January 28, 2014

We heard from two more racers in Saturday's Three Bridge Fiasco. We'll start with John Lymberg on the Flying Tiger Wild 1, who doublehanded with crew Larry Crume.

We had an epic race. We rounded Blackaller first, looked to the Gate and saw boats struggling in light air, so we pointed back up to the Cityfront, stayed in and got close to StFYC, then the wind evaporated and we began to battle the current. Just as we were about to throw the anchor down by Anita Rock buoy (we actually had it in hand), we saw a faint flutter on our leech tell tales indicating some breeze from the northeast. So we tacked instead and caught just a wisp of the breeze, which slowly but steadily filled in to become 1-2 knots... and up to 6-7 knots of breeze. We were the first to catch it and were soon flying toward Angel Island at 5-6+ knots, with just a few small trimarans below us and another multihull to our right. We were in a personal wind machine and things were looking pretty good.

We stayed high as we approached the south side of Angel, a half mile out. We decided to keep our option open for Pt. Blunt (ha!), and looking through the binocs, we saw NO wind beyond it to Richmond. Raccoon looked as bad. Our breeze began to dissipate. I looked over my right shoulder and sure enough, other boats had discovered our secret.  

Firstly, there was Glenn Isaacson's Schumacher 40 Q which followed our lead and was making tracks about a quarter mile off our port/stern quarter. Then on beam. Then port/bow. They were riding around us on the same breeze as it moved on to the northeast.  

Then I saw Dark and Stormy do exactly the same thing – all catching up and passing us to our right, except that Q actually made it into Raccoon and before the wind shut off.  

The R/P 44 (Tai Kuai) also came from behind us and slowly rolled over us just the wind shut off. Dark and Stormy and a Melges, to our right and forward, were also stopped ahead, and all of us were soon were drifting lifeless, just short of Raccoon.

Tai Kuai points her bow toward Point Blunt. ©2014 norcalsailing.com

The ebb finally took hold and started to push us back towards the North Tower. After losing 50 yards or so, we threw out the anchor and had lunch as we watched the R/P 44 drift backwards to our right and then further back. Dark and Stormy either were not as affected by ebb or had also anchored as they remained stationary.

We battled the R/P 44 through Raccoon, exiting just in front of them, and we split tacks as they elected to go around Red Rock counter-clockwise. We rounded Red Rock clockwise and saw them stuck in the mud – wow they went in really close.

We had a kite run down towards Richmond and saw several boats – including a few Moores and a Melges 24 below us go into the long wharf restricted zone. We jibed away and caught a nice breeze that died again as we made it down by the Olympic Circle. The kite came down and we got stuck in another hole as we watched an awesome sunset behind Angel.

Finally, we picked up fresh breeze from the south and started to fly towards Treasure Island under the main and jib, hitting 6-7 knots. The wind clocked to the southwest, and we hoisted our kite on a tight reach and carried it into semi-darkness, dodging barges, all the way to and through the Bay Bridge. Wooohoo! What time is it – 6:00 p.m.? We needed a miracle to finish.

We followed the Corsair 31R trimaran Roshambo around TI then back under the Bay Bridge and made it on our second try fighting a nasty flood. Roshambo went left towards the City into dying wind. We went right to better pressure but more current though. We heard Roshambo on the radio asking something like if the the 7:00 p.m. was a firm cut-off time. Wishful thinking.

We called in our retirement just before 7:00 p.m. We gave it our all, and were north of Blossom Rock in decent breeze pointed to the finish. The wind soon filled in to more than 10 knots, and we had a screaming reach towards Richmond hitting over 8 knots under white sails.

– John Lymberg, Wild 1, Flying Tiger

We'll finish with Dan Alvarez on the JS9000 JetStream, who doublehanded with crew Rob Blackmore.

We had a very frustrating day, but we knew this going in. We knew this was going to be a race to finish in time and not necessarily to beat any particular boat.

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 to sail against the ebb, and it wasn’t even max ebb yet. We had a strategy in place: try to reach Treasure Island 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 southwest corner of TI which would make it impossible to round counterclockwise with the ebb. Take a little flush from the South Bay with the leftover ebb, get to Red Rock 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 Cityfront. We were making good progress and catching boats along Fort Mason and Aquatic Park. The light air machines Mumm 30 Eight Ball and Azzura 310 Outsider quickly caught up to us and passed us, but we were doing good against the rest of the fleet.

After the Aquatic Park, Scott Easom's Eight Ball split left and Greg Nelsen's Outsider went right along the shore. Stephen Buckingham's Black Soo 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 died completely, 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-anchored boats drift towards the Gate and boats still short-tacking on the Cityfront not really making any progress. There were two bunches: the crowd stuck at the Fisherman’s Wharf breakwater, and the crowd that made it to the Pier 39 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 Andrew Hura and Josh Butleron the Wylie 24 Run Wild had to pull the plug after trying to go straight to Red Rock 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 out Red Rock.

We had a great sail under Code Zero from Alcatraz to Pt. Blunt. There we made the mistake of staying close to Angel Island thinking the flood would push us across. What flood? It was 3:00 p.m. and we were still fighting the f’ing ebb. We set the kite and headed east on the lightening westerly that was now filling the Central Bay. At this 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 Dark and Stormy with their red kite, already around Red Rock and headed to TI. A bit after that we saw the Cal 20 Can O'Whoopass also on the run from Red Rock to TI.

Hana Bauguess and Richard VonEhrenkrook on "The Can." ©2014 norcalsailing.com

By now it was already 4:00 p.m., and we had reached Southampton Shoals, but had yet to round any of the marks. Wind wasn't looking that exciting around Red Rock, 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 three hours. We still had two hours to get home, so we called it a day. We had a nice reach back down to TI, but right after the bridge it was glass. A J/111 was working TI to get around, and I think I saw Synthia in the Hawkfarm Eyrie unsuccessfully fighting the flood trying to go west. I was happy to be able to crank the engine on and power home.

Kudos to Dark and Stormy. Good seeing everyone out.

– Dan Alvarez, JetStream, JS9000

Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of our Three Bridge Fiasco coverage. But wait – there's more.