May 5, 2014

Pat Broderick continues his series of ocean racing reports from onboard his Wyliecat 30 Nancy.

Saturday's YRA/HDA Knox-Bonita Race began with a look at the weather forecast before leaving home. Both NOAA and Sailflow agreed we'd see mid-teen wind most of the day out of the west. Wrong! But more about our frustration with recent weather forecasting later on.

After a short postponement, the Knox-Bonita Race got off with two PHRF divisions headed out to Point Bonita and its infamous (and I use the word lightly) buoy. We watched Division A head out toward the middle of the Bay against a building flood as we prepared for for our Division C start. Only two boats accompanied us across the start line, and they decided to follow the faster boats, so out toward the middle we all sailed, covering each other. At a layline for Yellow Bluff the Division C boats departed from the Division A boats and tacked over toward Marin, where the wind began to wane.

We tacked back out and passed under the Golden Gate Bridge near mid-span. "Enough of this flood!" the crew shouted. So it was goodbye to our Division C friends and a tack in toward Pt. Diablo. The wind was out of the NNW, so closer to the Marin shore meant relief from the flood, but gusty wind and a couple of near round-ups. The predicted "mid-teen" wind had mysteriously built into the mid-twenties, with gusts to thirty knots! Despite the flood, we began taking water over the bow. "Enough of this!" the crew shouted. So we went back out toward the middle again.

As soon as we could tack back over and get into the Bonita Cove, we again headed north, but missed the entrance by a few hundred yards due to the now very-building flood. Another short tack and we found the current relief we were seeking, making 7-8 knots over the bottom toward the backside of Pt. Bonita. All good things end, however, and we again had to tack out into the flood to get around the point, so we watched the Pt. Bonita Lighthouse begin to move westward as the current shoved us eastward. The crew shouted, "We'll get a good ride back in on the flood!" But first we had to get around Pt. Bonita Buoy.

I've rounded that buoy dozens and dozens of times on this race, the Second Half Opener, OYRA Drakes Bay 1, and many other races – and it's always a problem for me. Same thing Saturday. We tacked over, heading WNW straight into the current flooding down the Bonita Channel in a steady 30 knots of wind, achieving speeds of 2-3 knots over the bottom. It took forever.

We'd more or less caught up with the back of the Division A boats and watched as they attempted to round the mark, missing it, tacking back up, attempting, missing, and so on. We agreed to put a little distance in the bank, so we overstood the mark by several hundred yards until the crew shouted, "Let's go for it!" And we made it. We think the wind clocked a few degrees further to the north, but it really didn't matter as we heard the clanking bell pass by to port and we began to let sail out for a reach back to the middle and a run to the bridge. Suddenly the wind and the waves were working together for our benefit.

Running back toward the Golden Gate Bridge. ©2014 Leah Pepe

That's when we saw the whales. At least two humpbacks were playing around outside the Bonita Cove, along with a tugboat waiting for an incoming tanker. I love whales except when they're sort of in the way when I'm racing; I don't love tankers so much. So we steered outside the whales but inside the tanker's route. We passed the whales and the tanker passed us. We didn't meet another ship until just past the bridge.

Leah Pepe takes a shot of the bridge. ©2014 George Dorian

The run was exciting with that 30 knots of breeze creating a dead-downwind situation. We managed the "Wylie Rock'n' Roll" pretty well, jibed just after we passed under the bridge and were passed by the outbound ship. Settling on a course for YRA 8, the wind began to abate, but the current continued to push us at a good clip. The red buoy appeared larger and larger, and as we rounded we were reminded that going downwind gives the illusion of less wind, not the reality. After we got the boat back under us and the sail trimmed, the crew shouted something about bad steering. But it was too windy to hear what they said clearly.

The current pushed us east of Pt. Blunt, so we had to tack out and around then back in to find some relief along the south side of Angel Island. Another long tack out and back brought us to the finish line at YRA K, but the current pushed us back again and it took a short tack to avoid T-boning Sausalito Yacht Club's committee boat Mercury. The gun went off and suddenly the crew forgot about everything that had happened before and shouted, "We won!"

"But wait a second," I said. "It's a handicap race and we won't know for sure until the results are published." Twenty-four hours later the results haven't been published, so we're still holding our collective breath. In the meantime I've begun to wonder about wind forecasting.

– Pat Broderick, Wyliecat 30 Nancy

The results came out last night, and Nancy did indeed win PHRF 2. You can find a link to the results at www.yra.org.

While the PHRF boats were sent out the Gate, the one design boats (Olson 25s and Santana 22s) sailed two races inside the Bay. They also saw 30 knots of breeze. This is Dan Coleman's Olson 25 Balein – before the wind built out of the teens. ©2014 norcalsailing.com