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| Doublehanded Three Bridge Fiasco at Singlehanded Sailing Society | January 25 |
| Story |
| The Three Bridge Fiasco was anything but a fiasco this year.
Nice weather, perfect breeze for double or single handing and an early finish. The Moore 24 fleet had the biggest turnout with 27 boats, but the Express fleet was right up there with 19 boats. (Some of the Expresses opted to sail in a 135 rating configuration and did not count in the class scoring.) In the 3Bridge one can sail in any order around the three marks of the course so normally one of the most important decisions is picking the proper rounding order. This year it seemed to make little difference with boats sailing in different order all represented at the top of the fleet. At the start there was a northerly breeze and an ebb current, better wind to the north, but less adverse current to TI. Baffet (Tom Baffico and Nick Burke) decided to sail Blackaller, TI, RR. We did Blackaller first to ride the ebb from the start line and hoped we could hug the city front for current relief and maybe a bit of a back eddy. At the start it was a starboard tack close reach with the No.1. Jason in Exocet won the pin and Baffett started close behind. Ray Lotto in El Raton soon sailed over the top of us and we were back in third. We lost a few more boats because of bad air and a poor rounding decision at Blackaller, aggravated by a large cruising cat stuck in irons at the mark. After Blackaller we dove for the shore and stayed there (except for Anita!) until we reached Ft. Mason. Leaving Blackaller it looked as if we were going "east" quite a bit faster than the offshore boats heading to RR. The boats offshore had better breeze but there was little ebb on shore. It was very light along the StFYC but we stayed right on the rocks and passed El Raton to leeward just east of the StFYC. This put us into the lead (we thought) of the group of boats heading to TI. At this time we were catching and passing the slower boats that were a hundred or more feet offshore. When it went very light at Ft. Mason and the outside boats started gaining, we started to head NE and sailed right along the edge of a light breeze. We sailed slow for about 10 minutes and we were becalmed for a minute or two (getting passed by El Raton and True Grits in the process) but then set the chute when we picked up the northerly east of a line midway between Alcatraz and Pier 39. We split the difference between the Rat and True Grits, staying below El Raton (who went way high) and True Grits who plunged into the hole. We passed 50+ boats who were solidly stuck off of Pier 39. As we entered the breeze near Blossom Rock, we noticed E-type just ahead and to leeward. We sailed to the western shore of Yerba Buena and got around pretty easy with E-type in front by a few boatlengths. Rode the ebb north to the Berkeley circle. Sagged down onto the circle for current relief. We were back and forth with E-type through here. Sailed to the Richmond harbor entrance. We were up into the Moore 24 fleet at this point. Hit some ebb near the oil docks but hoped it was less than when the Blackaller, RR, TI group went through there. Near the oil docks the "fast" boats started catching Baffett; J-120s, Auspice, a Melges 24, etc. But, we were to get them back... Coming down from RR Baffett stayed low while a lot of boats were lured up towards Marin, into better wind and sailing a hotter angle. Those boats looked as if they were going through Racoon Straits which I just didn't understand. We were not going fast through the water but we stayed in ebb all the way past Pt. Blunt. Hit the flood and moved onto a nice beam to broad reach sailing low of the Angel Island wind shadow and just to weather of Alcatraz. We passed all the boats that went high after RR and through Racoon Straits. Passed all the remaining Moore 24s and the "faster" boats that had passed us. The only boat that sailed Blackaller, TI, RR and finished ahead of us was Auspice. Baffett ended up fourth overall behind a C-class cat, Auspice and Yucca. This was our third or fourth 3Bridge but definitely our best. Next Express was Will Paxton but he had chosen to sail with a 135 rating so El Raton ended up with an official second. See you out there next year! Tom Baffico Express 27 "Baffett" |
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