My account of the race,
The race started at 9:00am with the first 5 minute warning at 8:55am for the doublehanded PHRF 264+ boats (there was a Cal20 entered that usually does really well on corrected time). This pursuit race has the slower boats start before faster boats. There were 309 boats entered. My start time was at 9:45. Conditions were real to very foggy on the motor over to the start line with light winds. Maybe 3 knots from the east. Oh, did I mention the ebb? About a 2.3 know ebb.
The race marks are Blackaller buoy near the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge (about a mile west of the start line at the Golden Gate YC), Yerba Buena Island (aka Treasure Island near the Bay Bridge) about 5 miles east of the start line, and Red Rock about 9 miles north of Yerba Buena near the San Rafael Bridge. You get to pick the order of rounding! The finish is back at the Start line in front of the Golden Gate YC. Basically, you must self-retire from the race if you start your engine, receive 5 horns from commercial traffic, or enter any of the defined restricted areas.
At my start, the current was a 2 knot ebb (sending you west) and the wind was light from the east. I decided that I was going to go east to Red Rock or YB depending on the wind on the way. You can start from either side of the start line on this race. I made a huge mistake! I lined up facing east behind the start line like any other race. I realized soon that I was sailing against the tide, upwind, and into about 200 on-coming boats. This would have been a lot worse except that all of us ended up moving with the ebb for the first 20 minutes. I remember being the only boat facing the other way.
The wind picked up after a while and I was able to sail east to finally cross the starting line 15-20 minutes late. Plenty of tacking into the crowd until finally breaking out of the city front just past Alcatraz. The wind shifted southeast, and we decided to skirt past the old prison island and head to Red Rock. The fog was really thick when we finally broke out into the central bay. We could not see any familiar landmarks like the Berkeley/Oakland hills or Angel Island which was somewhere on our port as we headed north. We put the kite up and followed our GPS north. The wind picked up to 10-12 knots and the fog quickly cleared as we approached Red Rock. We caught up and were now in a group of about 10 other boats planning a port rounding of Red Rock. We doused the kite in the crowd and rounded, and quickly headed south back to Yerba Buena. The wind stayed up and gave us a fast upwind trip back to set up for a starboard rounding of our second mark. We tucked around the east side of Treasure Island and the wind abruptly died.
Becalmed, knot meter at 0, we dodged and tacked a collection of mooring balls and barges between Emeryville and Treasure Island. This lasted about 35 minutes when out of no where, the wind picked up again from the south just as we drifted under the Bay Bridge. Just in time for two large container ships to leave the Port of Oakland and become moving race course obstacles. We quickly rounded the island in a pack of about 20 competing boats, we dodged the ships and headed for the City Front. By then, the wind filled in from the southwest at 15-18 knots with the #2 jib up. We rounded Blackaller bouy and crossed the finish line around 6:00pm just as it was starting to get dark; but not before being “port tacked” by another competitor sailing an Express 37. I yelled at him that I was starboard! He replied, ‘Well. You’re port now”. I laughed and scrambled back on starboard tack to the finish. I know I should have protested this guy but I am not absolutely sure that he really knew I was there; oh and he was pretty funny. I am getting my horn out the next time!
All in all, I am just happy to finish! This is my second time competing in this race and for my doublehand partner, her first. Some sailors have done this race many times without a finish. Thank you SSS (Singlehanded Sailing Society) for putting on such a great event.
