Westsail 32 Tortuga in the 2026 Singlehanded Sailing Society’s Three Bridge Fiasco Race!

Описание: Tortuga was able to make it all the way around the course this year! I think it was only my 3rd time actually finishing the race. The strong currents and light winds in the winter usually make the fiasco live up to its name and the currents usually win!
The concept is to take the start line in any direction and then sail around the 3 bridge marks in San Francisco bay in any direction. A fiasco indeed!
The forecast was with wind out of the N/NE at 8-10 knots and the last of a flood current after our start time. It looked like stronger winds earlier in the day more towards the San Rafael bridge at the Red Rock mark. I didn’t want to take the chance of not getting up and around Red Rock before the ebb started and built up, so I decided to forego ticking off the Blackaller mark by the Golden Gate Bridge and head straight to Red Rock. That also kept me out of the CF that is usually a big pile up of boats round that mark after the start in light winds and wacky currents. The goal was to make it around Red Rock before the ebb kicked in around 1145 and we rounded at Noon so we were good! After that it was an awesome downwind, down current run towards Treasure Island. The current then became a counter ebb as we got closer to Treasure Island as the wind lighted up a lot. I was racing in the Non Spinnaker Singlehanded class. I could have really used my asymmetrical spinnaker for that section of the race but was able to eek our way around the back side of Treasure and Yerba Buena Islands doing 1.5-2 knots. Once we rounded the back side of Yerba Buena we were back in the favorable strong ebb. There was a pretty good breeze coming off the crest of the island kicking it up into the high teens. I had the big jib up so got completely overpowered. There was another boat just downwind of me driving me up towards the first tower of the bay bridge so I was distracted with that and not wanting to get pushed into the tower with the current so didn’t see the barge and tug that was bearing down our way. I didn’t think I’d clear the barge so went to go on a port tack back towards the island, but there was a parade of other boats heading downwind that way and I didn’t have much of a distance before the island, to then try and tack again amongst all the boats. I came up into the wind to try to stall and let the barge pass but the breeze caught the bow and blew us back on a starboard tack right in the path of the barge! I had the sails sheeted it too much so once we blew bow down I was way too powered up to have steerage. I blew the sheets to ease the main and jib all the way out and ended up having to crash jib to head back towards the island to avoid the tug. I thought for sure I was going to get the horn blast and be DSQ’d but I had gotten out of the way. I then had to sheet everything back in to get some steerage to be able to tack back again. All of this happened in a matter of a few minutes and it was breeze on with way too much sail up! I’m hoping there is no digital footprint somewhere memorializing that total fiasco!
Recovering from that crash and burn I had the ripping ebb in my favor pushing me to the last mark at the Golden Gate Bridge. Luckily there was a stiff breeze, so once I rounded Blackaller and was then sailing into the ebb, I still could make good speed toward the finish line at the Golden Gate Yacht Club. We finished just before 4pm which is a record for us! We ended up getting second place in our class, missing 1st place by 43 seconds! That wipeout certainly cost us! All in all a beautiful day on the water! A big thank to the race committee volunteers, whom without their help, this race couldn’t happen!
Also a shout out to s/v Dura Mater, s/v Osprey and the race committee for the awesome pictures of Tortuga underway. Until next time….
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