Sunny and warm with winds 0-17 from many directions.
We made the day a family affair with myself, my wife Melinda Erkelens, her sister Liza Trombi and our son Joshua Erkelens. With a healthy fleet of Moores we had our race within a race. We had not decided which way to go in advance as the tide favored clockwise and the wind forecast favored counter clockwise. 30 min before our start we decided that counterclockwise looked good as we could see wind in the straits. The starting line boat moved up wind and up tide to find more breeze for the on-time start. We started sailing up towards the new line while eating our race committee supplied cookies and soon realized that we had a bit of work to do just to make the line for the start on time. About 20 minutes before our start we were fully trimmed and fighting to get up to the line. We did manage to get to the pin end just in time to start in the direction of the straits. Being slightly out of position and slow but on time, we were soon rolled by Flying Tiger who nailed the start with pace also going to the straits. The first leg was sailed in slow motion as we jib-reached in light air against the ebb, trying to get into better current flowing through the straits. We went low road and Flying Tiger went high road. We all got lifted and we set early to sneak away towards the entrance to the straits. We found a little less ebb against us than Flying Tiger and got a small jump on them as we approached the straits. Several of us got stuck at the southern entrance to the straits fighting to get into the better current ebb river in the straits. We eventually made it into the good ebb and stayed on the North side of the straits. Many boats in the middle and south side of the straits looked strong early but all got stuck when trying to exit the straights close to Angel. The northerly stayed in the straits until we got to Belvedere Cove which I think made the westerly fill slow for boats coming from the other direction. From the northern edge exiting the straits we managed to drift towards Sausalito and pick up the westerly that was filling. One Wylie Wabbit managed to get his nose into the westerly just before us and the two of us were soon in 15knts of fresh westerly. We sailed high with the jib to get well into the new breeze then set the kite to reach down to Alcatraz. We met the front runners of the fleet coming the other way about half way to Alcatraz which seemed like a good sign. We gybed wide around Alcatraz and sailed low but pressured up, averaging always a little lower than the Wabbit ahead. The wind slowly dropped as we sailed away from the main Bay towards the circle. We sailed deep in the circle and came reaching up hard along the outer Richmond breakwater while the other boats approaching were trying to soak down in the light. We managed to reach in and gybe to finish just ahead of the Wabbit with the 3rd place boat being another Wabbit that went clockwise. It looked like most of the top boats were under 30’ so early start time seemed to work well.The key to the day for us was getting off the line on time and getting to the westerly before most other boats so a lucky starting time for us. We also managed to sail with the spinnaker almost the entire race which almost never happens on a bay tour course.
William Erkelens
Moore 24 #11
Flying Circus
