Wednesday, September 15, 2021

More ocean racing

 After the disappointment of the Drake's Bay race a couple of weeks ago, the forecast was looking better for the SSS race to Half Moon Bay (about 24 nm).  Once again we had good breeze at the start off the Golden Gate YC, but it got lighter outside the Golden Gate bridge and the flood current made exiting the Bay very difficult.  We figure we were 1 for 3 on current calls, with the first two going badly and us losing boats.  Most of the fleet was in the center to north side of the entrance and we decided to stop battling the current and point at HMB.  That sent us just east of Mile Rock, where we tacked out just enough so that we could clear Seal Rock.  By the time we cleared Seal Rock we were among the four leading monohulls and the multihull fleet (that started first).  The rest of the fleet was still struggling to get clear of Lands End.  From there we could point directly at Colorado Reef buoy (the only mark of the race) about 15 nm south.  We eventually passed all but one of the multihulls and all the other monohulls except for one of the other J120s (Jamani) who had the benefit of a larger genoa and their large A2 spinnaker.  We ended up 2nd monohull to finish, correcting out 3rd in our division, and 3rd overall.  A really nice, albeit more wind would have been nicer, day on the water.  We arrived in HMB just before 3pm, grabbed a slip in Pillar Point Harbor for the evening, and then motored home (5 hours) the following morning.  A great weekend.

Video of the day can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr7-oy4-cNQ&ab_channel=TracyRogers


On final approach to the finish in HMB.


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