Another ocean race - Drake's Bay

This past weekend was the combined OYRA/SSS race up to Drake's Bay (about 31nm) on Saturday, spend the night on the hook, and race back to the Bay on Sunday.  Cris and I raced doublehanded in the SSS fleet.  While we had good wind at the start off GGYC, but once out in the ocean it was mostly mid-single digits.  Unfortunately, our new genoa is still a few weeks away so we raced with the #3 (105%) jib and were seriously under powered for the conditions.  We had hopes for a lot of south in the breeze (so we could use a spinnaker) but that never developed and it was a close reach all the way - just under 6 hours 45 minutes.  A long, slow day.  But is was beautiful in Drakes Bay and we rafted up with the other J120, Twist, for awhile to share stories and compare boats, then moved off to anchor for the evening.  Morning broke with no wind and fog (see picture above).  The start was delayed for 45 minutes to allow the wind to fill in - if you can call 3-5 kts filled in.  All the starts crawled off the line for the trip home.  We cycled through the jib, the code zero, back to the jib, and finally to the A4.  We opted for an inshore route hoping to pick up more breeze as the fog cleared - most of the rest of the fleet stayed well offshore.  We jibed out to get around Duxbury reef and not seeing any better wind jibed back in to shore to again look for better wind and set up for the flood coming down the Bonita channel.  Talking to some of the other boats that were offshore, we had a bit more wind inshore (8-10 kts) than they had.  We also got a great push as we approached the Bonita channel, sailed through the channel and wiped around Point Bonita.  The combined additional breeze and nice current push allowed us to pass all but two of the fleet that had started before us.  As expected, winds increased to the low teens as we approached Pt. Bonita, mid-teens as we approached the Golden Gate bridge, and mid-twenties inside the Bay.  Our jibes went off without a hitch and our final jibe set us up for a speed run (13 kts boat speed) to the finish.  After the finish we jibed around a barge that is inconveniently anchored just past the finish, dropped the kite, and sailed home to Brisbane marina.  All in all a very nice weekend.  It was nice on Sunday to come up with a strategy for the race, execute that plan, and have it work out to your advantage - it doesn't always work that way.  That's sailing!

 p.s. thanks to Rich Hudnut (who was on Twist) for the photo.