Author: Rob DeWitte

While I was grilling burgers at anchor in the Benjamin Islands, Kiwi and the Thursday lads clinched our spot with a marvelous performance in light air.

Piecing together the remarks from several aboard, it went something like this.  A well timed start and an extended low speed drag race on starboard, a few tacks sticking near the middle of the course.  Rounding shortly behind Big Yellow.  The fleet jibed away to the center of the bay, but PERSPECTIVE held the Burlington shore in nice clear air while the others fought in a cloud of canvas.  A late jibe back to the rhumb line (or to the finish — was there another jibe?).  No matter, the result was clear.  Top Gun finished first, PERSPECTIVE overtook Big Yellow to claim second, while Legacy, Sandpiper and Battlewagon followed.  A strong second place to secure our spot in second for the summer Thursday series (behind Top Gun), and second overall for the summer!

Three cheers for guest skipper, Kiwi, who even docked the boat in reverse with his typical calm.  His feedback on the race:  crew work was awesome — everyone knew their roles, maneuvers were flawless, and the guys on the pointy end did a great job of spotting the wind and relaying the necessary info.

Bravo to all!

We often have several Marks on board, and its easy to get confused among them.  But tonight, we had a different kind of Mark confusion.  All of us had our eyes on a navigation mark near #14 when starting the race, rather than the real mark.  With that reference, we timed a perfect start in clear air ahead of the fleet, lot’s of boat speed.  And then we got confused, as the race committee honked a horn and hoisted a flag.  Was that us?  were we over?  Strange, we were being so careful, it didn’t seem likely.  In our confusion we sailed on, but eventually I radioed the committee boat and inquired if we were over early.  Yes we were!  And then it clicked.  The real #14 was further back, the real start line was further back.  Yes, we were over early.

So we turned around, sailed back and exonerated ourselves.  Not sure exactly how much time it cost us, but I think somewhere around 5 minutes.  OOPS!

But the good news is that there were only three boats in our fleet.  We closed the distance, but didn’t really have a solid hope of making up that much time.  So, we finished third, behind Top Gun and Eclipse.  Notably, the boats closest to us in the standings didn’t turn up, so we sustained our 2nd place on Thursdays, and added a bit of cushion between us and the others.  And for that, we can thank the rain!

On the way to the marina it was raining cats and dogs and that kept a lot of boats away.  But the rain turned to drizzle, and then it stopped while we raced.  Until the last ten minutes, during which we got completely drenched!

How was the race?  Great fun!

14 knots or so of wind at the beginning, a bit gusty and shifty, dropping to more like 8 knots or so at the finish.  We got good balance with the #2 genoa and the backstay near max, with the mainsail spilling some wind.  On the first upwind, the #3 might have been the better choice, but as the wind dropped, we began to ease the backstay and fill the main more to keep us moving fast.   Average upwind speed first lap was 7+ knots, about 6.5 on the second lap.  Love it!

Even though we weren’t vying for position with any other boats (in fact we were almost the safety boat tonight due to our late start), the race was not without misadventures.  First, misreading the layling for the windward mark, pinching badly, getting backwinded and then head to wind before we got around — that was slow!  And then our second hoist had an hour-glass that took some time to sort out.

But it was a great night nonetheless — and what an awesome crew, willing to come and play in the rain!

***While the cat (me) was away, the mice went out to play…Here’s a race report from Nonsuch, alternate skipper for tonight’s race

Tonight’s race was tremendous fun with a Cracker Jack crew that needed very little direction at all.  Everybody knew their job and did it amazingly.  Josh was magic on the head sale keeping it adjusted perfectly while Bert on main kept us powered up on all points of sail.  The foredeck of David and Gil were truly amazing with the best chute sets I have seen all season.  They were so fast on the downwind leg setting the chute and the take down was a thing of beauty with very little chatter, the whole ballet was directed in the pit by Mark Lazysheet with perfection.

Our start was very interesting as we went into sequence with a strategy to stay close to our competition and a cover Eclipse.  We approached the line in lots of traffic with Remarkable, Top Gun, And Eclipse with Battle wagon a bit behind.  We all were a little early so we tactfully jibed around in traffic along side Top Gun and Remarkable and Battlewagon was also close.  Eclipse was luffing on the line and running to the far pin while at 8 seconds we powered up and hit the line on the gun with Remarkable on our port bow and Top Gun on the starboard side.  As we powered down to Mark 5 and got into clear air in short order continuing to point quite close to Remarkable while Eclipse was way off to port and Battlewagon charging down on starboard.   We covered Eclipse as soon as they tacked with a great lea bow and continued to power to the lay line.  Our move forced Eclipse to tack back which caused him to incur a few more tacks.  We came down on the first Mark in low traffic with Celtic Spirit to port and a C&C 27 to starboard we threaded through the two of them as the first hoist went flawlessly fast and we needed to get the chute filled quickly.  This allowed us to power down the bay on a bit of a reach taking some nice gusts along the way with Josh flying the chute well and Lazysheet adjusting the pole on Josh’s cue. 

The White sail folks were turning at Mark 7 while we were going to Mark 11.  We did get a little close to Mark 7 while Chico II was rounding along with the Beneteau 23.  We managed to adjust for the Beneteau and did our best to miss Chimo II however I owe Hugh Johnson an apology as we got pinned a bit in our move around him but we kept our boat speed all the way. 

Approaching Mark 11 we followed Remarkable to the pin while dousing the chute flawlessly in record time and powered up the main and jib for the rounding and a quick tack for the beat home to Mark 14.  As we were sailing home to the finish we passed Eclipse and Sandpiper still on the down wind leg to Mark 11!

Battle wagon rounded just after us at 11 and we had a drag race down the Bay to the finish at 14. We maintained a slight lead on them however they started to gain as the wind gave us both a few knocks.  Battlewagon were to port and we determined they would need to tack while we had a tight line to the pin end of the line.  Sure enough we made the pin and Battlewagon was still tacking across well after we crossed the line.  We believe we’re a solid third in the race only beaten to the line by Top Gun and Remarkable but not by that much distance.

Only issue the rookie skipper had was backing into the slip which the crack crew made easier and ensured we put Perspective back in her slip safely.  It was a great night nobody got hurt and better still no boat damage and a 3rd place finish!

Thanks to Cap’n Rob for having the trust in letting us take out his baby for a great sail and the crack crew that made it a wonderful night.

***You are more than welcome Mark!  And three cheers for the boys in blue for a great race and a great result!

Had a fantastic day in Oakville yesterday with Josh & Michael on board.  It didn’t take long at all for this frankencrew to gel, and we had a lot of laughs together in the summer sun.  Looking back, there were six highlights.

HIGHLIGHT ONE: Morning Fog

Motoring out of the marina, we entered the twilight zone of coastal fog, so thick that we could only just make out the top of the masts of the boats we were following!  The shore began to fade, and we wondered if we would lose all visibility, but we stayed close enough to the others to stay connected.  Eventually the committee boat realized they should set the course a bit further off shore.  Sure enough when we motored a few hundred meters more, we emerged in sunshine.  Looking back to the coast, the fog patch was low — sunshine all around!  About six knots of wind.  Game on!

HIGHLIGHT TWO: The shakedown race

With Michael on the pointy end for the second time, and Josh on board for the first time, race number one was a shakedown.  Sure we had a couple of things to sort out, but so much went well that we’ll start with that.  First off, our fleet was in the first start — something that is so difficult for us because it is hard to start the countdown timer at the right time, and there are no other boats on the course to help select the strategy.  Nonetheless, Michael was on it, and we got the timer started right as the 5 minute gun went off.  #1 genoa out.  Timed the line well and put in a good start.  Off we go.  Upwind, Josh and Mark settled into a quick rhythm for the tacks, Bert kept us twisted and powered up, and we followed Sabotage to choose our course.  That’s not usually a bad idea, but of course, they point higher than anyone, so we ended up misreading the layline for the weather mark, having to pinch for a long time (we already had the pole set), and it was painful to be overtaken to windward while we wallowed up to the mark.  Hoist #1 was good!  Jibe #1 was perfect.  We sailed a good course downwind to reclaim our spot in fourth and make up ground on Battlewagon who was ahead.

At this point, it would be good to describe the fleet.  Six boats, with a very tight range of PHRF ratings.  A Beneteau First 41.7, rated 58.  Sabotage, rated 63.  Battlewagon, rated 72.  Us, rated 73.  A C&C 39, rated 77, and another boat I can’t remember!

Douse was clean, and away we went, but the first tack was problematic.  We left the spinnaker lines attached so we could hoist from the hole each time, but the spinnaker halyard interfered with the jib sheets.  We lost some time sorting this out, but recovered quickly.

Once again, I got caught pinching at the weather mark, and it was painful again.  On this hoist, we were worried about our halyard and jib sheets — had we really routed things properly?  It turns out we had, but for a while there we weren’t sure.  Somehow, when hoisting the halyard got stopped by the upper spreader, and Michael thought it was made.  Once we trimmed the sheet, the spinnaker wouldn’t fill.  What was wrong?  Bert took the helm, I dashed forward, and then we spotted it — easy fix:  drop the halyard a couple of feet, pull the sail a bit and then hoist.  Another quick recovery and away we went to the finish line, well behind Battlewagon.

I wondered all day whether one of the boats behind us might have gotten us on PHRF, but in the end they didn’t :-).

Score:  PERPSECTIVE 0: Battlewagon 1

HIGHLIGHT THREE: Now we’re racing

Between races, we had time for a snack, and to consult at the pointy end on how to avoid the halyard tangle.  We settled on the plan to disconnect the spinnaker halyard after dousing, and taking care to keep the head of the spinnaker from getting tangled.  Worked like a charm and now we were in a groove.

Once again Michael got the timer started perfectly.  This time, most of our fleet were fighting it out for a pin end start, so we took the opportunity to sail along the start line, build up speed and then turn at the last second.  Fantastic — we were away with just Sabotage and the Beneteau ahead of us.  And it stayed that way the entire race.

We lost some ground at the windward mark which was my nemesis again (lighter wind, knocking us a bit and maybe some current, too), and we needed to put in two extra tacks at the last minute, which meant Michael had to drop the pole and set it again in a hurry.  No problem!  Two clean hoists, with early douses and we kept Battlewagon well astern.

Score: PERSPECTIVE 1: Battlewagon 1

HIGHLIGHT FOUR: Every maneuver counts

Between races we downed some awesome sandwiches and decided to change the headsail to the #2 genoa (my favorite), as the wind had started to fill to about 9-12 knots.  While we were doing that, the race committee adjusted the course.  We noticed they set the start line almost parallel with a close-hauled starboard tack, in such a way that the pin end was strongly favoured.  With that in mind, we wanted to do a pin-end, port-tack start.  Gutsy!  In the start sequence, it was clear that we were not the only ones with that idea.  Our timing was great, though and we didn’t have anyone coming at us on Starboard that we needed to worry about, so we went for it in a nice patch of clear air, closer to the pin than the boat.

Soon, we had to dip one of our competitors, and it was a thing of beauty, just shaving their stern as we powered up.  with the bigger wind and the flatter headsail, we were able to point nearly as high as Sabotage, rounding just ahead of Battlewagon.  A crisp hoist, early jibe and quick spinnaker reach to the leeward mark added some distance.  Douse was sharp and away we went for lap #2.  The teamwork was awesome by now, as we had our systems ironed out and the communication was great.

Upwind Battlewagon closed the gap on us, we tacked early, not wanting to paint the corners of the course.  Battlewagon tacked to follow us.  Halfway to the windward mark, we tacked again and went looking for the layline.  Battlewagon followed.  Onto the layline, we tacked.  Battlewagon pushed beyond us and tacked onto what they thought was the layline.  Who was right?  Turns out they were, and we needed two more tacks to fetch the mark.  This cost us the lead as they now had the inside lane to the mark.

At this point, Josh’s sailing experience came through.  With our extra tacks, we had overstood the mark a bit, and he trimmed the foresail perfectly to keep us fast as we chased Battlewagon.  As a result, we were right on their stern when it was time to hoist.  And this is where the magic happened:  we chose a lower course than Battlewagon, hoisted quickly sailing deep, which gave us the inside lane — to leeward of them.  A quick and flawless jibe put us on the layline to the finish line, with Battlewagon astern, still needing to jibe.  By the time they came around, we had put more than ten boatlengths between us, and managed to extend that by the time we finished.  That last hoist & jibe gave us the victory — every maneuver counts!

Score PERSPECTIVE 2: Battlewagon 1

Final place in the standings:  3rd place after Sabotage & the big Beneteau First.

HIGHLIGHT FIVE: The journey home

Over the radio, shortly after 3pm, we learned that there would be no more racing, so we looked at the beautiful weather, considered our options and decided to sail for home.  Within minutes we were on a course to fetch the Burlington lift bridge, making well over 7 knots of boat speed.  For a full hour, we streamed along enjoying the very best that Lake Ontario has to offer.  Blue sky, blue water, stable wind and very little swell.

We could see a storm developing over land with plenty of rain hitting the Oakville harbour.  And we felt really clever, out in the sun, while all our friends were getting doused.  30 minutes later, it became clear that the storm had grown and was moving out over the water.  We aimed toward the bluer sky that was moving toward Stoney Creek, but there was no way to out-pace the storm.

First came the cold.  The temperature must have dropped ten degrees in an instant.

Then came wind. From about 12 knots apparent to 20 in just a few minutes.  We furled the genoa.

Then came rain.  We were soaked in the first 30 seconds.

Then came wind.  We reefed the main.  Now 25 knots apparent.

Then came more wind.  We started the engine and dropped the main.  Now 28 knots true wind!

There was thunder in the distance, and lightening to match.  We all wished it was further away.

And then, just as quickly as it came, the storm left.  Blue sky opened, the warm sun shone.  We hoisted the mainsail, opened the jib and enjoyed a leisurely sail in lighter breeze.  Our wet clothes hung drying on the lifelines, and we slowly started to warm up.

At the lift bridge, we held back to let a big freighter leave the bay, and the bridge closed before we got into the channel, so we had to wait for the next bridge.  By the time we got through, the clothes were dry, the boat was tidy and we were warm again.  In the bay, a nice breeze helped us along as we motor-sailed with the genoa alone.

Docked. Flaked. Tidied and crammed into our little car.  Made it back to OYS for dinner and the results.

HIGHLIGHT SIX: Two new ringers in the crew bank

We had such a great time sailing together, gelling quickly as a team through the whole experience — the fog, the races and the storm on the journey home — that it was hard to believe this was the first time we had even met Josh, and had only sailed with Michael once previously.  Both of the Verduyn brothers will feature aboard PERSPECTIVE in the future.  Apparently there are two more brothers and a dad who like sail — sounds promising 🙂

Thanks for a great day, guys!

Absolutely fabulous!  This has got to be our best race ever.  Not only were we hunting Top Gun right up to the finish line, but we were way ahead of our usual competitors.  Sabotage ran away with the race, of course, but we were exhilarated to find ourselves in such a great position.

How did it happen?  Well….here’s the whole race on video.  I sped up the straight segments 5x, and left the key moments on regular speed

Basically, the boys in blue put together a whole lot of good stuff to pull this off:

• A great start
• Good pointing upwind with the #1 genoa and plenty of backstay
• Fantastic sail trim all the way
• Read the layline perfectly for the windward mark, rounded behind Legacy with Top Gun and Sabotage ahead of them
• Anticipated the wind direction perfectly so that our hoist powered us up on a perfect line to the next mark
• Gained on Legacy
• Spotted a big strong wind shift just prior to the next mark, doused early, and held our course with the genoa
• Stayed out of the worst traffic, rounded smoothly and got ourselves into a great position, by now right astern of Legacy
• Calvin and Gil worked some magic on the foredeck so that we could hoist the spinnaker again ON THE OTHER SIDE
• Sailed a lower course than Legacy to get clear air, while they got pushed up by Moruga (away from the rhumb line, and into a pack of other boats and bad air).  They hoisted their spinnaker much later than us and had to sail a deeper (slower) course.
• Adjusted the spinnaker for every wind shift, while holding our line straight to the next mark
• Gained on Top Gun in this leg to the point that we were abreast them as we both doused!
• Great focus for the last upwind to the finish boat…all the while thinking they owe us time (not much but some!)

And there was a moment when I thought perhaps they would have had to dip us, but they were clear ahead.

What a fun night.  Great weather, unbelievable teamwork, superb focus and a great feeling!

Let’s do it again!

Tonight we lent Bert to the race committee…maybe he “accidentally” wrote down an earlier finish time for PERSPECTIVE….we’ll see!

And we had Michael Verduyn on the pointy end of the boat, making a dynamite debut.  Michael regularly crews foredeck for Bob Duggan, and we were able to poach him tonight, while his brother Josh raced with Bob on Induljence.  On Saturday, both Michael & Josh will be aboard for the OYS regatta.  Watch the footage and you’ll see that we are in very good shape.

With Bert on the committee boat, three of us in the cockpit were plenty busy, but we put in a fantastic race, finishing third after Remarkable and Top Gun.  A great result, besting Battlewagon, Eclipse and Sandpiper on a picture perfect warm summer evening.  27C, cloudless, blowing a nearly steady 10 knots.  Brilliant!

We flew the #2 headsail, backstay about half-way on, slight backwinding in the main during the breezier parts of the course.  Great pointing and lots of speed.

Our start wasn’t great — a bit rusty on the timing — so we had a little trouble getting up to speed until the big boats to leeward cleared away.  We pushed on well toward the Hamilton shore, enjoying a nice lift and some stronger air.  We came at the windward mark with a very short lay line, just far enough ahead of Sandpiper that they had to dip us.  Eclipse and Battlewagon were not far ahead.  With little time to set the pole, we finished  after rounding, took our time and had  a nice clean hoist.  With the kite filled we overtook Eclipse & Battlewagon, and put in a nice clean jibe to find a good line for the leeward mark.

We doused early to give Michael time to sort things out, and rounded nicely, putting in a tack soon after to claim the preferred side of the course.  Our competition was either astern (Sandpiper, Battlewagon) or to leeward (Eclipse) as we tracked toward Hamilton.

Again we approached with a short layline, but this time we managed to maintain our position ahead of the others.  Jibe set at the mark (since we doused into the hatch from that side), followed by two jibes and a clean douse.  We extended our lead on the others, before the final beat to the finish line.

Again we claimed the Hamilton side of the course, forcing our competitors to try something different in the lighter air to Burlington.  Nice crisp tack, but something wasn’t right.  We were making 6.1 knots before the tack and could only get to 4.8 after coming about.  Lazy Sheet spotted the problem eventually:  the staboard jib car had slid all the way aft, so we were spilling air out of the top of the genoa.  Once it was trued up, voila, we were back in the sixes.

By now, we spotted Battlewagon who had made up a lot of ground on us (probably while we were sailing slowly).  Game on!   One last crisp tack to the finish line and we crossed ahead, while they held course for the pin end about a minute later.

A fantastic sunset on a gorgeous summer night with great crew-work and an impressive debut by Michael on the foredeck.  And great to have Bert on board at the end for snack time!

Today we did not get a new hole in the boat!  Remarkable!  (Literally, Remarkable didn’t put a new hole in the boat.  They averted collision with us when we were trying to get across their bow without right of way — we didn’t quite make it, and had to do our penalty turns.  No harm done, but lots of excitement!)  It was a Remarkable avoidance.

But let’s not overlook the fact that we got across Top Gun’s bow just prior to this event.  That was also remarkable!

How did this happen?  (Pardon a brief diversion into rig tuning and sail trim, we’ll get back to the race report in a moment).  Well, we’ve been doing a lot of thinking about pointing, depth of the genoa and depth of the mainsail, so today we tried a couple of experiments.  There was about 8 knots of true wind speed, so we went for the #2 genoa rather than the #1.  Less power, better pointing.  I was on the fence about trying the flatter mainsail too, but opted not to, in case the wind slackened later in the evening.  Instead, we put a lot more backstay tension to bend the mast and flatten the mainsail.  As a result, we were able to trim away the backwinded bubble and the boat was fast and well balanced.  It worked!  Delightful!

I’m convinced this played a big role in our upwind performance tonight.  Combined with a good start and great driving by Gadget on the helm we were right up there with the big boys half way to the windward mark.  And then we had to do our 360, which meant we rounded last again 🙁

But downwind we worked our magic with the spinnaker and made up a lot of lost ground, dousing just astern of Battlewagon.  There was some new guy interfering with Four Hands on the bow during the douses — boy does he (me) need practice up there!  Each time I cleaned up the foredeck after the douse I routed something in the wrong place that made a meal of our first upwind tack.  After the first douse, we fought back from this setback, and hoisted for the second time just astern of Sandpiper and Battlewagon.  Downwind we closed in, then opted to put in three jibes to sail hotter angles.  Despite some not-so-clean jibes, it worked and we overtook Sandpiper, rounding  just astern of Battlewagon.

On the home stretch we fell back a bit as the other boats enjoyed a nice lift near the Hamilton shore, but it didn’t sink our feeling of victory.

And Remarkable didn’t sink our boat.

A great race, by a great crew on a beautiful night.  And great work by Gadget on the helm!