Nice cruising conditions, flat water 10 - 12 knots. Good time to let the crew get some driving time. Got to PCM first and started to work our way back. We went right to try to avoid as much of the building flood as possible.

A pleasant upwind leg to the sisters, with the Melges making up some ground on us on the lightish conditions, we had a bit of speed on them but they had 5+ degrees of point on us. Decision time at the Sisters, stay North and try to run the edge of the current or cut across to San Pablo. North seemed a long way around to were we needed to be, so we cut across with the monohull fleet following. But 3/4 of the way to the shallows on the San Pablo side the wind shut down and we got caught in no-mans land. Center channel in a f&*% flood and no breeze. The folks behind saw it and tacked away. Eventually we worked our way to the shallows and short tacked up to San Pablo Pt. Played the cone on the Brothers and gained back some of what we had lost to the Tiger and Melges that were now in front of us. More shore tacking between the piers. While both the Melges and the Tiger continued short tacking up to the bridge, we broke out early and headed to Red Rock, with the eventual goal of getting to the westerlies first. This seemed to pay off. We crossed the Richmond Bridge first and got past Red Rock first. Us on the West side and the Tiger and the Melges on the East. We kept playing the right, but the two breezes were in constant fight right over us with neither dominating. The Melges committed way to the East, we played the West and the Tiger was in the middle. For a while we looked really good, but the Melges got the breeze first and shot off to the lead. Another wind hole around Southampton before we could catch up to the strong westerly in the slot. At this point we were on a tight reach to the West side of TI chasing down the Melges. Solid 20 - 25 knots in the slot, but the long day was wearing down on us.

We almost put the outboard on at the lee of Angel, but the Westerly filled in and we decided to continue racing and re-evaluate at TI. It was past 6 at the time we reached TI and we decided to pull the plug and head to the leeward side of TI towards Alameda. We were still sailing when we crossed the Bay Bridges and what we saw solidified our decision to call it a day. It looked really light on the South Bay. 

Well, that was that, motored down the Estuary, saw the Can and Ghost, ghosting down the Estuary on their way to finish. Hopefully a better run next year. Congrats to the finishers, it was certainly a trying day.

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.