This past weekend was the Bay Area Multihull Association's (BAMA) Doublehanded Farallones Race. Yes, they allow monohulls in the race too. The start was at 0800 off Baker Beach, just outside the Golden Gate Bridge. The course is from the start out to SE Farallon Island (rounding in either direction) and back, finishing off the Golden Gate YC. About 55 nm overall. I've done this race about six time before, always finishing around 1800. That was not the case this time. We finished at 1949 making for an extremely long day. We left the marina at 0545 in order to get to the start area and by the time we got back to the marina after the race it was nearly 0015. But, we had nice weather, flat seas, and saw a bunch of marine wildlife. Unfortunately, we didn't see much wind. We had 5-10 kts of wind at the start but that quickly evaporated to 3-5 kts for most of the trip to the Farallones, mostly from SW to W. The forecasted afternoon shift to the NW, with increased wind speed, never happened. As a result, it took us 8 hours to get to the Farallones and about 5.5 hours to get back. As is typical, the wind increased as we approached the Golden Gate Bridge and was its usual 20+ from the bridge to the finish. Of course, this was all well after dark, and it felt like every commercial freighter, tanker, and barge decided to leave the Bay as we were coming in. In the dark, with lots of traffic, it was a bit nerve racking. Overall a good test of sailing skills and navigating in the dark.
Here's us as we round SE Farallon Island.
You can see the video of the race (as least while it was daylight) here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_EU7D09KWM&ab_channel=TracyRogers
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