Congratulations to Nick Dugdale and Nico Colomb, Mooreserati #117 first in Moore 24 Fleet going clockwise to finish at 17:15.03! Followed by Dave Hansell and Denis Mulligan on Mike O'Callaghan's Wet Spot #51 at 17:29:15 and third John Tba Gilmour and Joe Crum on Ruby #27 17:50.29. Peter Schoen and Roe Patterson, who have sailed together for over 40 years on Mooretician, know never to quit even when the odds and currents, and being hit take the hope out of your sail to be the only Moore to finish at 18:55:11 racing counterclockwise!!! The fleet bows to your sailing true grit style.
Will Baylis's ORCA, Mark English's MAS! had great boat speed and got to TI first with a couple of other Moores, but made it clear that going wide was best for John and Erica Siegel and us on Nobody’s Girl. Please let us know how you got there first. Mind you, the fog was so thick you needed a seeing eye dog and a white cane to even find the island. Lucky for me, I had awesome Stan Martin with our 2 GPS guiding us in to be able to get in the passing lane and duke it out with Moorigami to take the lead around TI. Very disorienting when you can't see anything, but can only hear all of the chaotic bay traffic! Once able to escape TI hole, Will Baylis and Rich Bergsund came back strong to take a masterful lead by using TI shore, while others went to Berkeley flats in search of favorable current and winds, while we were stuck by the barges in a no posted no wind zone. I think #71 Topper II and #76 JR were also doing well along the shore of TI. Sonny and Caleb Everett on Tortuga #154, didn't drive all the way from Southern Cal to be discouraged and were 2nd behind Orca trying to work up to Red Rock until it was time to anchor and wait for a breath of a breeze. Sonny is the youngest to win the 3BF a couple of years ago and you could hear them having a great time even when it was so challenging to be upbeat! Scott Nelson on Lowly Worm 2.0 #38 did a great job of checking their keel with crew Mike falling overboard in an over zealous roll tack at the start, a quick wardrobe change, and using the city front to guide them to the bridge before setting their kite to come down to TI refreshed to get back into the game. Looked like many of the Moores opted for a picnic party by Richmond and let us know how that was. Finally, Joel Turmel and Chris Watts on FIrefly #64, Mark English and Jp Sirey MAS! #138, and Puffin #62 Kelly Gregory and Patrick Haesloop showed that they had staying power and didn't quit till after 6:40. Many other stories that need to be shared from the fleet so add to this thread. Great to be a part of the best and largest fleet in 3BF. which was created by a Moore 24 sailor Ants Uiga in 1984. Also a big shout out to Cinde Lou and Milly Biller on Alerion Express Another Girl that wins the "closest miss " award fighting all day to finish but crossed the line at 19:00:36DNF. Check out their Three Bridge Fiasco 2020 video and be totally awed and inspired by two ladies that love sailing.
The Winner’s story from Mooresarati:
Nico and I came up with our 3 bridge game plan earlier in the week, which was to go clockwise if it looked like there was enough current relief along the shore to make it to Blackaller first, ride the last of the flood up Raccoon Straights to Red Rock, then use the building ebb all afternoon to make it the rest of the way around the course. As it turned out, we were about 5 mins late to the start thanks to some nasty flood near Alcatraz, and the sight of 20 Moores already powering upwind towards TI made the decision to stick to our game plan pretty easy. Neither of us saw much point in following the whole fleet around the bay for the next 8 hours, so clockwise it was! After crossing the line we popped the kite and dug in close to shore, where we found a little early ebb to carry us down to Blackaller. We rounded next to Express 27 Bombora, kept it high, and locked into max flood in the deep water channel - so far, so good. That got us around Wetspot and Ruby #6, who had rounded Blackaller way ahead, but were sucked down toward the south tower by the mother of all back eddies.
We managed to find Angel Island in the fog, but our progress was slowed by a dying breeze and the beginning of the ebb halfway through Racoon Straights. We finally escaped by hugging the eastern side of Tiburon and took a clearing tack to be safe, which turned out to be a great idea as a Wabbit right behind us found a submerged rock in a spectacular way. At this point the fog bank rolled in completely and we couldn’t see more than few boatlengths, which caused a little excitement when the Larkspur ferry popped out of the fog directly in front of us.
When the fog lifted, we saw that we and Bombora had been pulled up towards San Quentin by the flood as we had hoped, so we set the kite and reached verrrry slowly toward Red Rock. We still hadn’t seen any counterclockwise boats, so we were feeling pretty good until another Moore (JV’s boat, #27) rounded Red Rock to port and popped a red and yellow kite. We reasoned that they must have either (a) gone to Red Rock first after the start or (b) were the first of the counterclockwise fleet, but either way we needed to reel them in if we had any chance.
We crawled around Red Rock just in time for the ebb to start dragging us down to TI at around 0.5 knots, which was pretty much our average speed for the day. As a front moved in the bay glassed off completely, and we used every last whisper of breeze to avoid getting sucked up into the lee of Angel. We drifted through the first of the counterclockwise Moores struggling into the ebb, and realized we had a pretty good shot at this if we could just make it around TI.
Around 4pm the boats ahead of us picked up a 12-14 knot westerly through the slot, and when the edge of it reached us we had an awesome forestay reach over to TI. As we coasted through the back side of the island, Nico went forward and cued up the #3 for the beat up the cityfront. We almost caught up with JV at the coast guard station, but they took off in a puff - foiled again! Luckily we got around the corner without parking for too long, and by Alcatraz the breeze had come up enough that we were pretty stoked with the decision to downshift.
We breathed a sigh of relief when we saw JV keep going upwind towards Blackaller instead of sailing through the finish ahead of us, then crossed the line around 20 minutes before sunset. Our day wasn’t over yet, though, as we still had a long, foggy sail back to Richmond in the dark. All in all, an exhausting but rewarding 3BF that threw a little bit of everything our way. Big ups to the rest of the fleet for coming out, and congrats to the other Moores that finished (Wetspot, JV/#27, and Mooretician, who made counterclockwise work against all odds)!
Ingredient 1: Guessing
Ingredient 2: Vessel Traffic
Ingredient 3: Drifting
Ingredient 4: Anchoring
Ingredient 4: ‘Navigating’
and sometimes getting it right
