No T-shirt today. In fact, no T-shirt for anyone. It was another pursuit race, and a very long one from Stoney Creek to Port Credit. 21 nautical miles of pure unrippled milky water.
They delayed the start, hoping for a breath of wind, and forty minutes later, we were off. But the funny thing was that there was wind — about 2 knots of true wind — and it was perfectly steady for hours on end. Calvin and I had seen this before last year, so we went into “walk like a cat” mode, and all four of us systematically tweaked the genoa and the mainsail one parameter at a time until we were travelling over 4 knots of boat speed in 2.2 knots of true wind. Fantastic — we were sailing mostly in wind that we were creating by sailing in it! Just like a perpetual motion machine.
Along the way, we passed by many boats, staying to leeward of the fleet.
Eventually, we spotted a wind change ahead — some of the boats that started earlier had their spinnakers out, so we were ready for it. And same story. By tweaking everything slowly, one parameter at a time, we got up to 5 knots of speed, heading very high in our own apparent wind.
By the time this breeze ran its course we were among the lead boats, having overtaken nearly all the boats who started earlier. We were having a fantastic race!
Time to consolidate our lead. We dropped the spinnaker, popped out the genoa and optimized again, pointing up to converge with the leaders. It was looking good for us for a while there, but lady luck was not on our side. The boats to windward picked up a fresher breeze sooner than us. By the time it came to us, Battlewagon and a few others had slipped away from us. We hoisted our spinnaker again and made the best of it. But then the wind failed us all.
With 50 minutes left until curfew, 0.3 knots of wind speed, and 7 nautical miles to go, we did the math — we would need to travel straight to the mark at over 8 knots of boat speed — not going to happen.
So we packed it in and enjoyed a gorgeous relaxing motor into the marina. We were among the last few boats to give in — many had already motored by us. And sure enough, we all abandoned Day Four.
You know how you meet people with T-shirts or bumper stickers that say XXXYYY race Finisher. Maybe a marathon, or some mountain climb competition, or I even heard about a guy who runs a marathon in deep mud. Whatever the competion, clearly, it was a big deal for them to be there and to just complete the task.
Today, we deserve a T-shirt like that. Can you imagine what a hot conversation piece that would be? “2017 GHYRA Day THREE Finisher!”
Why do we get a T-shirt? After 7.5 hours, we crossed the line 22 minutes before curfew! Most of the boats, including most of our fleet abandoned hope, abandoned the race, and turned on their motors. But not PERSPECTIVE! We persisted and were rewarded with a gradually building breeze in the last hour to make it to the line with a good 5 knots of boat speed.
Sure, at one point we were over 6 knots, but that was not the case for most of the day. Indeed after two hours, we could still see our starting port!
Twice we wallowed in holes with zero wind speed, trying desperately to escape. The first escape came when we hoisted our spinnaker to catch a whisper of wind at the mast-head, even though it took us in the wrong direction. Never mind, it brought us to a place where the wind was a roaring 1.8 knots! The second time, we also hoisted the spinnaker only to discover that the ‘wind’ at the mast-head was flowing in the opposite direction to the ‘wind’ below the spreaders. Eventually, it turned astern, filled and we drifted along.
And then, a welcome site — ripples on the surface ahead. In no time, we had to douse in a hurry, filled the genoa and accelerated to 3-ish knots. It felt almost as fast to us as our 10.1 knot record the day before!
And who appeared alongside us at this time, just catching the next whisper of wind a bit ahead of us? BATTLEWAGON, of course 🙂
In fact, the got away from us. We tacked toward shore. They tacked to cover us. The wind built, and then softened, we tacked back out to sea, and they didn’t cover us — it was our chance. A few tacks more and we couldn’t see them any more. Had they gone through the rifle range (again)? When we spotted them, they were at least a mile ahead of us. How did that happen? (We learned later they abandoned the race, fired up the engine and motored through the rifle range).
So it was a sweet moral victory to finish before the curfew. A hard won moral victory!
It happened while heading on a broad reach in 17+ knots of wind with the #1 genoa up. Boom vang tight. Mainsheet eased. Everyone on board hiking out near the back corner of the boat.
And the magic was the waves. By this time the lake began to develop some waves and we were corkscrewing along. I started to get the feel of how to climb up on a wave, turn slightly upwind to heat up the boat speed and then turn down just at the right moment to surf down the wave. Most of the time I missed the wave, but sometimes I would catch and we would surge into the high 9’s. And one magic moment: 10.1!!!
Fantastic. Everything was smooth, and the moment lingered as we rushed along, just like the sensation when body surfing and you get the timing right on a big wave. I’ll fall asleep reliving that moment!
We had a thrilling day on the water that had many modes, beginning with very light wind that built slowly and was stronger away from shore. We (and about fifteen other boats) followed that and were feeling really good about our progress until a new breeze began to build near the shore. That breeze was much stronger. It got to us eventually, but only after the rest of the fleet had overtaken us.
We had a fantastic start to our GHYRA campaign today, sailing a blistering fast race mostly on a close reach. AVERAGE speed was 8 knots, with a peak of 9 knots absolutely flying from the burlington bridge to Newport.
With resident tutor Doug on board, we got the boat trimmed beautifully after a good start and pulled away from everyone except “Don’t Panic” who told us later of a peak speed around 11 knots in a gust. Our course was a little above the mark, and we lost some ground to the rest of the fleet approaching the turning mark, but were still well ahead of them all. The last stretch was a beat in gusty wind, and here’s a new record for heel angle:
Upwind we pushed past Don’t Panic to take the gun for our fleet. After handicaps, I’m not sure where we placed, but for certain we were well ahead of Big Yellow and Battlewagon 🙂
It was another #2 night, with winds in the mid teens and occasional gusts. Fantastic to have two great nights in the same week. This one was even warmer, though, with a softness in the strong breeze and a watercolour sky. Fantastic night on the water with another fantastic result.
We’ve got a really fun rivalry building with Eclipse. Basically, they pull ahead of us upwind and we overtake them downwind. Tonight’s highlight reel has us changing places with them several times. Ultimately? On the last downwind leg, we struggled to overtake them, but eventually prevailed and broke out of their enormous wind shadow to claim third place.
Sabotage took honours and Top Gun got us too. No surprise there! Battlewagon fell behind early tonight and didn’t hoist their spinnaker, so they didn’t threaten us. Big Yellow didn’t come out.
Here’s how it went:
Brisk wind at the start and we wondered whether to fly the #2 or the #3. Finally we opted for the #2, noticing a slightly less voracious wind near the start line. We thought maybe we’d be a bit overpowered upwind, but this way we’d have more canvas in case we didn’t choose to hoist the spinnaker. It turned out the be the right choice — yes we had some gusts that rounded us up, but we were able to get good balance most of the time and fill both the mainsail and the new ominous black foil to fly along above 6.5 knots.
At the start, there was an opportunity to go for it, but I was a bit shy, since it seemed like Eclipse was offering me a trap, and I worried we might have been too early. As a result we started a bit late, in a big wind shadow. No problem, though, since we just waited for clear air and then tacked onto port. We’d seen other boats start on port and fair pretty well.
For us, by the time we crossed the fleet, Battlewagon was astern, but the others were ahead. We held a nice line to the windward mark, pointing wonderfully high again (I really have to run RaceQs again to measure our tacking angles — they must be in the low 80s). By the windward mark, we were not far behind Eclipse or even the others.
At first we thought we wouldn’t hoist, but once we were around we saw a few other spinnakers go up, and decided to go for it. After all, it was the only chance we had to catch Eclipse. Up went the kite and the boat surged ahead running deep for the leeward mark. Along the way, we swept by Eclipse, keeping them well to leeward so they couldn’t force us up.
An early and clean douse, and around we went for another lap.
We tacked early onto starboard and pushed down into the bigger wind about mid bay before tacking. At first it appeared we had claimed the layline, but a few knocks proved that we should have pushed even further to Hamilton. Eclipse made the right choice and squeezed by us at the windward mark.
And then we got another knock and really had to pinch to make the mark, heading almost dead upwind at the last moment so that our momentum carried us around the mark. Phew!
In that moment, Eclipse gained a handsome lead. Up chute, and away we chased. As we bore down on Eclipse from astern it was like deja-vu. I remembered a time last season when we could not get past them. So we coiled up like a spring, and started to sail a hotter angle to try to climb over them to windward. But they were not flying a spinnaker and the risk was that they would push us up until the spinnaker collapsed (they were leeward boat with the right of way). Sure enough, Ken spotted us, and began to take us up. We were ready, though, and once it was clear that we wouldn’t get past him, we changed our approach, turned deep and pushed beyond them on the leeward side. It took some time, but we eventually pushed past his wind shadow and accelerated away for a solid third place finish.
A nice coup-de-gras after an exhilarating race.
The evening was so lovely we doused the spinnaker, left the genoa furled and cracked open the grog as we toured the bay under easy sail, enjoying a watercolour sunset as we approached the marina.
Good wind tonight, blowing 11-14 knots with some nice gusts and a few lighter patches. Clear sky and a warm sun. Summertime!
And the new #2 rocks!!!! With the wind up in that ‘tweener range, this was the first time we have ever sailed with a #2 genoa, and it was just perfect. Afterguy kept it trimmed pretty flat, and I had the backstay on pretty firm (about half-way in), Bert kept the main as full as possible and we pointed high and sailed fast. The speed meter was in the 7+ knot range most of the night, upwind and down. Absolutely thrilling.
Putting it all together, tonight the lads in blue put in a great performance to secure a strong second place finish (behind top gun of course), with Eclipse coming on strong enough at the finish to make us stay focused to the bitter end. Here’s how it went.
The start was its own thrill as we were able to catch Eclipse in a trap and push them over the line early. They weren’t too happy about it when I shouted “Stay up”. They hollered back that we had no overlap. This was true when the boats were parallel (Eclipse ahead and to windward, Perspective as the leeward boat with right of way). But as soon as they tried to bear off the wind, the straight line across their stern angled down across our bow, and I hollered “Stay up” again. Net result, they were over early and had to double back to cross the line again.
We started right at the gun, just to windward of Top Gun who was right beside us and began to point higher and higher (as they always do). But with the new #2, we were able to stay up and point as high as them. We carried on that way for quite a while before they aimed lower and began to pull ahead of us. And about this time Battlewagon came charging up from behind and to windward with a full head of steam. Unlike the rest of us, they were sailing their new #1 jib and coming on fast. They overtook us to windward as Top Gun pulled away to leeward, and Eclipse came on strong, making up the gap. Game on!
Approaching the windward mark, we lost some ground by tacking too early toward the Burlington shore , so that Eclipse snuck around just before us — we were now in last place. The next leg was a short reach, and we trimmed well and managed to get the inside lane on Eclipse at the next mark. Four Hands was masterful up on the pointy end getting everything ready. Around we went, inside Eclipse and up went the kite, gaining us several precious boat lengths. After a quick jibe we were on a fast point of sail, true wind about 120 degrees off our port side. With over 8 knots of boat speed in the puffs, we had the apparent wind on our beam and Afterguy did a great job keeping us fast and balanced. Battlewagon didn’t hoist their spinnaker, and we overtook them without much fuss
With the big wind, and no traffic around, we doused a little early. We might have given Eclipse a couple of boat lengths, but they were solidly astern of us. Result: nice and clean with no stress, though we did get the spinnaker a wee bit wet. Not a problem — next hoist we dried it off!
And then the magic happened. We tacked soon onto starboard and sailed up the middle of the bay, pointing nice and high, and enjoying the strong wind. We chose this course, trusting in more wind, even though it meant we had to push through the shadow of an anchored freighter. The rest of our fleet chose to sail above the freighter, closer into Burlington. A few gusts rounded us up, but we took the lift each time, holding our line through some light air into a nice patch of wind before tacking over to approach mark #5. A beautiful tack, strong wind and great pointing had us on the layline. Couldn’t have called it better! (truth be told, I thought we would have one more leg on Starboard before rounding, but the boat was pointing so well we sawed off a tremendous corner. And this kept Eclipse at bay.
Four Hands had no time to set the pole before we rounded, but he had it up and ready quickly afterwards and we filled our spinnaker, sailing deep so as to make the committee boat without a jibe. Too deep, though, we couldn’t fetch the boat. So, instead of jibing the spinnaker we just jibed the main for a few boat lengths to finish. 17 seconds ahead of Eclipse, after nearly an hour of racing. Fantastic! (that’s 0.4% difference in our speed, or the difference between 7.00 knots and 7.03 knots sustained for an hour)
And what a great night. Warm, fast, fun, and a great spirit on board. Apres sail we sat long in the midsummer light, enjoying the glow of a great night on the bay.
(And Bob Duggan popped by so that I had the chance to check if I was right to call Eclipse up at the start line — from my description he concurs: unless they could have sailed clear across my bow, they had to stay up). Cool!
Gorgeous night on the water — warm, soft humidity, moderate changeable breeze and a pastel sky. And it was the first night with our new toys. Check out the video for the hardware in action, some really crisp maneuvers and nature’s display
Our start was great, and we were flying out of the gates with great boat speed. After that, somehow the decisions went against us. Battlewagon and Big Yellow chose to tack over to the Burlington shore early in the beat, while we pressed on to the Hamilton shore with Eclipse. By the time we crossed, our rivals were so far ahead as to be beyond reach.
And as we approached the windward mark, the swirly air around the west end of the bay seemed to conspire against us, conceding ground first to Eclipse, and then ultimately to Sandpiper. But once we hoisted our Spinnaker, we quickly overtook Sandpiper and then closed some of the distance on the others…but not enough to reach them.
And that’s how it goes some times. Never mind, it was great to stop working and get out in the fresh air with good friends. The new gear looks great and feels crisp, and apres sail we collected our laurels from the spring series.
