Three Bridge Fiasco Wrap-Up

January 31, 2011

Perhaps calling the Three Bridge Fiasco a 'wrap' is a bit premature. Although the race itself ended at 1900 hours on Saturday, the race committee's work sorting out the starts and finishes continues. Results were posted Saturday night and have been updated since, but they are not final. You can check them out on the Singlehanded Sailing Society's website, which has links to overall results and results by division right on the home page.

Rocket 88 slid across the finish line sideways. ©2011 BAMA/slackwatersf

As we reported on Saturday, Rocket 88 was the first boat to finish the pursuit race, sailing with Brendan Busch and Ian Klitza. They came in at 15:43 - not a fast year. They were followed by Peter Stoneberg's Shadow. Both are fast cats. Next came California Condor, the first monohull. Unfortunately, the Antrim 40, sailing with owner Buzz Blackett and designer Jim Antrim, had to motor after getting stuck for 10 mintues in shallow water between Red Rock and Treasure Island. Buzz graciously took an RAF (Retired After Finishing). Those first three finishers came from the east, but the next boat to finish had to take the short leg up to Blackaller first and so finished from the west. That was Chris and Nick Nash on El Gavilan, a Hawkfarm, the first monohull finish that counted.

Happy Farmers Chris and Nick Nash. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

The first singlehander to finish, at 16:52, was Gary Helms' trimaran Rice Rocket, a Corsair Sprint 750. The last finisher, Tony Wyant's Moore 24 Taz (not to be confused with the Express 27 Taz!!), crossed the line at 18:59:35, just seconds before the time limit.

A lot of boats finished in the dark. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

Kim Desenberg wrote to the SSS board to thank them for the race. He sailed the Wylie Wabbit Mr. MacGregor with John Groen. "Although we didn’t finish, we had a wonderful adventure on the water. I believe this is the largest and therefore the most successful race on the San Francisco Bay, and you are to be congratulated for your work.

"This year for for the first time the preliminary results were available before noon the day after the race. This is a tremendous milestone! The Sunday after the race is the most exciting time for people to see how they or their friends came out.

"I can only imagine that to produce these preliminary results the next morning meant a lot of work and probably a sleepless night for some. Please accept my thanks and gratitude for pulling this off. I believe I speak for the entire fleet in this matter." Of the five Wylie Wabbits that started, only Erik Menzel's Bad Hare Day was able to finish.

The shotgun called it a day on the GGYC race deck. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

Boats came from as far away as Washington and all points of California. Of 330 starters, 169 finished and 160 dropped out. Thirty-five sailed singlehanded; of those only thirteen finished. Whereas most drop-outs were due to inadequate breeze, two boats quit racing after a collision that punched a hole in one, the Dogpatch 26 Moonshine.

Moonshine was sailed singlehanded by owner Dylan Benjamin. We wish him well in making repairs. ©2011 Erik Simonson/www.pressure-drop.us

For more photos, check out these galleries by: Erik Simonson, SlackwaterSF, and Rod Witel. For a short video, see our movies page.

The results will be finalized in time to engrave the awards for the Trophy Meeting at Oakland YC on February 9 at 1900. The next race in the series is the SSS Corinthian, which starts and finishes off the Corinthian YC's race deck on April 2. It will be another Bay tour, but with a conventional course and division starts.