El Raton

2010 Three Bridge Fiasco

by Ray Lotto

Double-Handed Division January 30, 2010

We planned to go counter clock wise from the beginning since when we chose Blackaller first in the past it has never worked out. Our start was slow in that there were so many boats from previous starts crowding the start line. We were lucky to find a hole early and break out from this 100+ boat jam. We immediately saw Nick Gibbons a hundred yards out in what appeared to be in a flood current. We headed out to his line and tacked to starboard. We sailed all the way to T.I. and continued to follow Shenanigans around T.I. and headed for Red Rock. Nick settled on course quite far out and we stayed closer in. He reached R.R before us and we parked for a while near R.R. We slowly urched around R.R. and finally had current with us heading to the channel. We played the center of the channel and turned left towards Blackaller. The wind filled in and we enjoyed a great ride half way across the Bay solving the world's problems when all of a sudden Steve looked to the left and there was Angel Island off our port beam."Oh, now we remember there is a three knot ebb. We made a correction quite late and flew our spinnaker to Blackaller. As we approached the finish line we saw Nick hanging out near the finish line. He of course won the race. We found out later that he contacted the race committee that he was over early and took the 20 minute penalty. Steve and I want to congratulate Nick Gibbons for his sportsmanship and for his special Corinthian Award presented to him by the SSS. He won the race in that we only corrected out a few minutes ahead after considering his penalty. It was and always is one of the most fun races on the Bay. Ray