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What a fiasco!

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bbriner
Captain

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349 Posts

Initially Posted - 01/31/2007 : 10:00:48

last weekend we had the '3 Bridge Fiasco' race put on by the SSS - the Single-handed Sailing Society. It's a fiasco because there is no set course - you can go in either direction - at the start and finish too! The course (about 20nm) is to go around marks at the 3 main bridges in the SF Bay - the Golden Gate (the mark is a buoy very near the south tower), the Bay Bridge (the 'mark' is Yerba Buena Island) and the San Rafael Bridge (the mark is around a small island called Red Rock). Plus it's set up as a Pursuit race so the start is a madhouse, especially since this year there were about 300 entries.

At the start the wind was very light to non-existent. Maybe 5kts of wind, but we had a 4.5kt ebb tide to contend with. After crossing the starting line 3 times in 20 minutes I said the heck with it and went to the downwind and downcurrent mark at the GG Bridge. After that the wind died and the current was taking me under the bridge when it picked up again. I was clawing my way upwind (it was an easterly) and then wind picked up to about 10-15 kts and we (me and the others doing what I was doing) made it a narrow straight about halfway to Red Rock and the wind died again. It was still ebbing so we all started going backwards again, only this time with a lee shore full of hard stuff - rocks. Just before we started piling up on the rocks the wind came back and we had a great reach up to Red Rock. At about 4 pm my GPS said I wouldn't even make it to Yerba Buena until about 6 pm. The race cut-off was 7pm, and I knew that once I rounded Yerba Buena I would be fighting the flood tide with about 3 more miles to go. There was no way I was going to make it so I retired and went home.

I did get to do 2 things that I haven't done before while sailing solo - changing the jib and setting the whisker pole. So I learned something new. Also on that fun reach to red Rock I did beat the pants off a Hunter 29.5 and a Ericson 32 though! That was fun.

Here's a link to a photo of the start. You'll see a Catalina sail emblem right in the middle. That's me!
http://www.latitude38.com/LectronicLat/2007/0107/Jan29/Jan29.html#anchor159937

Bill B
Wind Dancer
#4036 84 SR/FK
San Francisco Bay

Edited by - on

djn
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1561 Posts

Response Posted - 01/31/2007 : 11:54:52

Hi Bill, that does look like a mass confusion, but at least you are sailing. I just drove back from a meeting in Bay City Michigan and it is 17 degrees out with a 20knot wind. The best part of the webpage you linked to was the picture at the bottom....here it is. Cheers.

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Ben
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
1234 Posts

Response Posted - 01/31/2007 : 12:59:35

Bill, sounds like an excellent time (at least from my snow-bound perspective

). Glad you learned something too. Only 58-ish days until Splash Down!!

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Champipple
Master Marine Consultant

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6855 Posts

Response Posted - 01/31/2007 : 13:02:13

We have one race during the year that is a pursuit start – it makes things really interesting until you get passed….then you might as well hang it up.

One other thing it sounds like you should have considered doing that you’ve probably never done is drop anchor in the middle of the race – especially if you were going backward.

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PZell
Admiral

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USA
548 Posts

Response Posted - 01/31/2007 : 13:34:07

Hey Bill,
I thought of doing that....but just knew with that tide and the winds the way they have been it would really be a fiasco! Drywalled the living room instead. Not as much fun tho...

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bbriner
Captain

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349 Posts

Response Posted - 01/31/2007 : 17:29:04

Yes, it *was* fun .. better than driving anywhere in Michigan in the winter (I've done it many times going to/from the Petoskey/Boyne City/Traverse City area - no fun!!).

At the start many times other boats were so close I could practically reach out and touch them. Certainly, a different way of getting to know your fellow sailors. Even when we were going backwards we could easily talk to each other and commiserate over our plight. It makes it easy to check out the other boats too.

The way I see it is that any day sailing is better than a day not sailing.

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Dave Bristle
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Djibouti
10005 Posts

Response Posted - 01/31/2007 : 20:07:40

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Duane Wolff
 One other thing it sounds like you should have considered doing that you’ve probably never done is drop anchor in the middle of the race – especially if you were going backward.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Hmmm... Singlehanded... Sails up... Anchor set... Boat pointed into current... Other boats drifting helplessly down on your rode... Wind comes back up from the aft quarter...

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John Russell
Master Marine Consultant

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3444 Posts

Response Posted - 01/31/2007 : 21:27:54

Recipe for pitchpole dave?

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Dave Bristle
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Djibouti
10005 Posts

Response Posted - 01/31/2007 : 21:30:03

No, recipe for your rode wrapped around your keel (or somebody else's)! It also occurs to me that, to retrieve the anchor, you're probably gonna hafta start the engine... (Tricky, single-handed.) Race over.

Edited by - Dave Bristle on 01/31/2007 21:36:32

Champipple
Master Marine Consultant

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USA
6855 Posts

Response Posted - 02/01/2007 : 06:44:32

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Dave Bristle

Hmmm... Singlehanded... Sails up... Anchor set... Boat pointed into current... Other boats drifting helplessly down on your rode... Wind comes back up from the aft quarter...

<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Pretty slim chance of that happening...and to retrieve it you sail over it no motor required. In a 20 miler guys might be close, but close enough to wrap the rode is pretty rare.

We were sailing a 50 miler a few years back where the temp got up around 90 at noon and the guy in charge of the wind flipped the wind switch into the off position. The current coming out of Lorain Harbor was pushing everyone back. We dropped anchor with 20 miles still to go and ate lunch. Many of the boats were within a half mile radius of us, all of them started slowly drifting backward at about 1 knot. After about an hour of this we decided to put up a spinnaker (with the anchor still out) just to mess with peoples minds; it was quite a site – to them it must have looked like we were moving at about a knot with the kite up.

It wasn’t 5 minutes before 8 other boats had their spinnakers up, thinking that was the correct formula for success….afterall the boat a half mile away was cleaning their clock with the spin up…. By about 2:30 the wind came back up, we dropped the spin sailed over the anchor and corrected to a 3rd out of 50….didn’t finish till 2 am and the 5 boats ahead of us killed the chili and beer, but still took a 3rd.

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Dave Bristle
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Djibouti
10005 Posts

Response Posted - 02/01/2007 : 07:37:07

<blockquote id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by Duane Wolff
 Pretty slim chance of that happening...and to retrieve it you sail over it no motor required. In a 20 miler guys might be close, but close enough to wrap the rode is pretty rare.

...started slowly drifting backward at about 1 knot...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Sorry Duane, but there's a huge difference between a 1 knot (do you mean .5 knot?) current on Lake Erie and a 4.5 knot current in SF Bay with a rocky lee shore. When the wind comes up, who knows where you're going to be able to sail with that current and an anchor set off the bow. Wind is no match for current... If he could sail up on the anchor at all (he has to make 4.5 knots in the right direction thru the water to even slacken the rode), that could be the precise recipe for a keel-wrap. Single-handed, it could be a nightmare until you get the sails down and the engine started--but even then, how do you use the engine, which can only move you a maximum net 1.5 knots over the bottom, to retrieve the anchor single-handed against that current?. I think he could be in a real fix until the tide goes slack.

Edited by - Dave Bristle on 02/01/2007 07:49:51

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