(Did you miss Part 1? Click here.)

After noon, a westerly began to fill in from the ocean, giving the boats that chose to go first to Blackaller Buoy (the Golden Gate Bridge mark) a nice breeze to make it around and then across the flood. By this time boats that had gone counter-clockwise were at Treasure Island, and by about 12:30 we got a report that Bart Hackworth’s Moore 24, Gruntled, was in the lead at Red Rock.

At that point it seemed to the counter-clockwise folks that they were in the know and had the lead. After all, the clockwise group had more distance to go and a beat against the flood, with the Treasure Island wind shadow looming up ahead.

The next report from the race course was of a big parking lot at Red Rock. A big group of counter-clockwise boats had gotten around TI, a similar group of clockwise boats had gotten through Raccoon Strait, and both groups stalled out at Red Rock. Some of the leaders of both groups scooted past without a problem, although it meant staying real close to shore to do so. With the depthsounder still reading 8-9 feet, Gordie Nash’s radical Santana 27 Arcadia found a bump of mud off the beach at the northeast corner of Red Rock. Gordie threw out the anchor to try to kedge off, but a wave came by and lifted the boat off the bump.

A tug tending outbound tanker near Richmond cleared a path for its charge by steering S-curves through the drifting race fleet, forcing many to start up their engines and drop out. Despite excellent communication about ships between the Coast Guard, Vessel Traffic, and the race committee, the dreaded five blasts were heard more than once.

By 3:00 the westerly had worked its way to Red Rock and spit out the boats still stuck there. One parade headed down the east side of Angel Island, the other headed through Raccoon Strait. The J/105 Yikes! appeared to be leading the clockwise group sailing toward Treasure Island. This group zoomed by the central bay in 8-12 knots of breeze only to come to a screeching halt at the parking lot beneath the Bay Bridge. Five to seven knots of breeze there was enough to get Adrenaline around. Around 4:00 the 8-Meter Yucca got around, and owner Hank Easom let out a whoop. Soon after, the 70 or so boats stuck at TI got enough wind to break free.

The race committee watched with anticipation of the first finish as Adrenaline worked its way up the Cityfront toward the line. The gun was ready, the video cameras rolling - and Adrenaline went past outside the line. They still had to go to Blackaller!

About twenty minutes later, the real first boat to finish crossed the line, Bill Gardner’s F-27 Peregrine Falcon.

Yucca captured first monohull to finish honors, followed by Jonathan Livingston’s Punk Dolphin, first singlehander to finish.

Then Adrenaline crossed from the west. Next came Stephen Marcoe’s Newick 38 trimaran Native, a ‘transient’ from Hawaii recently launched after an extensive six-month overhaul at Napa Valley Marina, doing their first race. All of these were clockwise boats, so apparently clockwise was the ‘right’ direction this year, even though some of our local rockstars (Hodges, Baylis, Desenberg) picked the ‘wrong’ way.

After the first group, the line was flooded with finishers, and three race committee volunteers were assigned to record them, while three spotters with binoculars called out sail numbers. “Yell louder,” called the recorders to the spotters. As the light died, it became even harder to read all the sail numbers. With sunset the wind also died, but the bulk of the crowd had finished. The deadline for this race is 1900 hours, so the race committee finished boats in the dark for more than an hour. Aiming car headlights at the finish line buoy helped immensely.

As the deadline approached, so did three eastbound finishers. The first made it across, the others, and more behind them near the Golden Gate, as well as westbound boats, were out of luck, and called in to acknowledge that they hadn’t finished but were safe. An hour later at 2000 hours, a team of four volunteers were still comparing record sheets and sorting out the finishes. By then, some had been there 12 hours straight. If any questions remained, they still had the video to check. Results are posted at www.sfbaysss.org.

How big was it? Principal Race Officer Max Crittenden breaks down the numbers for us:
Entries: 366 (39 singlehanded, 327 doublehanded)

Showed up:  348 (36+312)

Started:  345 (35+310). Two were scored DNS for not checking in; one checked in but had motor trouble and never got close to the start.

Finished:  240 (24+216)

DSQ (disqualified):  1 (for finishing without lights after sunset)

RAF (retired after finishing):  3. (Two for using the motor, but completed the course for fun, one for sailing inside Anita Rock)

DNF (did not finish): 101

Many photographers, amateur and professional, racing and not, covered this event. Here are links to some of them: Erik Simonson, www.h2oshots.com; Peter Lyons, www.lyonsimaging.com; Rich Hudnut, Jr., http://picasaweb.google.com/rnutball/ThreeBridgeFiasco#; Sylvia Seaberg, http://picasaweb.google.com/sseaberg/20093BridgeFiasco#, Laura Watt, www.flickr.com/photos/lawatt/sets/72157613240959405; and Steve Green, www.pbase.com/slackwater_sf/2009_tbf.

Our own photo galleries are now online, including photos taken from the race deck and from boats on the course.