Bridge to Bridge Race
5 September 2003
By: Cory Roeseler
The 2003 Ronstan Bridge to Bridge Race down the face of the San Francisco Waterfront, from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge, attracted some of the best sailors in the world. 14 of the fastest Formula Windsurfers, including Micah Buzianis and World Champion Kevin Pritchard of Maui, Hawaii, were challenged by 9 of the World's fastest Australian 18 (skiff) teams from Australia, Italy, Canada, USA and England. Five kiters, including defending Bridge to Bridge Champ, Chip Wasson, rounded out the field of diverse and highly charged sailors.
Last year, when Chip swept the field with a kite, the tide was ebbing, so getting upwind for the start of the race was no problem, but the vicious wind chop punished everyone. Chip stayed out in the channel, where the stronger winds gave him a 76 second advantage over Micah and Steve Sylvester. RMW, the first skiff, was 1:38 behind Chip, good enough for 4th over-all. This year, the tide would be flooding, so the fleet would enjoy fast, relatively flat water. However, the pre-race maneuvering ¾ of a mile upwind to the start presented a new challenge for the kites.
I had put together a few good downwind runs in the annual Gorge Blowout race, a 17 miler along the Columbia River, so I decided to give the Bridge to Bridge a try. The following is my recollection of that exhilarating day on the Bay with the sailing elite and the mighty St. Francis Yacht Club:
07:00: Send Kids off to school, friends and grandma's house - - for the weekend
10:00: The flight from Portland to San Jose provides excellent weather data, as the clear sky above San Francisco reveals to my wife/launch crew, Terese, and I a perfect view of the course. In San Francisco clear summer sky means wind.
14:00: Arrival at Crissy Field confirmed the forecasted warm and steady 15 knot West wind. I rigged a 19.5m kite, slipped on my 20+ year old jump skis and easily tacked up to the Gate with nearly slack current.
15:00 Registration at SFYC. Nice place! We met windsurfers Alan Prussia, Bob Tinkler, Jean Rathle, Mikah Buzianis, and Seth Besse rigging in the parking lot. Nervous about racing when the flood tide was scheduled to peak, I quizzed Alan on his local knowledge. He thought the flood might reach 2.2 knots, but that I ought to check with the tide tables at the front desk. Instead, I decided to relocate my gear ½ mile upwind for an easier beat to the start, regardless of the current.
16:00 Skippers meeting: A brief debate regarding start times and the discrepancy between Sailing instructions, with a start time of 17:00 and the Notice of Race with a start time of 17:30, is settled when the Race Director announces that we would "try to start on time… at five O'clock". Race bibs were distributed, and the course details were described verbally; ie: start 200 yards upwind of the Golden Gate bridge, between the red nun and the committee boat, go through a gate in front of the Yacht Club, finish between a buoy near the west tower of the Bay Bridge and the committee boat. Kiters were excused at 16:15 for a scheduled 17:00 start, meaning if it took 15 minutes to finish rigging and launch, average velocity made good to windward (VMG) before the start had to be better than 2 knots plus the speed of the flooding current.
16:30 The Beat: formula boards and skiffs glide upwind as 5 kiters struggle against the flood. Anthony Chavez approaches the bridge first with a 14m kite and a directional board, but he takes 4 reaches to penetrate from the bridge to the starting line, only 200 yards further upwind. Paul Buelow (www.ooto.com) finds an eddy near Fort Point and cuts past the south tower with a 16.5 m kite and a bi-directional LMG board. Kiters Chip Wasson and Greg Boyington (LMG/Clean Cut) make it less than a few hundred yards upwind of the Yacht Club. Chip returns to shore for a different board only to find a fading breeze and less power to go up.
17:00 I beat hard, tack through the north span as a freighter comes through the gate, and I'm pinned. Unable to beat the traffic and the current simultaneously, I retreat 100 yards to let the big guy pass. The committee boat also moves south to indicate a short delay for traffic.
17:14 I'm back upwind of the gate, but still 150 yards shy of the start, still edging hard against a freshening breeze. I hear the shotgun blasts as the start sequence begins. I realize I'll be disqualified when they start without me. I curse the current and the tight schedule of professional sailors.
17:19 The start: Anthony skips past the south tower and into the lead with Mikah and RMW Marine hot on his tail. Paul B. is stoked to have a clean start with his kite while all the boards and skiffs scrambling downwind. I stall out for 30 seconds to let a few skiffs pass me, and then I decide to turn on the gas. The 12 foot sprits extending from the lurching skiffs wouldn't feel very good in the rib cage, so I turn on the gas. Skiffs are leaping off the backs of 18" waves, each crew balancing on the aft racks, 12 feet out on the trapezes.
17:23 Carving into a ½ mile long jibe in front of RMW Marine, I sneak through the mid-course gate in front of the Yacht Club. A high speed tumble turn on the inside sends Anthony into 4th. Mikah grazes the shoreline and rides smooth water into 3rd.
17:25 I skim the churning waters and head straight for the West end of the Bay Bridge now comfortably in front. I'm in the zone, and a huge smile has replaced the scowl on my face. The Protector, a RIB support boat, paces me with the speedo pegged on 30 knots. I see Greg has decided to run from his unfortunate starting position near Alcatraz and sprint the lower half of the course, and he's a mile ahead of me. Chip watches from shore. Mikah edges past RMW Marine, as they are forced into a second jibe.
17:30 I'm flying. Greg is now only 10 seconds ahead, but there's a 70 foot catamaran ferry on a collision course with me. It's doing 40 knots. Unable to do anything but go faster, with the wind now over 20 knots, I pump the giant orange kite for more power. My legs are jelly. Finally, the cat swerves upwind, and I cross in front with 200 yards to spare.
17:33 Greg crosses 2 seconds in front of me, and I can't stop. There's a 50 foot beach with cliffs on all sides, so I wrap my kite around a picnic table that had washed ashore there. Greg follows. I calculate my average speed for the 6 mile course at 26 mph.
17:36 USA34 Mikah glides through for the official win (new record time 17:38:29), and then immediately tacks back up to his car at the yacht club. He has tickets to the Giants game. RMW Marine leads the skiffs, as skipper Robert Greenhalgh and his crew capture the silver (17:38:41). Anthony, the first official kiter, comes pounding in 3rd place (17:39:05) with tired legs, and he joins us on the tiny beach. He's followed by Kevin, and the rest of the pack. Less than 10 minutes separate the fastest from the slowest finishers.
18:00 Kites are packed into the two RIBs, and we return to SFYC for tasty beer and pasta dinner.
19:00 Cheers with an extremely friendly bunch of Aussie 18 sailors draw loads of praise for my high speed on a pair of old skis, and they very politely keep their criticisms of my limited upwind abilities to themselves. One particularly chatty mate named "John" tells me the flood had been 3.9 knots according to his tide tables.
Cory Roeseler lives in Hood River and works on new product development for Gaastra Kiteboarding
