Three Bridge Fiasco — A Reflection

Following the Singlehanded Sailing Society’s Three Bridge Fiasco, Ros de Vries sat down to write an appreciation for her experience of shorthanded sailing on the Bay. We thereby bring you “A Whimsical Musing from a Waterlogged Serial Sailor.”

Before both boat-bites and poignant thoughts disappear back into my body, I wanted to write a few keepsake lines about 2024’s “Three Bridge Fiasco.” As the format of the race has been well documented by fellow competitors, let me take another route, and write about the race’s — and sailing’s — splendidness, which, by the Kantian definition, is its ability to “produce feeling for both the beautiful and the sublime.”

However, before I run deep into this topic, I should state a few facts:

• I doublehanded on Adam Eliot’s dream machine Quiver, a Santa Cruz 40 possessing speed, elegance and a PHRF of 57.
• We sailed clockwise — around Blackaller, across the Bay to Raccoon Strait, followed by a rounding of Red Rock and a glorious spinnaker run to the infamous Yerba Buena parking lot. We positioned ourselves well and took off with the ultralights at the first breeze
• After a thrilling reach, we finished fourth in the DH Spin B Ratings > or = 55 but < 76 Division. Following six hours of racing, we missed third place by less than two minutes, with a finish time of 16:20:32.
• About half the 300-strong fleet retired. So, our finish put us in the top quartile. As someone not immune to feelings of schadenfreude, it was of greater importance that we beat many of our friends. The Richmond Yacht Club bar provided an excellent reception for gluttons like us.

And so, let’s crack open a beer, shall we?

On shorthanded sailing

The Three Bridge Fiasco is a race that restricts its participation to those who can sail a vessel wholly by themselves, or with just one other person.¹ This makes the race both incredibly exclusive and inclusive. Exclusive in that all must be competent enough to sail in this mode; inclusive in that many otherwise-crew can participate in it. There is an understanding that it is a race in which otherwise-pit, otherwise-trim and, heaven forbid, otherwise-foredeck can take the helm in common company; one boat’s crew can be split amongst three, four or six boats. I think that is why it is the best-attended keelboat race west of the Mississippi River.

As a Laser (dinghy) sailor and someone who enjoys being alone together, I would like to expound on shorthanded sailing’s splendidness. Returning to the Kantian definition, sailing is first, splendid by virtue of its beauty, which is rooted in its purposiveness, or its appearance of having been manufactured or designed. To this end, we perceive to be beautiful the craftsmanship of Bill Lee’s Santa Cruz fleet, or the way the wind and water flow around the Bay Bridge pylons — and especially when it stymies our competitors.

What is of greater personal interest is the sublimity in splendidness, or shorthanded sailing’s ability to develop the conditions for intense experiences. While the experience of beauty is purely pleasurable, the sublime includes a partial feeling of displeasure, such as in the fear of a particularly nasty spinnaker wrap. But this negative possibility is instrumental to an even stronger sense of pleasure. For younger sailors like myself, the realization of this fear is commonly expressed as “Type II Fun,” or that which involves suffering at the time, but in retrospect, is immensely gratifying. That is to say, the sublime often accompanies the sketchy.

When shorthanding, sketchiness is the norm.² There are never enough hands to un-fuck a kite — and especially when there are just two of you and you’re running boom-to-beam in a fleet of 300 boats. However, the one or two of you must resolve the situation to avoid the Berkeley Pier, Treasure Island or other boats — and in this, we find grace. As per Kant:

“The [sailor] finds his courage to control his fears, and in this self-overcoming encounters sublimity.”

This intense experience is an ideal example of Kant’s dynamic sublime, or that which occurs when an individual is able to triumph over forces of nature by virtue of relying on his function of human rationality. There are always dynamic sublime moments in shorthanded sailing; in fact, sailing in itself may be this dynamism manifest. After all, it is the nature of boats to constantly try to sink themselves.

On intensity, uncertainty and the sublime

“Luck is an accident that happens to the competent.”

— Albert M. Greenfield

Now we have established that encountering the sublime is a determinate feature of any sailing, but particularly shorthanded sailing, I would like to highlight the intensity of these sublime experiences, an intensity unlike that of hiking a well-marked trail.

Intensity comes from many sources during the Three Bridge Fiasco. First, there is the uncertainty. We can use our rationality to plan a clockwise or counterclockwise tour around the Bay, but as sailors, we have experienced how the forces of nature can upend the most rational of plans. This is a race in which nobody can really know the winning direction ahead of time, and thus, intensely uncomfortable conversation ensues between skippers and crew. As stated earlier, this negative possibility of not being correct is instrumental to an even stronger sense of pleasure, if and when you actually get around the course.

That is not to say that this is a race purely determined by luck. As Latitude 38 noted, “From our scan of the results in 2023, we see that Randall Rasicot aboard his Express 27 Tequila Mockingbird, Scott and Leslie Easom aboard 8 Ball and Rufus Sjoberg aboard his J/125 Rufless all won their classes two years in a row. It’s amazing when people can have such consistent ‘luck.'” The implication of this is that sailors who can sail a good race will do so, but as Latitude also notes, “Fortunately, an element of luck does occasionally gift dedicated optimists with good results.”

Thus we have two sources of uncertainty — and double the reason to celebrate when the results are good. The Three Bridge Fiasco is a race determined by both Minerva and Fortuna; it is this duality that makes it so intensely exciting.

But what of the intensity inherit in hard work and self-overcoming? I know many sailors — including myself — who will take the path of least resistance in their professional lives … and yet for amateur sport, are willing to tear sinew from bone in the pursuit of a quick hoist. The intensity of sailing is centered in the experience of being fully present in the flow of activity and movement. Quite simply, activities like the hoist cannot be casually done — and especially on a masthead rig with 54-ft forestay. This activity often results in an exaltation “experienced when we both acknowledge the possible threat and consciously tear ourselves away from our will, i.e., our concern for our bodies and desires.” We feel this exaltation as our hearts hammer and we shout, “Made!” — a sublime feeling.

Finally — I want to touch now and later on the intensity of the relations between crew. In a shorthanded scenario, crew is not replaceable; simply, there is no redundancy. Only at select times is it possible to go below to relieve oneself, let alone have a nap. In general, interactions are so interdependent and so on, that a bonding occurs that transcends what we experience at the workplace or even in the home. On a boat, you can’t just walk away from it all. If anything, the chatter is near-constant, intentional and ego-less, from acknowledging an imminent tack, to observing tide lines, cat’s paws, other vessels and distant islands. During the lulls, we bond by telling sailors’ tales, singing chanteys, and in my case, playing crass pop songs on my little Bluetooth speaker. We eat together, these chicken salad sandwiches and boat snacks that are sometimes as much an expression of our need — and respect — for each other as they are a necessity for life.

Across a six-hour race, there are many sublime opportunities. This year, the sublime was found in a good start against a fast-moving tidal current, in executing a difficult douse, as we pulled out of the Yerba Buena wind hole, and in a power reach to the finish. Around 4:00, we were traveling at 9–10 knots, and with our #1 jib up, my post rotated between the mainsheet and hydraulic controls to keep the rig humming, but not heeling too much. Adam was seated high, on the edge of fear and ecstasy, face aglow, happy, hooting, wild. I told him, “Be brave, be brave,” both for him as helmsman and to center myself. The mark swept past on starboard and suddenly, we were shunted from the intensity of racing, to the splendidness of sailing fast for the pleasure of it on San Francisco Bay.

As night fell, I told Adam how the sunset made my little heart beat so hard, as did the fear of unlit daymarks in the Richmond Channel. To think of, to intimate, to achieve those moments is transcendent, splendid and sublime.

So, when is the next race?

An epilogue

I find coming down from a good race to be really hard. Inevitably, I want to extend, or process, or recapture the emotion of it; perhaps we all do. That may be why it’s near-obligatory for sailors to convene at the bar.

In the days following, I said too much, I drank too much, I meandered as if dope sick. I walked home in the dark with my bestie and sobbed freely; for her circumstances and for mine, and for adoring Adam (platonic, shush now). I needed to channel those intense feelings into a creative outlet, so I spent hours compiling a playlist, then even more writing this essay.

This work gives heavy credit to Leslie A. Howe’s “Intensity and the Sublime: Paying Attention to Self and Environment in Nature Sports.” This persuasive paper was brought to my attention during a lecture at the Asian Art Museum by researcher and educator Carlo B. Ebeo. Mr. Ebeo described the Filipino character as “intensely sublime,” a reference that I made sure to follow up on. Fair winds and thank you for reading/Maraming salamat.

— —

¹ One may note that an autopilot is permitted and yes, for larger boats especially, this is certainly advantageous. However, I don’t think using an autopilot totally diminishes the skill and cojones required to launch the spinnaker in a one- or two-handed configuration.

² As an aside, both Adam and I are the type of people that consider sketchiness to be as valid a virtue as prudence, justice and fortitude. In this context, are we merely idiots, or devotees to the dynamic sublime?