The Fiasco is coming up fast. What is your strategy?
Here is a site with 2020 currents at the Gate, thanks to Ed Corbett, computer science professor and sailor. Save it. You'll need it.
https://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/edc/tides/2020/
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The Fiasco is coming up fast. What is your strategy?
Here is a site with 2020 currents at the Gate, thanks to Ed Corbett, computer science professor and sailor. Save it. You'll need it.
https://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/edc/tides/2020/
We have been asked the question: When was the first TBF? My search has brought me to the name Ants Uiga as one of the instigators. Does anyone have contact into for Ants? Or, Ants, if you are viewing, can you help?
Ants is on the forum nowadays, I'm sure he'll see this!
How do we sign up for Race Committee? The Wildcat's haulout, a year overdue, is set for February. I can't see doing another race where I'm likely sailing 50 sec/mile slower than I oughtta be.
I have a wonderful aid that helps me remember.
As race chair, I delegated the course responsibility to the skippers. For an unknown set of race committee procedures, I was required to be on the race deck in 1984 for the first 3BF race.
The next year, I took the helm as a skipper. My skill was recognized.
Attachment 5026
Whichever way the wind blows. https://forecast.saildrone.com/?lat=...&l=ecmgfs|windhttps://forecast.saildrone.com/?lat=...&l=ecmgfs|wind
Keeping my hopes up for enough wind to make it around the course.
Preparing for a long day, extra drinks, snacks, extra gas, running lights, charging the handheld VHS, foul weather gear...
Oh yea, the Alameda Marina hoist is broken again!!! Hope they don't have to rent a crane like before...
The Alameda Marina Hoist is broken again? It's like they PLAN it, just to drive everybody away.
looking out my back door... they at least have the motor off and the boom lift for the CM tech.
feeling kind of fortunate that I dawdled around on Saturday and let others break it, before i pulled the boat - at least now I'm stuck in the water and not out of it.
Oh yeah, I'm moving to Brickyard Cove next month.
DH
As of late yesterday afternoon the 3ton hoist has is operational again.
DH
An email from Ants Uiga suggests that Brendan Huffman, # 7 of the sailors registered for the 2020 Race, may be the nephew of Jerry Huffman.
Jerry is a Singlehanded Transpacific Race recidivist from 1984, 1986 on Pacific Childe a Cal 34, then again in 1990, 1992 on Cynthia, a Wilderness 40.
Ants also attached a photograph of himself the year he had the idea for the Fiasco. Here it is:
Attachment 5060
No life jacket. Drinking Coors. Having way too much fun and living dangerously.
The only surprising thing in the photo from 40 years ago was the weather was warm enough to go without a shirt. It must have been a warm winter day.
There are few posts today of sailors without life jackets. Wearing life jackets all the time has been an increasing trend in the last decade or two. The inflatable life jackets are a relatively new item.
Back around 1980, there were fewer life jacket options. The approved versions were bulky and made movement on a sailboat less convenient. I got one from North Sails that was slimmer and less obtrusive - the down side was that the life jacket would not float you face up if you were unconscious.
Safety is good. The first seat belts were introduced in a Volvo (I think) in the mid-50's. Today's car provide all manner of protection.
Ants
PS Living dangerously - not even maybe......
Dura Mater and I enjoyed our day together. And it was a long day. Once again we were on the wrong side of the start line at our start time. My fault, not hers.
Our only hope was to raise the spinnaker. I wasn't sure that was allowed, and there were a lot of boats up there already, but what could go wrong, right? So up it went, and then I realized that I would need to gybe in order to avoid the pin. Forget about all those other boats. So I did. Good thing there wasn't a lot of wind.
Then we were fine, and already pointed toward Blackaller, so off we went. We met up with quite a few other boats over there, but civility won the day and we all circled to port and starboard without smacking into each other.
After that it was a slow slog toward Red Rock, in the hope that we could make it up there before the flood pushed us back. Alas, we couldn’t. Instead, the north bay looked like this, which created a Zen state of mind:
Attachment 5067
But what was this? Woo hoo! I forgot! That’s where your berth is, DM! And so there we went. And it was all good.
A few pictures of the finish area are on Flickr.link
16:33 hr Antrim 27 IO first monohull to finish
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...3e1ff323_b.jpgIMG_3168_DxO
16:34 hr Extreme 40 ShadowX first multihull to finish
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...b66ed610_b.jpgIMG_3187_DxO_4500
Open 8.5 m Mama Tried
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...40d7ce43_b.jpgIMG_3215_DxO
Marstrom Seacart 30 Hammer
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...907dc3b1_b.jpgIMG_3241_DxO
Sabre 36 Serenade
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0c73fb99_b.jpgIMG_3271_DxO_4500
J70 Kangroo Jockey
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...0569d378_b.jpgIMG_3292_DxO_4500
The start area pictures will trail.
Express 27 Bombora, a happy skipper
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...995f0b15_b.jpgIMG_3318_DxO
I can't match Philpott's beautiful sky and water shot or the sharp, professional images from Slackwater, but here are a few.
Can of Whoopass was one of the first starters and had nice breeze heading east towards YBI. I would see him later, leading the fleet up to Red Rock:
Attachment 5072
Surprise! also got a good start and headed for YBI. Racing full-on in the fog was dicey (Hi George!) but we did well until everything stopped south of the Bay Bridge. Then it was "Hound of the Baskervilles" time, with boats drifting eerily in and out of the dense fog:
Attachment 5073
The Wabbits are a cwazy bunch, if for no other reason than their boat names. The only finisher in their fleet was Bad Hare Day. Other Wabbits wacing were Kwazy, Wasta, Keala, Covfefe and Furrari, who looks like she could use a visit to the speed shop:
Attachment 5074
The dreaded (and restricted) USCG terminal was dutifully absent of sailboats. I just missed the corner of the restricted area (yes, I checked my GPS track) but as the current shifted from flood to ebb, I began to get swept towards the bridge abutment at YBI. I thought I might clear it but finally had to start the engine. I would learn later that all the other singlehanders also withdrew, except for Truls on the F27 Raven. I'm not surprised - sailing in light air and poor visibility takes a lot out of you, especially when you know there are 300+ other sailboats out there in the fog.
Attachment 5075
In company with the lovely Wylie 33 Constellation, I motored up the Bay. Before long I came upon Sleddog and Kim Desenberg, sailing Checkered Past... another boat name with a story? Kim built many (all?) of the Wabbits mentioned above, when he owned North Coast Yachts in Alameda.
Attachment 5076
I have several more photos of boats racing in the fog but if you were out there, you already know what that looks like!
.
Excellent day on the water, especially for the new all carbon A27. That new build seems to have a slight increase in mainsail area over the standard A27.
Attachment 5077
We saw Jim and Buzz sailing the boat on Friday before the Fiasco. Great first finish for a brand new boat. If Outsider didn't have the Barge Incident would she have been in the hunt?
Taz and FUGU, both single-handers, stuck it out till the bitter end after a southerly filled in around 4:15 PM and allowed the two of us and about 10 other folks still anchored near the Richmond Long Wharf to start sailing again! 2 hour 45 minutes, until the cut-off, should be enough time, right? Almost. Crossed the finish line at 7:02 PM, no applause, no horn, and soon, no visibility!!
Great Day!!! Thanks RC for your great work this year! From my perspective it seemed to be the smoothest run TBF in a while!!
We had a great day on Circe. Had a nice sail to YB Island. But then just could not get around the tip. We even tried to go south to avoid the “hole”. But the wind just died and we drifted north on the tide. Great day! Good to else everyone out there.
Posted to BAMA list originally. Is everyone wearing “adequate personal flotation” in the photos above?
“ Congratulations Truls! A great accomplishment.
Chis and I initially thought to go clockwise. We arrived at the starting area almost an hour early. It did look like, as we were motoring out, that first starters going CCW toward Yerba Buena were well powered and had a sailing breeze. We motored most of the way up to Blackaller, and it looked very light, both close to shore and close to blackaller.
As we came back to the starting area, many similar boats were setting up west of the line, presumably for a start toward Yerba Buena, and we decided to do the same.
It does seem like, in retrospect, Red Rock first was the winning hand, although I will be curious to hear what the experience was of those who went to Blackaller first.
The southerly was decreasing as we started and sailed to Yerba Buena. The ebb was coming on, as well, a little earlier than expected, I believe. We were probably one of the last boats to make it under the Bay Bridge. Many of the earlier monohulls had gotten around before us, and they were in very light wind north of the eastern span. The monohulls near us when we got to the bay bridge were not making good progress.
Although we had a non-ideal start, light wind, low boat speed, a couple minutes late, we were able to substantially close the gap with Roshambo and Khimera. They were using mostly screecher upwind, and we were using the jib.
Once we got around Yerba Buena, the wind was so light, and we were gradually headed on port tack gradually being turned toward the estuary. It made sense we should be able to tack onto starboard, set screecher, and reach up toward the eastern span.
We were in for a long day, but we were close to some of the boats similar to ours with great prospects to pass dozens of boats on the trip to Red Rock. Just a few minutes later, we found out it was not a long day after all.
With the motion of the tack, setting the screecher, down with the jib, we lost all boat speed and drifted too close to the black coast guard buoy tender moored at the southeast corner of Yerba Buena.
This circumstance required a relatively quick decision to start the motor and move away, we turned on the radio, called 72, and withdrew. The radio traffic on channel 72 with boats calling to withdraw was impressive.
Close to the estuary, we motored in, put the boat away.‘
Lots of time to take photos out there on Saturday, so I did. Two boats hugging the shoreline just behind Dura Mater on the way to Blackaller here:
Attachment 5078
No, not the leeward mark:
Attachment 5079
Hope continues to spring eternal for Wet Spot, heading north toward Red Rock as the flood started to build:
Attachment 5080
Doubtful.... my group didn't make it to RR before the tide turn. Maybe I'd be more competitive if I reduce my hull weight by 20-30%, get a full square-top main and only get a 3 sec/mile hit; heard that's doable. ;)Quote:
If Outsider didn't have the Barge Incident would she have been in the hunt?
All else being equal, IO would have had to start 25:34 later for Serenade to beat them. That equates to a rating of -3 for a boat with only a 24' waterline.
I understand what you're saying, but it has more to do with IO going clockwise when nearly everyone else went counter-clockwise. It was a typical Three Bridge Fiasco in that regard!
.
Oh yeah, it certainly was about picking the right way. I did go CW as well but didn't start early enough to make it around Red Rock.
Some pictures of the starting area were put on Flickr.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9dcbfb8f_z.jpgIMG_2843_DxO_4500
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...a2cfffd1_c.jpgIMG_2855_DxO
Nice looking boat
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...6147c37c_h.jpgIMG_2677_DxO
Brad Belleville s/v Encore stayed home in the Santa Cruz mountains instead of doing the Fiasco. He asked me how my day went and was surprised to learn that I only ate one chocolate bar of the seven I had onboard. Here is what I told him:
I had my radio scanning between 72, 12, 13, 14 and 16. The fog was so dense on the way over to the city front from Richmond that vessel traffic was asking tugs and ferry drivers for updates every five minutes (“1/4 mile over here”, “not even 1/4 mile over here”), advising big ships in the bay and offshore to use their own judgement as to whether to stay in their anchorages or proceed, and to "exhibit extreme caution”.
VTS radioed the SSS Race Chair to advise us all to keep our running lights on in the fog. I sat in Dura Mater’s companionway all the way over to the city front with my chart plotter in my lap, keeping an eye on my AIS and watching the little tiny circles as they migrated toward me and away again. I didn’t see Angel Island or Alcatraz the whole way.
The fun part during the day was VTS advising new captains as they came on shift about the “319 sailing vessels participating in a race”.
"What is the course?" They were asked.
The reply?
“There is no course. They can go wherever they want.”
There was the inevitable long pause, then the calm response: “.... Copy that....”
Up on the Race Deck....I'm always amazed at how smoothly check-ins and starts go. This year, the BIG starts, like the Express 27's and Moore 24's were a little bit less chaotic than in past years. The "sail-number-writer-downers" could actually keep up. When the SSS moved to radio check-ins on two channels, it really helped. There are always a couple of folks whom we can't hear, or who can't hear us, but as a general rule, it goes incredibly well.