Singlehanded Three Bridge Fiasco!

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!

motoring towards San Francisco

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. 

My nemesis, the Red Rock. So close and yet so far

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.

Big Blue is up!

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. 

The last mark, Blackaller buoy

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 :-). 

Haven't posted in a long time!

No, this blog is not dead, it was just that we had a lot of distraction the last 3 years with a little baby on board now :-). 

New crew onboard!

So what has been going on with Constance meanwhile? We haven't taken her out for many trips, really only when we had visitors so that someone was always there for the little one.  I spend some $$ on fixing and upgrading stuff: 

- Installed a new solar vent in the place where the front deck dorade was. That vent starts working whenever the sun is shining and sucking out air from the boat. As a result the boat is much drier inside and we didn't get much mold in the winter any more. 

- Installed double life lines to be offshore compliant

- Replaced the steering cables as the old ones started to fray

- The roller furling unit broke so I had to buy a new one (Profurl C230). That also came with a new somewhat stronger forestay (9/32"). Also replaced the wire jib halyard that had some kinks in it. 

- Replaced bilge pump with a unit that has a check valve to prevent syphoning into the center board trunk. 

- Got a new main sail cover and front hatch cover.

- Replaced the starboard windows with Lexan. They started getting cracks and were leaking. 

Cracked windows before..

.. and after fixing!

3BF!

Time of the year again to venture out on the Bay for the Three Bridge Fiasco! This year we had beautiful sunshine and 360 boats on the line in one of the biggest sail boat races in the US. Unfortunately we also had a nice New Moon (Happy Chinese New Year!), which results in horrendous tidal currents. On top of that, the plentiful rain this winter results in quite some run-off, magnifying the ebb currents significantly. With that in mind I decided to round the Red Rock next to Richmond bridge first, before the flood current would run out around 11a. After that I expected that the fickle winds around Red Rock would have us stranded there fighting the ever increasing current.

The starting area. As usually manymany boats and little wind

Our starting time at 09:35:45 (this is a pursuit race) gave us just 1.5hrs to cover the 6 miles to the Rock, so straight there was the objective (in hindsight that was a mistake, but more of that later). The wind was blowing steady out of the NE at 5-10kn with some gusts up to 15kn. We made good progress and saw the rest of the fleet opting to fight the flood current and round Blackaller Buoy next to the Golden Gate first. Hmmm. At least that made us go first through Raccoon straight without having to cross-tack with many other boats. Rounded Red Rock around 11a, just as planned, with quite enough wind to make it just fine. Spinnaker went up, without twists and snags (!), and off we went to our next target, Treasure Island. 

Skipper still happy. Things are slowing down...

That's where it became interesting. The wind was forecasted to fill in behind the Berkeley hills only by 2p, and sure enough ahead of us was a big dead zone extending to the horizon. Some fast boats had already reached that line and were sitting there motionless. Eventually all boats around us got to that line and about 200 boats were sitting there becalmed. It was quite an amazing sight, the line was so abrupt that it was like a starting line to an Olympic race, except all sorts of different boats, spinnaker or no, big and large. Then the ebb current started setting in and I noticed we were drifting backwards at 1kn. Thankfully it is relatively shallow there and I could deploy our stealth anchor. A number of boats drifted backwards and there were some tense moments where collisions were almost imminent. The number of boats announcing withdrawal from the race attested to that. After 1 hr parking we started moving again, only to be parked again at the North End of Treasure Island.

Sailboat parking lot extending a mile to the right..

..and all the way to the Berkeley shore (it seems) to the left.

By now even the slowest boats that had opted to go around Blackaller first had caught up with us. So in hindsight we should have done that too. Oh well. Nothing that could be changed now, the next thing was to get around that blasted Treasure Island against a raging ebb current. I saw a bunch of boats solidly parked on the left (eastern) side of the channel where there was obviously no wind. The boats in the middle were struggling against the current whereas the boats next to the shore of TI seemed to be doing best. So that's where we went, even though I knew there were some risks to that too, like getting pinned downwind on port tack or running into some windless eddy under the bridge later.

Big Blue still flying..

Things went relatively smooth until we went under the Bay Bridge around 3p. That's where chaos unfolded, the raging current and boats abreast on different tacks was really difficult to handle. Plus in light winds our A-sail doesn't like to gybe, and gybe we did multiple times due to boats and other obstacles. Every time we had to gybe the spinnaker lines got tangled on the bow pulpit and we lost speed. My faithful crew was getting quite desperate in the tangle of lines on the front deck! I tried frantically to get to free air by gybing through the fleet onto the other side of the channel, but on port tack with so many boats around it was not possible. In the end I was just happy we got spit out off the back of fleet, not having collided with anybody. Some boats even collided with the Coast Guard cutter anchored on the SE corner of TI. The Coasties were not happy at all!

The next drama came when we went around the southern corner of TI. We ended up being somewhat too close to the island and got swept into an eddie at the Western shore. Some other boats got so close to land that they had to switch on the engine and bail out. Thankfully we got a puff of air just in time and were able to clear. Phew! By now it was 4p. But only riding the ebb current down to Blackaller and back 1mile to the finish! We set the spinnaker again and blazed down at 8-9kn with a nice beam reach between Alcatraz and the SF shore and the rest of the ebb current behind us. I opted to take down the spinnaker early to make sure no entanglement would prevent us from rounding and then risking getting flushed out of the Golden Gate. But approaching Blackaller we all of a sudden slowed down a lot and I realized that there was a very strong flood current, at least 4kn, around Blackaller! It took us 30min to get the last 200yards! after that it was taking back and forth to the finish line which took us another hour (since there was still an ebb current running everywhere else!). 18:04 was our finish time, 55min to spare, but not too many boats behind.

At that point I was totally exhausted, my left hand had started to cramp and became a rigid claw not being able to grab the steering wheel even! We dropped the anchor in nearby Aquatic Cove and went to bed after an early dinner, sleeping like logs. That night we said "never again", but I'm sure we'll be back next year ;-)

4th of July cruise!

Long weekends are always nice for cruising around the Bay and taking some time to enjoy the scenery. We left on Sunday morning from San Mateo's Coyote Point. Now this time of the year is when the summer winds kick in. The huge temperature difference between the Central Valley and the coast results in a big pressure gradient, with winds funneling through the Bay from the West. Usually that thermal gradient wind sets in around noon, and can reach gale force in the late afternoon. Usually it tops around 25-30kn, but we've seen wind above 40kn. So nothing for novice sailors for sure. As we motored through the entrance channel I notice a mast sticking out of the water in the shallows. Looks like somebody got unlucky! That's why I always keep the main up before motoring through there. There is usually a strong cross current that will set you in the shallows in case the engine dies. Somehow around Coyote Point in can get very gusty, not a good place to be in trouble!

Coyote Point channel entrance with sunken sailboat

We left relatively early in the morning to catch the favorable ebb tide towards SF, and I was kind of expecting to motor most of the way until the thermal set in. However, it was blowing already 15kn when we left! In anticipation of bigger things to come we tucked in a reef and went on our way. Once we passed under the Bay Bridge 2 hrs later we had the full thermal going. There was hardly any sailboat out, despite the holiday weekend! Sustained wind of 20-25kn with higher gusts! We were so busy driving the boat that I almost missed that we were overtaken by a huge container ship. Quite impressive!

Container ship leaving the Alameda estuary

25kn wind speed! 

We finally anchored at Belvedere cove. This is our private spot as not many boats draw only 3'11" like the Tartan34C (with the centerboard up). At low tide it gets down to 4ft water depth and we have seen some boats getting stuck. Hence nobody there, a million dollar view and perfect tranquility! Check out the image, out towards SF the water is churned up, whereas inside the cove it is almost glassy. We have 35lbs CQR with 30ft of heavy chain and 120ft of rope. We usually pay out 60ft in shallow water like this, and so far that anchor has never dragged. Even in places like Block Island we never had a problem with this setup, while other boats were dragging around us. 

Anchoring at Belvedere 

The next morning saw us catching the morning flood back home. Beautiful weather and a speedy ride thanks to currents. Check out the current trail in the picture below. This is at Blossom Rock, right in front of Pier 39. I estimate the current to be 3.5-4kn in that location. The thermal had already set in, but only around San Francisco. Once we reached the South Bay, the wind veered Northeast, and we had a joyful ride back home.

Huge flood current at Blossom Rock

Finally, no 4th of July without Old Glory!

Round the Rocks!

Last race of the Singlehanded Sailing Society inside the Bay this spring! Round the Rocks starts at the Berkeley Olympic Circle, then clockwise in the Bay, rounding Alcatraz, Harding Rock, through Raccoon St, past the Red Rock, around the Brothers all the way in the North, back past Red Rock and to the finish at the Richmond YC. 

Last year we were pretty successful, catching up with lots of boats that were parked in front of us. This year promised to be a nice day with enough wind to keep us moving around. When we got to the starting line, a gentle North wind was blowing, indicating a spinnaker start. The flood started flowing and this is where I made the first mistake, placing us down stream from the starting line. 

There was already a big cluster of faster boats close to the starting line, they were starting in several groups ahead of us. With 5min to go I was about 200yrds from the starting line. That's when the wind completely shut off and everybody was drifting away from the starting line. Also the wind had switched from N to W, making it a classic upwind start. With the massive forests of masts parked in front of us there was not a chance any wisp of wind would reach us though! 

I quickly got the spinnaker gear down and set the jib, but we didn't make any progress, maybe just 1kn through the water while the current was building and pushing back by about the same rate. It took us 50min (!) to cross the darn starting line, with the wind shutting off once in a while, while slowly building n general. Unfortunately the flood was building, too, so we were almost dead last out of the fleet of 100+ boats at the starting line. 

Finally a wind field arrives!

We managed to reel in a couple of boats on the way to Alcatraz as the wind finally went above 10kn and we stayed behind Alcatraz in the current cone. Rounding Harding Rock was another disaster as the current had build up to 4+ kn and we missed it by a hair, having to tack back forever against the current. Finally the spi  went up and we went through Raccoon strait, looking at the fleet from behind. It kind of looked as though we would be able to catch up, as everybody was parked by the Brother Islands. 

Alas, no such luck, the wind just picked up enough for everybody to squeeze around and finish way ahead of us. We got 5th last out of doublehanded monohull (#53 out of 66 started boats), and last to finish in our division. Even Galaxsea, a big gigantic Nauticat 44 full keel ketch that rates higher than us despite 1.5x the water line, corrected out on time in front of us. They usually have even more problems in light wind than we do, so that tells me how bad we were :-). Anyways, was a fun day on the water, beautiful weather despite the agonizing race. Learned something for next time!

Three Bridge Fiasco!

As the reader of this blog already knows we're a big fan of the annual Three Bridge Fiasco race, even though we haven't been able to finish in the last 2 years, and have been last boat to finish in our first attempt in 2013. In 2014 we got sucked out of the Golden Gate and crossed under that bridge 9 times before giving up. Last year we went into a gigantic wind hole and never made it around Red Rock, after having rounded Treasure Island first. Still, it is really a fun race and quite a challenge to figure out the right course. 

To recap the rules: This is a shorthanded race (only 1-2 people allowed on the boat), takes place in the San Francisco Bay, and requires the participant to round three marks in the vicinity of the 3 big bridges, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Richmond Bridge, and the Bay Bridge. The order of which is up to the individual boat. Also, the direction in which you pass the start & finish line off the Golden Gate YC is up to the participant. On top of everything, this is a pursuit race, so each boat has an individual starting time, based on speed rating. With the huge popularity of the race (>300 boats), that creates quite some interesting scenario especially at the start, with boats going every which way. Hence Fiasco!

The other thing that complicates things tremendously is the tidal current situation. The SF Bay is a complex tidal system, with South Bay, North Bay, San Pablo Bay creating a harmonic oscillation of water flowing in and out. Throw in some islands and channels to make things more interesting. Also, (and more of that later) this year's El Nino winter has dumped quite some precipitation on the sierras, resulting in quite a runoff channeling through the Sacramento River and North Bay.

The 3BF starting area

Our starting time was 9:35:45 in the morning, with the ebb running until 11a. That, paired with the light winds made the first mark pretty clear: Blackaller Buoy next to the Golden Gate. We got a quite reasonable start among the mess of boats shutting down the wind on the starting line, and drifted/sailed slowly to our first mark.  The wind was supposed to fill in from the NW, changing to W, but when we rounded the mark it was really more like a North wind at 5-10kn. So, no need for the spinnaker, at least initially. I was thankful that we changed the foresail to the 125% #2 jib, past experience has taught us that the winds are fickle around this time of the year. The plan was to round the course clockwise, going to Red Rock 2nd and Treasure Island last.

When we went past Sausalito, the wind veered West and you saw the skipper running up front to hoist the spinnaker. Everything was already setup before the start of course, anticipating the westerly, and I had REALLY checked all the lines twice before we set off. The more stunned I was when the halyard was wrapped around the lifelines and the lazy sheet was wrapped around the bow pulpit. How could that have happened! While I was wrestling with the lines the wind kind of died and therefore we didn't lose too much, bareheaded with a tangle of lines on the foredeck. I finally got everything cleared only to realize that the wind had changed 180deg and we had to quickly gybe with hardly any wind. As soon as that was done, the wind changed back to N, so down came the spi as it was now upwind sailing again.

I probably burned about 5000 calories right there and achieved close to nothing. At least I had the mess of lines cleared up front, something that should pay off later. We went relatively uneventful through Raccoon channel and tried to harden up into the northerly breeze on the way to Red Rock. By now the ebb current should be abating, right? Unfortunately I found that despite a nice angle towards Red Rock we were pretty much crabbing sideways, swept down by a vicious ebb current of at least 2 knots. I didn't realize then that the Sierra run off was increasing the ebb current. As we were swept to the Richmond side, the current finally got less and we could point pretty well towards Red Rock. I saw that most people tried to round the island clockwise, but I thought to be smart and went counterclockwise, anticipating a flood current pushing us past the windless Eastern side of the Rock. Windless it was indeed, but there was absolutely no end to that ebb current! So everybody else sailed happily past us on the way to the next mark and I had to hear some sarcastic comments from the 1st mate what kind of fantastic plan I had come up with.

Constance on the way to Red Rock

The Red Rock. Notice the windhole on the right side
Richmond Bridge in the background

Last year we got stuck here too and I was already having deja-vues. But there was a little wind left and I stayed as much as I could out of the wind shadow of the rock. Some other boats tried to cut that corner and got helplessly stuck in there for a long time. So we finally rounded, and set the spinnaker. Like everybody else that had sailed away from us already. 

Looking at the fleet from behind

Now something very curious happened: I noticed that all the boats that had passed us earlier, were stuck in that nasty windhole we just emerged from next to the Richmond wharf. There was people calling the race committee to sign off as they had drifted into the exclusion zone next to the oil dock. No way I was going in there again! So I stayed as high as possible, supposedly driving into the building flood current of the main channel (which however never materialized). Also, the wind really started to fill in, from the West. It reached us with quite some vigor and miraculously never reached the remainder of the fleet parked by Richmond.  So we sped up handily and passed about 50 boats within less than 30min. They must have been totally agonizing to see us zoom past!

Catching up with Big Blue barely pulling

Halfway to TI the wind build up to 15kn so I quickly dowsed the spi as it was halfwind anyways, and the jib was going to do just as fine. Going around Treasure Island was relatively easy as the wind had build enough. Now we had to fight the building flood current on the way to the finish, and we decided to go into the cone behind Alcatraz instead of fighting the current with less wind along the SF Piers. That worked out pretty well even though we had to sail some longer distance. We eventually passed a couple of boats that were in front of us at TI. Totally exhausted, we passed the finish line 16:24:30, after sailing about 25 nautical miles total. 

Looking at the score, we couldn't believe it: We came in 5th out of 33 in our class! Overall #183 out of 304 doublehanded monohulls. Doesn't sound too great, but for us finishing at all is already a lot. For the night we anchored at Aquatic Park. Had some nice dinner and fell asleep like a rock :-)

45+ knots!

Highest wind speed so far on this boat. Front came through and added to the thermal on a otherwise normal day on the SF Bay. Wind peaked around 4p with 35kn sustained with gusts above 45kn on our wind speed indicator. 2nd reef in the main with the boom vang way off and the J#3 rolled up to 30% was still enough to produce some crazy round-ups. Good news: nothing broke. This boat is tough as a brick in heavy weather! No pictures, we were way too busy!