Home	Three Bridge Fiasco 1/30/21

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, this year's race was limited to Single-Handed only, and the max registartion was originally set at 125, vs the close to 300 normally. Most of the fleet actually finished this year.

We had 3 Islander 36s enterd, Zenith, and Luna Sea in the non-spinnaker PHRF division, and Cassiopeia in the PHRF spinnaker division. Zenith finished 2nd in her division and Luna Sea finished 7th. Cassiopeia experienced an autopilot failure and did not finish. Realize that when single handing an autopilot is almost essential to getting the boat around the course.

We'll we asking for individual reports and pictures from the boats and will post them as they come in.

Here's the TERRIFIC report from Dan Knox on Luna Sea:

The 3BF was a real fiasco this year with next to no wind and massive tides.

On Friday JP (from Zenith) and I worked out a plan on a course. While we both thought the wind would be light, we figured it would be good to at least have someone to race against so we agreed to try to sail the same course. Also we agree to use white sails only.

The plan was to try to make Blackhaller first and then go to TI and then Red Rock. If that was not possible we were going to TI first. When we got there it was obvious that there was no way to make Blackhaller given the almost zero wind and the flood tide. So before the start we motored to the other side of the line and drifted though the start line along with Kit from Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia was first to cross the line up near the pin. Luna Sea was next in the middle and Zenith was third nearest to shore. For the next 30-40 minutes or so the boats pretty much drifted down toward Fort Mason. Cassiopeia was now the closest to shore and Luna Sea was the farthest from shore with Zenith in the middle.

Luna Sea was the first to get to a wind line and she set off on a beam reach to just keep moving and this pretty much forced her to abandoned the plan and head to Red Rock. It was just good to be sailing 5 knots as opposed to drifting at one knot. But it would have been better if it would have lasted a bit longer. : Zenith and Cassiopeia continued to head to TI. Then the wind died again and it was a day of just looking for wind and trying to sail from one wind line to the next. So sometime in the next five or six hours Cassiopeia dropped out and Zenith rounded TI and Luna Sea rounded Red Rock. The two Islanders meet and passed each other somewhere in the slot with Luna Sea, a bit ahead, going south to TI and Zenith headed north to Red Rock. We were averaging around 1 knot!

After that Zenith had a much better time of it picking up better wind conditions and zooming though Raccoon Straight for Blackhaller and the finish. Luna Sea was back to drifting around TI then beating back to Blackhaller and finally fighting the 4.6 knot ebb from Blackhaller to the finish by pretty much trying just to get out of the ebb and not to run aground. With a little stop to standby while someone was helped out of the water and back onto their boat (they are fine). We finally finished just grateful not to be DFL for the entire regatta.

Zenith finished at 4:48 and Luna Sea an hour and a minute later at 5:49.

I have posted a video of our race on YouTube, Luna Sea - # Bridge Fiasco.. There are over 4 hours of mostly boring sailing, as we had time to recharge the battery on the GoPro a couple of times! But there are pictures Cassiopeia and Zenith at the start which are pretty good.

Congratulations to JP for sticking to the plan, sailing well and picking up a second place in the non-spin division. Luna Sea finished next to last in the same division. Zenith looked great out there.

--Dan