The last 2 years I had crewed on another boat to be able to do some of the races. So this year thanks to the pandemic there was only going to be singlehanded entries for this famous race, and I thought I give it a shot with Constance. Now the Three bridge fiasco is a very tough race for an old and heavy boat like the Tartan34C. Huge currents around the SF Bay, paired with usually low winds make this a long and challenging day, even when sailing doublehanded. In order to have any chance to make it around the course, you really need the spinnaker, which is quite a challenge when singlehanding. My autopilot had some technical issues just 2 weeks prior and I decided to replace the wheel parts that had degraded significantly, skipping, not disengaging etc. For the spinnaker work you really need a reliable autopilot!
My start time was 9:35a, so I needed to be in SF the night before to make it to the starting line. That meant I needed to rush after work to the boat, motor or sail down to San Francisco and anchor overnight. Of course all singlehanded! That worked pretty well except that my roller furling line had frayed and started to get stuck in the furling unit! Thank God for Ducktape! So I fixed it provisionally and it held well for all of the race, where I ended up setting and dowsing the spinnaker multiple times and of course furling and unfurling the jib multiple times.
The forecast was for a small flood and a modest SE breeze in the morning. So my plan was to do a spinnaker start and sail against the current close to the shore over to Blackaller first, then go to Red Rock on the flood tide and hopefully make it around before a monster ebb would set in. Of course no plan survives the contact with reality. The flood was much stronger than projected, plus there was virtually no wind. I ended up having a good start right on the money by just drifting across the line with the flood current. No way I could get to Blackaller that way so I set course for the Red Rock in the fickle breeze instead. I picked up some nice breeze around Alcatraz and went to set the spinnaker. Of course the lines were not set correctly so I had to spend some time on the foredeck to untangle things.
By now a lot of boats had followed me and were overtaking me, most of them going around the Southern Tip of Angel Island. I knew that there is always a wind hole behind Angel Island so I opted to go through Raccoon strait instead, with few other boats. That worked perfectly well and by exiting the strait I saw that everybody else was stuck in said wind hole. Ha! The breeze continued to decrease but the flood tide was pushing me gently towards the Red Rock. As I was almost there, the wind completely died and I got just as gently pushed past my rounding mark and beyond underneath the Richmond Bridge. Crikey! Nothing I could do, was thinking of anchoring but not a good idea in a place with ferry traffic.
It took me 2hrs going back and forth trying to hold my ground somehow until the wind kicked in again, this time from a westerly direction. Now the irony was that everybody who got stuck in the Angel Island wind hole had drifted to the Red Rock just in time when the wind was back up and rounded just fine. The usual few boats that cut it too close and had to abandon the race, but they mostly made it around about 1-2 miles in front of me. I was pissed! To catch up I threw up the spinnaker even though the angle was a little hard but I knew it usually clocks back as you traverse between Angel Island and Treasure Island.
The lesson I was taught next was to never set the spinnaker on a half wind course when single-handing! The moment the spinnaker filled, I rounded up nicely while hanging on for dear life on the foredeck! The autopilot wouldn't hold course no matter how much I yelled at it! I finally made it back to the cockpit, adjusted course and was on my way again. So for setting the spi you really need to bear down quite a bit to make sure the autopilot can handle it. Oh well.
I made it nicely to Treasure Island after that and was even able to pass a couple of boats. About 4:30p I was under the Bay Bridge, and from there is was easy running down with the ebb tide and a light westerly breeze. By 5:30p I was already at Blackaller, which left me 90min to claw back 0.8 miles back to the finish line in front of Golden Gate YC, before the time limit at 7p. Except. The tide was big and the wind started dying. Oh well, I hugged the shore, set the spi again and inched my way back. The sun had set by now and I was still not anywhere close the finish line. I inched past Anita rock with less than 0.1knots over ground while throwing a nice bow wave. And all the time the wind was getting less and less. I frantically wing on wing'ed the spinnaker with the main, that helped a little, but at 6:55p I was about 50 yards from the finish line. I hailed the race committee and they actually had mercy on me, letting me finish at 7:02p, with a horn and everything! Phew! I was the last boat to finish, but about half of my division had abandoned the race earlier.
I opted for staying overnight again at Aquatic Cove anchoring. Unfortunately there was already quite a number of boats in there. I picked a spot, but after setting the anchor I realized I was too close to another boat. Anchor up again, with pure muscle heft, since I don't have a windlass. By now I was really running on fumes, having had 2 bagels to eat all day including breakfast. After finally being securely anchored, I had a nice IPA or three and sank into the bunk without further ado :-).
