Never Sea Land

Temerity will once again be racing in the Three Bridge Fiasco this coming Saturday, January 29, and who knows, maybe this year we will even finish!    I’m flying in a special rockstar driver, and starting to look at tides and weather.   There were 312 boats registered for this edition of the 3BF as of this morning.  It is a pursuit race, and our start time based on our PHRF rating of 99 is 10:27:45 Saturday morning.

The 3BF is one of the most iconic sailing events on the calendar.  From the SIs:

START
The starting line is between the orange marker on the Golden Gate Yacht Club race deck and buoy “X” off Golden
Gate YC. Boats may start in either direction.
COURSE
The three course marks are YRA 16 (“Blackaller”, yellow cylinder “C” 0.2 nm east of Fort Point), Red Rock, and
Yerba Buena Island. Boats shall round all three marks, in any sequence and in either direction.
FINISH
The finish line is the same as the starting line. Boats may finish in either direction.

The huge number of entries, the wealth of choice in course, the usual light air and heavy tide all contribute to the Fiasco Experience.

This time of year it seems there is always a massive something-or-other, and for 2011 it will be an ebb, supplemented by the freshwater outflow from the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers.  Here’s an animated grapic of the current pattern, I believe it was generated using Coastal Explorer:

Viewed another way –  at a single point roughly equidistant from Yellow Bluff, Angel Island and Alcatraz Island:

But there may at least be some wind…

 PZZ530-252330-
 SAN FRANCISCO SAN PABLO SUISUN BAY AND THE WEST DELTA-
 828 AM PST TUE JAN 25 2011

 .FRI...S WINDS 10 KT. PATCHY FOG.
 .SAT...W WINDS 5 TO 15 KT. PATCHY FOG.   

Here’s hoping!