The race is happening on January 31st. It is one of the most popular in the San Francisco Bay, (close to 300 boats participated last year and 320+ are already signed-up with a week to go...)
It is sponsored by San Francisco's Singlehandled sailing society. (I am entered in the double handed category...)
Or at the San Francisco Single handling society... (SSS) website.
An exerpt:
What a FIASCO !
By Kimball Livingston
There's no explaining the Three Bridge Fiasco to people who expect things to make sense. We're talking about a race sailed in the dead of winter, when you can't count on breeze on San Francisco Bay, but you can expect the currents to be running big-time. A bay, we call it, because the sea floods in, but the Golden Gate is also a drain spout for 16 rivers swollen with winter rain.
Racing the Three Bridge Fiasco, you have three marks to round. Each mark is at or under one of three bridges (San Francisco Bay Bridge, The Golden Gate Bridge and the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge). The shortest-possible route (over the ground, not necessarily the shortest route through the water) is 21 miles, and it does not simplify things at all that going from a reverse-order, pursuit start, you may round these marks in any order or any direction at all. Time and again this race draws the biggest fleet for any race of the year in Northern California. Which only goes to show, if you declare a fiasco, they will come. Darned if the name isn't a brilliant stroke of marketing.
Hey Rico, Good luck with the race. I have done it many times over the years and always had a good time. I do recall a time or two that a similar boat to the Commander has done well.
Good luck and hope you get the right weather and weak currents.........ed
350+ boats are signed up so far... with 2 days to go!
(The previous record was just shy of 300...)
Wind forecast ranges from 3kt to 20kt depending on where you look...
Most likely there will be light winds, (although they did pick up today!) and a bit of a current on the start so not only are we all going to be crammed into a small space, there will be guys who misjudged their start trying not to cross the line due to the current.
Someone posted a story about how they crossed the line prematurely STERN first... (There is a 20 min penalty for crossing the start within the 5 min prior to your official start).
I'm sure there will be boats parked in the way of guys trying to start. And there will be guys on the other tack, who are starting in the other direction across the starting line heading right for them. (This is the FIASCO bit!)
There will be guys on starboard pointing at each other across the start line wondering about who has rights.
I'm glad for my high PHRF rating! I'll be one of the first boats off and away from this melee... At peak, there will be about 8 boats crosssing the start per MINUTE.
I entered in the non-spinnaker double handed class. (I have yet to rig-up my spinnaker bits...)
Based on the forcasted winds and current, we decided on the following strategy:
(See Chart Below where I've highlighted the markers in red for reference - sorry, the version posted is small...)
- On paper this was as follows: Cross the start line heading East towards Blackaller Bouy (The Golden Gate marker), double back to round Treasure Island (Bay Bridge marker) and then head up North to round Red Rock (Richmond Bridge Marker) Returning towards the start on the eastern shore of Angel Island.
We spent the night before the race in Sausalito and headed up to the San Francisco waterfront just in time to spot the Golden Gate Yacht club buoy thet marked the starting line on the morning of the race...
We proceeded up the current (east) along the city's waterfront and put up sails (Full main and my giant 180% Genoa) in very light easterly wind. We were in the second group starting. Someone shut the wind off just as our start time came around and we drifted west toward the start line with the ebbing current.
We almost went across the start line stern first, but managed to get the boat turned around in our effort to cross the line INSIDE the outer starting line buoy.
We started in a group with some Santana 22's and a few Meritt 25s. Some guy managed to get outside and caught a nice breeze over to Blackaller buoy (Golden Gate Bridge marker) Conditions improved as we got closer to the bouy, and by the time we reached it we had a light but consistent breeze - Maybe 6kt...
We rounded Blackaller in a CCW direction along with a group of other boats, and according to our latest (updated) strategy, continued towards red rock (to the North East) on a course that was almost due North towards Sausalito which would eventually take us through Racoon straits on our way to Red Rock.
Some boats got greedy and climbed away from the parade of slow boats making for Belvedere (and good current running on the North shore of Raccoon Straits), but got stuck by Harding Rock buoy for quite some time with the Windex spinning in circles. I heard that there was a good breeze around the East side of Angel Island after this from some boats that headed this way...
We climbed steadily enjoying a bit better fortune that those that preceeded us... We rounded onto a reach into Racoon Straits and we had a great run through there.
It was a thing of beauty... we cruised by a handful of boats as we reached through the straits - Including a Pearson 36 whose owner asked who the builder of my 'pretty little boat' was... He was surprised at the answer! We were so much faster than him that he asked for a tow! I imagine that the light winds, now maybe at 8kts, made good use of the great amount of canvas we had up front.
We could see a bunch of boats parked at the end of Raccoon Straits and we were gaining on all of them. Some boats that were coming from behind Angel Island were moving along but very slowly. We got to the end of the straits, and joined a buch of boats in the calm there.
Traffic got a bit heavy, but it was not too bad as there was still a tiny bit of breeze but enough to lightly power our rudders. We proceeded very slowly towards Red Rock in a bunch - boats pointed in all directions at times.
We were in good company at this point, but as we got closer to Red Rock we faced a few decisions: We were headed for a Clocwise rounding of Red Rock, but our line & wind were taking us towards a Counter-clockwise rounding... As it turns out, I should have stayed with this, but decided to join the mass which appeared to have a light, but steady breeze, and altered course to join them.
We got to the north of Red Rock to find that the entire fleet we'd been sailing with, about 50-60 boats, was stuck between Red Rock and Richmond (having most rounded the Rock to starboard), and most were going nowhere. In fact, some of them had gone past under the Richmond Bridge, having been swept there by the flood making for a tremendous traffic jam. We were to join them shortly, unable to fight the strong current...
The traffic mess, the light winds, and rights of way made it very hard to fight the current. We were close to T-boning / being T-boned several times...
Yucca, the beautiful black-sailed classic Eight Meter precision racer, simply & easily (defying physics, I think...) powered away around the rock, never to be seen again by us (- heard later that they were first overall).
Layla (a U20) reportedly found a tremendous counter-current going the other way around the rock... -Should have stuck to that strategy!
We finally managed to get a good line back under the bridge, finally defeating the current and with the heavier traffic now gone we got into cleaner air just South of the Rock. The breeze picked up to some 15kt. It was a wonderful sail towards the Bay Bridge...
We could hear on the radio as some containerships communicated their intended route which at least a few times would bring them onto a collission course with the racers. I heard several blasts from these ships, but overall the racing fleet managed to provide clear passage.
As the wind increased, I suspect that the 180% Genoa, which had served us so well in the light winds, began to loose efficiency somehow... The boat was not healing excessively, but it did not feel right either. I need to test this sail's efficiency window...
We decided it was time for a change 100% jib would have given us more speed...
We were somewhere just North of the Berkeley pier, and we had a long way to go to the Bay bridge... since the sun was setting, (and the temperatured dipping) and we could see a bunch of boats becalmed in the lee of Yerba buena Island... in addition to the fact that the race was to terminate at 7:00 (a deadline which we were unlikely to meet as the winds calmed in the early evening... We decided (along with a great number of boats still on the course), to call it a day and head back towards Sausalito in anticipation of meeting some friends for a good post-race dinner.
As we headed back toward Sausalito the boats that had already finished were enjoying the stuff of fantasy, planing home with their kites up while the sun dropped into the sea between the towers of the GG Bridge.
It was an amazing race. Final count was around 370 boats!
Sadly, 'Mephisto Cat' recorded a DNF...
It was a wonderful day of sailing and a lot of fun - I look forward to the next one!
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