The Ronstan Bridge to Bridge Race started off pretty hairy outside the Golden Gate bridge with a strong steep ebb tide and 18 Skiffs, 18 windsurfers, 14 kite boards and two 29er skiffs vying for position on a downwind starting line.

The "string" boats were on the north end of the line, while the skiffs and boards started on the south end. I found myself doing bottom turns on the face of 5’ swell to slow down. Outside the bridge, I was well lit with the 11m sail and even after the start coming into the gate, I was in the chicken strap and even in the leeward strap for a few moments.

I got off the line with the leaders, which were all boards. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Seth and Percy gybe to get back to the middle while Sylvester, Weir, Prussia and myself kept going on starboard tack towards the gate set off StFYC. Seth and Weir gybed through the gate with Steve, myself, Al, and Alan close behind. Bill somehow took himself out and the other 4 boards went by. I realized at the point how far in front the kite with skies was. He was smoking fast, already ½ way to Alcatrez by the time we gybed!

As we gybed back to starboard, I tried to stay as high as I could to be able to get the breeze as it was generally getting lighter down the course. This worked out well as I rolled Alan and Al to leeward as we crossed above Alcatrez. Steve was digging deep as well as Seth who was extending his lead. Cory on the kite and skies was still way out in front. We had to gybe again to go deeper as it was obvious the breeze was dying closer to the city front. I gybed back earliest to get whatever breeze was left and it looked like we would lay the finish line. Seth was a good 20 sec. ahead of me with 200’ to go and Steve down to leeward quite a bit and a few board lengths ahead. At this point, I looked back and saw the whole fleet stopped as the breeze had died. The ebb tide, which we were going directly into, was increasing as we got closer to the finish line. The kite failed to make the finish line, as he couldn’t reach to it, only shlog directly downwind to the cliff on T.I where he proceeded to crash his kite!

Seth, with a little help from Abner taking photos in the helicopter above, squeezed by the line with the last puff of the day! Meanwhile, the fleet came together and Eric made a last ditch effort to pump past me to the line. Not to be outdone, I got the next puff and worked my way over him. Meanwhile 7 skiffs came from behind and crossed the finish line. So close and nothing I could do. The current was strong and the breeze nil!

It took me another 3 attempts and 12 minutes to pump 100’ across the finish line. The 1^st 2 tries, I gave everything I had, trying to butterfly pump the 11m2 sail to just barely feet from the line near the boat. I stopped when I ran out of power, slipped back 10’ with the current and tried again, making my way across the current to the pin end of the line. When I heard the horn that I finished, I immediately fell backwards into water, exhausted form the pumping for 12 minutes. My board and I shot back down current (upwind) to the rest of the fleet another 50’ back. Ironically, Steve S was the only other board to finish despite a big group less than 50’ from the line. They just couldn’t make headway with the strong current and 2k breeze.

I felt like I was back in an IMCO race with all that pumping. Somehow though, I'm really glad we don’t regularly race in those conditions as the rest of the country does. I’d gladly trade any 25k+ OP’ed day on the city front than to race in that stuff again!