When boats get spread out on the racecourse and you lose sight of your competition, you never have a true sense of your standing in a race.  It’s not until you see the results posted that you find out how well you really performed.  That’s how the DHF was for us and the end result was better than we ever thought.

The forecast was ugly early in the week. Rain and more rain. We certainly need it but on a Roadmaster weekend? The skiers in the crowd were certainly stoked!!

John Gray aboard Immoral was on his home turf defending his dominating 3 Bridge win. Local hotshots Banditos, MooreWave*Ohs, and Vaughn Seifers dusting off Flying Tiger were lined up to give a master class in sailing the Circle.

It started out with all things going the "right" way. We had carved out a tiny block of time on Friday afternoon to prep the boat, which included spending an hour trying to fix existing (“I swear they worked 6 months ago!”) running lights, before giving up and buying the last set of tape on junk from West Marine just before closing time.

Holy bejeezus that was good times! My affinity for the little old Moore 24 is no secret and her infamous beginnings not with standing she’s proven to be a boat that brings together some serious fun loving people. I mean seriously, who would have thunk that a sailor that ruined a good mold burning party by stealing the mold would end up making modifications to this remarkable boat that turned it into an unparalleled inshore and offshore platform that over 40 years later is still capable of taking a serious beating for 3 straight days while bringing together sailors that are more like family than on course rivals.

"We were in some deep shit" Says Gilles Combrisson, who was sailing double handed on the Moore 24 Snafu with Karl Robrock in this years Coastal Cup, a modified version, some 204 nm from Monterey to Santa Barbara.

"We got into it early, just south of Point Sur, with winds in the med to high 20's with big puffs in the 30's. It was grunty" Gilles adds.

My sailing partner, Don Teakell with Pineapple, was being a good dad this year, attending his son Jack’s 7th birthday celebration on Saturday, so couldn’t sail the Three Bridge this year. Since he was being a good dad, I decided to be a good dad too and take my nine year old son, Caleb (also known by his father as “Sonny”), with me.

He was actually a little gun shy about sailing on the Bay after experiencing 30 knot gusts and seeing another boat get smacked down by a whale in the Santa Cruz regatta