Saturday's Bay Challenge was a windy one. As we were rigging, Angle Island was reporting wind of over 30 mph with higher gusts and the Bay in general had that 'it's going to be winnnnndy' look to it. I had been working on tuning up an 8.2 and took it out for a drive up toward the bridge to test both it and the wind. The sail seemed like more than enough - especially in the gusts - so I came back in and made some more adjustments to it and got ready for the start.

The start itself was pretty uneventful - starboard far enough to make the upwind mark and then off on the big downwind run to the Berkeley Pier. I was 4th or 5th around the top mark and was following Bill Weir down the Bay toward Angle Island when I encountered my first obstacle - a Red and White coming up the Bay. I could see that Bill was going to squeeze above it but that was not an option for me and ducking it would bring me too close to the wind shadow of the stern so I jibed off from the rest of the fleet and headed toward the city front. The pressure was holding so I held course until a 2 or 3 hundred yards off the city front and jibed to go over the top of Alcatraz. As I got closer to Angle Island, I could see that I'd lost a lot of ground to Bill and the leaders - oh well. I jibed and headed again toward the Berkeley Pier when I encountered my 2nd obstacle - a Larkspur ferry. Again, I could see that I was on a collision course so I jibed to avoid it and headed North until my next jibe would put me on line with the top of the Pier. I could see Mike and Bill way ahead of me along with the yellow mark at the top of the Pier, but none of the other leaders. Apparently this was not a bad strategic move as about 2/3 of the way down to the mark, Rob Hartman, one of the leaders, came into view from my right and jibed just in front of me and headed toward the mark. Not too long after that, he hit some weird chop and dropped into the water for a moment, allowing me to jibe around the mark alone and head back up toward Point Blunt on Angle Island following a good distance behind what looked like Mike Zajieck and Bill.

The wind hadn't been as strong as I'd expected on the way down and starting back up I was able to trim things out to begin to make up ground on both Bill and Mike. As we got closer to Point Blunt, the wind really began to pick up and I had to begin to shut the sail down and wasn't able gain any more ground on Bill, but Mike was slowly coming closer to me. I had also been watching a huge Tug for a long time and it was becoming apparent that I was going to have to cross behind it - my 3rd obstacle - very close to it's stern. When I did cross, I was fortunate not to end up in the water - I just ended up standing there for a while breathing the diesel fumes until I could get going again.

It was a lot windier now - much more than on the way down. Keeping the board from flying off the chop was becoming an issue and more than once I thought I was really glad we were running this race on flood tide. Bill finally passed Mike around Point Blunt and had a good lead on him when he tacked and began his starboard beat over the top of Alcatraz toward the City Front. Mike waited a while and then tacked higher than Bill. I waited even longer and tacked higher than either of them.

On the way over to the City Front, I started working more on speed than angle trying to get a better VMG and was slowly dropping down to Mike and catching him. Just then, I saw Bill beating up the Bay on starboard just crossing ahead of Mike. Ouch! Apparently being low man going across toward the City Front was not a good strategy. The rest of the way up to the St. Francis was a series of tacks - some of them taking Mike and I very close to shore. I found a patch of brown water that I stayed in as long as possible the seemed to bring me even closer to Mike. In the end, Mike managed to cross the finish line just ahead of Bill and I was 3rd just behind Bill. Our time was just under 1 hour. Except for a few equipment breakdowns, everyone finished this very windy long distance race. I think it's a testament to the quality of the S.F. Bay racers. You guys rule!

The course racing on Sunday was really fun. We ran 5 races with the first start at noon. I raced the first two races on a 9.8 and changed down to a 9.0 for the last 3 races. Again it was a flood tide so we could run full speed off the breeze without a great fear of ending up as a yard sale. Everyone was sailing really fast. You never knew who you were going to be racing against as you reached the top mark. Chris Radkwoski was on fire and ended up top dog for the day.

Steve Sylvester