Author: Rob DeWitte

…the mice beat TOP GUN!

Here’s the summary from our poet laureate, Gil “Gadge” Lamothe:

Well, honestly, if I were to write about what I saw, then it would be a tale of tell tails that I would tell.  Shifty wind doesn’t quite describe it so constant trimming was in order, but I digress…

Ken engineered a great start, both timing and position wise.  The wind out of the NE had us sailing towards mark 7.  We started off on a starboard tack, knowing we would soon be over on port, as the best wind was along the Hamilton side.  Once we felt the wind diminishing, we made the tack and just kept her moving as fast and as high as we could.  There was a progressive lift as we made our way down the bay.  Top Gun was even further toward the Hamilton shore, clearly off our starboard side.  Sometimes we were faster, then they were faster.  As the lift continued to build, they were more and more to the outside of the course, and maybe not getting lifted quite as much.  Finally they tacked, we held our line, and they cut our wake a good 5 boat lengths below us.  It was clear the boats in the center of the course were losing wind, so we stayed wide and went significantly higher than the “lay line”, to ensure that we could withstand any knocks that might take place near the pin.  Battlewagon tacked earlier, and were able to hold that lay line, rounding just ahead of us.  Top Gun was in a world of hurt in the middle of the course, still trying to make headway up the course as we were rounding.  We hoisted and followed Battlewagon on the starboard jibe, debating whether or when to jibe to port to get back to the Hamilton side.  The wind started dying (the course was shortened to 7 – 14) and it was all we could do to maintain way.  We finally got near enough to a patch of wind in the center of the course to risk a jibe and went for it.  Top Gun had finally rounded, we must have had 800 meters on them, and immediately jibed and headed for the Hamilton side.  By the time we reached that wind, Top Gun had a full head of steam and had closed to within 300 meters and gaining.  We jibed to starboard, got trimmed up and finally got some boat speed, but TopGun had closed to 200 meters.  Battlewagon had never jibed and went closer to the Burlington shore, where perhaps a sea breeze had built.  They ran down the course from there and crossed well ahead of us.  We maintained our lead on Top Gun and crossed the line with high fives all around.

We had a full crew tonight and what a difference it made!  The solid breeze meant all the weight on the rail helped us power up and point, while all the experience working together in synchronicity meant for crisp tacks, smooth jibes, quick recovery from the odd stray line and lots of eyes on wind and competition to make good decisions.

And the weather was absolutely stunning.  Warm sunshine, lingering humidity, bright sky — ahhh this is the summer weather we have all been waiting for!

Before the race, the wind was really up.  We were reading over 14 knots in the marina.  But all the forecasts called for the wind to die down.  Sure enough, just after we set the #2 headsail, the wind dropped down into the 10-12 knot range, threatening to drop even more.  Headsail change!  Neatly done and now we had the right amount of power.  Of course, the big sails meant for a busy night for Dinghy on the mainsail trim, but he was right on it.

Port tack and pin end were favoured, so our plan was to start on Starboard down the line somewhere looking for clear air.  Unfortunately, our competitors got in our way, so we ended up closer to the boat than we wanted and just behind Battlewagon (who once again put in a great race).  We tacked away onto Port and enjoyed the lifted tack, but it appeared that the better wind was down near Hamilton, so we tacked back over.  Good move.  We pushed in all the way to the wall before tacking and then put in a few more tacks to stay on that side of the course.  These choices helped us claw back some distance on Battlewagon, and round ahead of Raison d’Etre and Sandpiper.  Remarkable was back out tonight, and rounded just ahead of us.

Even though we had a very short lay line, the hoist was quick and away we went.  We chose a hotter angle than our competitors, which brought us out into the better air near the Hamilton shore.  The jibes were our best ever this year — great to have both Four Hands and Nonsuch up on the pointy end together.  We put in extra jibes to stay out toward the Hamilton shore.  This helped us overtake Remarkable (who didn’t hoist) and expand our lead on Sandpiper and Raison d’Etre.  And we thought it might just be enough to get the inside lane on Battlewagon at the leeward mark, but we rounded just astern.

For the final beat, we chose not to follow Battlewagon to the Burlington shore. Instead we tacked away, looking for the better wind to the finish.  Although we found great wind and sailed fast and high, it wasn’t enough to close the gap on our rivals.

What a fantastic night!

We had a premonition of some weather to come during the pre-start as the light breeze suddenly got a bit chillier.  We donned our rain jackets as a precaution.  And that was a move that was rewarded.  By the end of the evening, the only dry parts of us were under those jackets!

But tonight’s race report is not really about the rain, it’s about the sweet satisfaction of overtaking boats in our fleet, a crew in synchronicity and a boat responding brilliantly to the wind and our coaxing.

Before the start, we talked about the lesson of sailing a bit lower and faster in light air and decided to put it to the test.  By and large, Bert left a hand’s-breadth between the upper shroud and the genoa, and I did my best to keep both outer & inner tell-tales streaming.  The result was very satisfying.  We were still pointing high (less leeway, I guess) and our pace was excellent.

The start itself wasn’t spectacular.  The pin end was strongly favoured, as was port tack, so I tried to to tack onto port just before the gun, down near the pin end.  Without enough time to gather speed, we ended up footing off and dipping below most of the fleet before we could harden up.  Shortly after that Battlewagon rolled over us to windward.  We tacked as soon as we were clear, looking for clear air and better wind.

This tack was a big difference maker for us, as we essentially tacked onto a header as a persistent shift continued to progress.  Textbook!  Once on port tack again, we enjoyed good air and a lift to the layline and we were able to cross clear ahead of Battlewagon.  Sweet satisfaction.

Now I should point out there were a lot of boats in our fleet tonight:  two sport-boats (the Viper 830 and a new Esse 850, both with professional skippers and A-team crew), Top Gun, Take-Notice-Again (our favorite yellow boat), Battlewagon and Raison d’Etre.  Eight of us in total.  Approaching the windward mark, we were just a bit ahead of Battlewagon, but the sport boats, Top Gun and the minions were around already.

And then, with just a few boat-lengths to go, the wind lurched to the north, we got knocked way off course and had to tack (with the pole up) to fetch the mark.  It was messy, but it was brief and we tacked back to round.  Up went the kite!  With all the focus on tacking, we hadn’t cleated the guy, so the spinnaker went high in the sky!  Yes, up went the kite!  but this was quickly settled and away we went.

And at some point in all of this, it began to rain lightly.

By now, Battlewagon was a few boat lengths ahead, and it was time to reel in the competitors.  We sailed a very high line to windward of Battlewagon, and managed to catch up and overtake.  White sail boats in other fleets had the rights to push us up, so I kept well clear of them.  Ahead, we watched Wind Thief push Top Gun up terribly, so when it was our turn, we gave them and all their kin a wide berth.  Next up was Big Yellow.  They didn’t fly spinnaker, so we had the speed to overtake them, and were far enough to windward that they didn’t come to sport with us — thank goodness!

Because we needed to jibe at the leeward mark, we doused a bit early, giving time to clear the pole before we rounded.  That was a good move because we arrived amidst a pile of traffic, and were able to choose a pretty good line to windward of most of them.

And during all of this, it began to rain more steadily.

With the wind coming from the North, the final leg was a fetch.  With all the tell-tales glued to the sails, it was hard to know where to aim the boat, but Ken helped me see that I could point much higher.  Sure enough, the boat speed built and we enjoyed a slightly stronger breeze as we cracked off to finish strongly.  Big Yellow rounded behind us but powered up quickly enough to cross the line three seconds ahead of us — well behind on corrected time.

And by now it was raining pretty hard!

As wet as we were, our enthusiasm was not dampened.  We knew we had sailed a good race: smart, well trimmed and well executed.  It was a fourth place finish in a fleet of eight.  That may not sound so great, but when you look at the boats that finished ahead of us…well, to finish top three, we need to beat Top Gun.  I think that just about sums it up!

On the way back to the marina, there was a constant stream of water pouring off the boom right onto my head 🙂

Hastily we put the boat away and then headed up to the club house to wring out our socks, and toast Chris Cumming’s birthday, complete with pizza and cake.  A perfect finish!

A reluctant sea breeze had developed on the bay, and a giant freighter was anchored just to windward of the race course.  The combination made for a tricky night as the wind was really unevenly spread across the course, and the ripples on the water were an unreliable indicator of where to find the wind.

The pin end was strongly favoured as the wind was slightly north of the windward mark.  We opted to start at the pin end on port tack.  Timing was great, but we weren’t quite lifted enough to cross the fleet and ended up dipping two boats on Starboard.  One of them was Battlewagon who tacked onto port soon after and got into a strong groove quickly, while we struggled to get boat speed and strong air.  Nonetheless we stayed ahead of Sandpiper and Raison d’Etre until the last decision of the beat.  They went out to the layline and caught good breeze while we made slow progress in lighter air avoiding the corners and the starboard tack parade like dutiful students of Walker’s book.  We were fourth around the mark (still ahead of Raison d’Etre with Sandpiper just ahead).

Hoist was clean, and a quick jibe was well executed.  We went in search of stronger breeze.

By taking a hot angle, we were able to cross Sandpiper’s stern at close distance (they had done a jibe-set).  They had a bit of trouble with their jibe, but ours went well.  Suddenly we were abeam of our rivals with the inside lane and a long way to go.  Battlewagon was still well ahead (and Top Gun too, of course), so we focused on Sandpiper.

We and Sandpiper were both sailing deep downwind angles to the mark, suffering in the wind shadow of the freighter, so we opted for more jibes and hotter angles toward better wind in the middle of the bay.  It was a great choice that really paid off.  The jibes were solid and we gained on Sandpiper, coming into the leeward mark on a hot angle with plenty of boat speed.  By the leeward mark, there were some smaller boats between us and Sandpiper.  Once again, bold choices with the spinnaker up have served us well.

A knot in the halyard made the douse awkward, but we got sailing upwind with the spinnaker mostly down and kept our line while the lads sorted out the tangles.  Sandpiper emerged from traffic with good boat speed sailing lower and faster than us.  For a while, they had us looking over our shoulder, but ultimately our high line to the boat end of the finish gave us third place with a 50 second margin.

There’s something to learn here though, about the value of sailing upwind low and fast on these light nights — go for boat speed!

Race #2 was cancelled due to high winds on Saturday, and Race #3 was shortened due to low winds on Sunday.  Go figure!

But it was a good thing that the course was shortened.  It took Brian Garrett and I five hours to sail the same course Jan Varkevisser and I sailed in two hours just a few weeks earlier.  It seems like we are getting more than our fair share of light wind races this year.  This particular race had two very interesting surprises.

The first came right after our start.  As we approached the line the wind shifted a bit and slackened.  As a result we were a bit late and away from the committee boat, which had been our target.  Three boats in our start managed to hit the boat end well timed, and it took us a bit to get out from under their shadow and gain some momentum.  But that gave us the chance to spot some much better wind filling in away from shore.  We tacked away to claim it, sailing about 5-10 minutes on port until we were solidly in the better breeze.  Back onto starboard we began reeling in the fleet to leeward.  Only a few boats followed us to the better air.  Some held the rhumb line to the mark, and some sought better air into shore.  We aimed a bit above the mark to give ourselves some buffer in case of a header.  The header never came, and some of the boats below us were able to fetch the mark ahead of us.  Most were well astern!

Then it got silly.

The wind shut down.

The halyard popped off the spinnaker during the hoist and traveled all the way up the mast.

All the boats were standing still.

The finish looked to be downwind — we needed the spinnaker.

Brian is lighter than me.

We only had the jib halyard.

That doesn’t enable someone to reach the masthead.

Long story short: mid-race in a windless hole surrounded by a dozen stranded boats, I hauled Brian up to the hounds armed with a boat hook and a wad of duck tape.  Gingerly he got a grip on the halyard and brought it down.  Up went the kite!

But by this time, we were facing the wrong direction, sailing the wrong direction and the wind had shifted direction completely.  So we carried the kite for only a few minutes to get to some breeze near the shore of Toronto Islands.  Douse, headsail, back on course, look around.

How much did all that spinnaker fuss cost us?  At most 10 boat-lengths!!!

Brian drove, and I tweaked and we managed to finish third in our fleet.  But, first place might have been ours if we hadn’t lost all that time fussing over the halyard!

Never mind, it was a great day with a funny story to tell, and most importantly, we were all safe.

And there is another lesson to learn here.  About an hour before the finish, we crossed ahead of Lively, a J109 in our fleet with about the same rating.  They were sailing low and fast, while we were sailing high and slow.  For a time, we thought our choice to sail less distance would benefit us, but ultimately, Lively finished 9 minutes ahead.  With light wind, and a bit of a gentle swell on the lake, clearly going low and fast was key.  Let’s try to remember this on light nights!

Tonight was a showcase of how quickly weather can change.  At the dock, things were calm.  Dark sky was stacking to the SW, but a lovely picturesque sky hung above us.  The water was smooth and the wind was light.

We motored out.

Slowly, the undulating glass of the bay gathered a faint ripple, maybe 3 knots of wind.

We set the mainsail.

Ordinarily, these conditions would suggest a #1, but there was something about the sky that made me wary.  It was unstable to the south, and gathering darkness.

We left the headsails below decks and waited.

The faint ripple grew to a steady breeze, maybe 7 knots of wind.

Again, the #1 seemed logical, but we defered.

A hint of 10 knots of wind, and we opted to set the #2.  I doubted the choice as we watched other fleets starting.  We were seeing gusts of 12 knots — easy to carry on the #1. But with 7 minutes to our start, the storm to the south sent us its power.  Even the #2 seemed too much as we eased everything to maintain control.

With that much force, our prestart was messy, but Ken was at the helm and did a great job to get us in position for the approach.  We were above the layline near the committee boat, and had to kill time.  Ken feathered us up perfectly with Sabotage ahead of us and Top Gun to leeward, ready to push us up if we went for the boat.  Sails were flapping, the wind was roaring and the boat was heeling.  But we held off for long enough and then charged the line.

(Battlewagon, opting for a headsail change at the start, chose to start the race and retire).

At this time, the wind had shifted south west — it was coming from the storm clouds.  So we were close-hauled almost parallel to the line, with Raison d’Etre astern keeping us from tacking.  Eventually they tacked, we followed and Top Gun (ahead) did likewise.  This put us on a port tack fetch to the weather mark. At first the wind was aggressive, and Gadget did a great job keeping us flat in the gusts, and Ken claimed all the height we could.  This put Top Gun in a position where they had to overtake from our windward side, and it took them a long time to push through our bad air.  Eventually, though, they were able to do that.  The wind settled down a bit and we were able to trim well to fetch the windward mark, rounding just astern of Top Gun and with mark room on Raison d’Etre.

All this time, I kept one eye on the weather to the south.  Yes we had been sailing toward more friendly skies, but the sky above Mordor flashed its evil intent, and rumbled its dismay at our sport.  Hmmm, I wondered, what lies ahead?

Time to hoist!

We took an extra moment to make sure all was set, and David and Bert cleared a wayward halyard. Up went the kite in a sensible 12 knot breeze, just slightly aft of the beam.  With Raison d’Etre just abeam of us to windward, it took some time to pull free of their shadow.  By this time, our rivals on Top Gun were well ahead.

(Hey, did I just call them our rivals?  Hmmm, haven’t done that before.  But with Sandpiper away, Battlewagon retired and Raison d’Etre astern, it seems right.  Hopefully it stays that way!)

Strategy time.

Raison d’Etre did not hoist.  We could afford to take some risk in order to try to overtake Top Gun.  Following them was not going to make it happen, and they were sailing deep.  Decision:  sail hotter, plan for a jibe, and try to overtake on the downwind.

It almost worked!

(and I’m sure we made them think)

We rounded just astern of them, which shows we gained significant ground downwind.  Of course, by the time we were both powered up they had several boat lengths on us.

Strategy time again.

By now Raison d’Etre was so far astern that we could risk even more.  We expected the wind to veer, which meant that the fastest way to finish was to hold our line  (take our knock early) and tack later.  But that would mean following Top Gun from well astern.  Not a winning scenario.  The other choice would be to tack away to position ourselves for a favorable wind shift.

We did, but of course Top Gun tacked to cover us.  It proved to be a disadvantage to both of us, as we both sailed longer distance in lighter wind — we even allowed a boat from a slower fleet to overtake us.  It was worth a try, but Top Gun preserved their win over us.

All in all, it was an excellent night on the water with a bit of everything: big wind, good start, strong beat, technical downwind sailing, strategic choices, lots of sail trimming, and a solid result.

With all that weather out to the south, it was definitely a time to be wary of dire possibilities.  Prudence on the headsail choice proved to be prophetic, as we would have been all tangled up if we had set the #1.  The worst weather tracked south, and our resolution paid off as we put several points between us and our traditional rivals of Sandpiper and Battlewagon.

Warily resolute.  I like it!

Wary resolution rewarded.  I like it even more!

 

We’ve all been to a picnic, and participated in the three legged race.  Even the best teams stumble and lurch along.  PERSPECTIVE was no exception tonight as both the wind and the race committee surprised us with a very exciting race of just three legs.

The wind was mischievous tonight.  Forecasts suggested the wind would subside to a drifter of 4 knots, so we tuned the boat soft.  Before the start, we had the #1 ready, but we were reading 16 knots of wind plus gusts.  We seriously considered the #2, but then we saw the course:  a short beat, a reach a run and a beat.  We opted to stick with the #1, thinking that we might be overpowered on the short beat, but we’d be happy with the bigger headsail on the reach…and then if the wind died as expected, we’d have the right headsail ready.

But the wind had other ideas: it veered toward the north, the gusts kept coming and the wind did not subside.

We stayed with the #1, and Les got the foredeck ready for a jibe-set at the second mark.  And by now, it was clear that the boat end of the line was strongly favoured.

The start was great fun.  We positioned ourselves near the boat, jibed around to kill time and tore off for the line just above the layline.  Timing looked perfect, but Sandpiper was also well-timed and on the lay-line to leeward.  We dumped wind from main and jib to let them slip ahead and started right on their stern at the boat end of the line.  Battlewagon was over early, a bit down the line.  They had to restart.  Although we suffered a bit from Sandpiper’s bad air, we rode every gust up to sail a line above them, and fetched the windward mark without trouble.  Sandpiper pinched their way around it, and the rest of the fleet had to tack.  Leg #1 was a thrill!

Leg #2 was a weird one.  While Sandpiper focused on hoisting, we kept our spinnaker in its bag, sailed above them and stole their wind.  They slipped behind us and then began to overtake to windward.  Top Gun (no spinnaker) was climbing to their windward side.  Game on — as leeward boat we had rights, and pushed Sandpiper up until their spinnaker was flapping madly; Top Gun, too, had to head up to avoid.  But once we fell off to the proper course, they were both able to roll over us, and the rest of the fleet was gaining from astern.  The wind slackened — hoisting was the answer, but we were rigged for the wrong side. So, we decided to try something a bit creative.  First stumble.  Sorry Les, this was not a good idea.  I said “Hey, let’s just clip the pole behind the bag and hoist the spinnaker where it is.”  The lads complied, the hoist was okay, but the spinnaker was now between the forestay and the main on the windward side of the jib — the totally wrong spot.  Les carefully worked it around to the correct side, during which maneuver he was completely wrapped up in fabric fearing for the moment when it filled.  Would he be launched?  Answer, no, it all worked out okay.  Was this the right choice?  Answer also no.  Next time, we’ll take the extra time to shift the bag to the correct side before hoisting.

We gathered speed and soon were at the turning mark.  A jibe mark!  Fun!  We haven’t had many of these before.  Jibe went well and suddenly we were on a very hot spinnaker run.  Next stumble:  the halyard wasn’t all the way up.  Fixed.  Woowie were we booking! Apparent wind angle was about 60 degrees, boat speed was in the high sevens, and the gusts were doing their very best to broach us.  For the first half of leg #3 we held it well, and overtook Sandpiper (who sailed much lower with their kite), gained on Top Gun (who doused early), and pulled well away from the rest of the fleet.  But we spilled out twice as the gusts rounded us up, and then we doused.

Maybe we didn’t need to douse.

Maybe if we kept it up we would have been able to finish ahead of Sandpiper.

Maybe if we knew that the committee boat had changed the finish line, we would have aimed toward the boat.

Maybe…

But, on this three legged race, we opted to douse.  This was our third stumble of the evening.  Now, a hot douse is tough in the best of times.  This was not the best of times.  This was a learning experience….a teaching moment…the kind of douse that makes your foredeck crew rather vocal (and rightly so). The learnings are below and worth reviewing.  The impact on the race?  Well, by the time we were nicely tucked away and sailing correctly to finish, Sandpiper (who doused earlier — and cleaner — than us) got across our bow and finished about where they started:  12 seconds ahead of us!

So it was about as chaotic as a three legged race at a picnic with more excitement than we bargained for.  Leg #1 was a peach.  Leg #2 was snakes and ladders.  Leg #3 was super mario cart.  Thank goodness no one got hurt and nothing was broken.  The after sail tonight was a special mix of debriefing the douse, a few other pointers, and then laughing off the tension with great team spirit.

What did we review about the douse? (especially applicable for a hot douse)

1. As soon as the person in the hole has the sheet, bowman should holler DOUSE!
2. Blow the guy — don’t ease it, get it off the winch completely (no wraps) and let it run.  Just make sure it runs free
3. Blow the sheet — don’t ease it, get it off the winch completely (no wraps) and let it run.  Just make sure it runs free
4. Pay out the halyard — faster on on windy nights.

And how did we relieve the tension?  (Hint: note the terminology in item #2 above.  Probably not the theme of our crew party at the end of the year.)

 

 

 

I’m in a state of euphoric disbelief as I pen this race report.  But something transpired that was both unexpected, and even unsought this evening.  And it was GOOD!

Our mission was simple tonight — a match race with Battlewagon to secure second place in the Thursday Spring Series.  We were one point ahead going into the race, but needed the win to avoid conceding on a tie break.  Simple enough to state, but not something to count on.  We were focused.

From the wind forecasts, I had a theory:  the wind at the start was a sea breeze that was weakly formed and would die early because the gradient was almost parallel to the shore.  We should watch for the sea breeze to die and be replaced by weak gradient wind from the NE.  This proved to be almost prophetic:  when the sea breeze died, it was replaced by a breeze from the north.

The start was solid.  Ken-too-san at the helm (yes, we imported him from Japan), Skootch on the main, Squirrel on the foresail, Lazy Sheet in the pit, Twisted debuting at the mast and Lifeline on the bow.

But we struggled upwind.  During our apres-sail it became apparent: we still had our shrouds tuned for the conditions we experienced on Tuesday  (yee-haw conditions requiring the #3 and producing water over the rail).  Tonight however, we were sailing in the dying breaths of a reluctant sea breeze.  Sure enough, it was light, soft, dying and backing significantly as the evening progressed.  And we were too tight.

Note to crew:  at the dock we should be always assessing if our shrouds are at the right tension.

Even though we had been charting the wind direction, and vigilant for a shift, our upwind progress set us last in our fleet to round the windward mark.  But I enjoyed another chance to focus on tactics, and we jibed away from the Burlington shore ASAP to head toward better wind on the south side of the bay.  This maneuver made all the difference.  Even though Top Gun and Battlewagon rounded well ahead of us, they each carried their course further toward the Burlington shore before jibing.  They fell into a hole from which it was hard to climb.  Suddenly we had leaped from last place to forth.

On the downwind, we were all in a state of flow, fully engaged in what was happening all around us.  We shifted weight forward (including mine), and followed closely the prospects of the boats ahead.  This helped us to recognize the moment when the wind shift was upon us.  Whereas Sandpiper and Legacy (ahead of us) doused their spinnakers, we merely jibed and carried our momentum beyond them.  Suddenly (aside from Sabotage, already sipping martinis at the club bar), we were ahead of the fleet.

What?

Where was Top Gun?

Astern?

Really?

Are you serious?

Yep!

OK, time to calm down and focus on finishing the race in a dying breeze.  Not so simple as it seems, because, basically, the boats behind keep catching up in distance and the boats ahead are impossible to pass.  With our weight forward, and careful consideration of every adjustment of course, we did indeed cross the line second in our fleet (behind Doug in his Viper).  The teamwork and communication was just perfect as we took our time to consider every option before committing.

There was a great sense of gratification on board as we knew we had sailed an excellent race, especially the downwind leg.  We had certainly accomplished our goal with at least Legacy between us and Battlewagon.  But, from a depth of unconscious calculation, I began to wonder if,  possibly, perhaps, it might be conceivable, if we had (rather) done just enough to perhaps…..

YES WE DID!

Congratulations PERSPECTIVE Thursday crew for the gold flag, Spring Series Thursday!!!!!!

WELL WON!!!!

This is why we love to sail!  Tonight all the elements came together in fluid teamwork to produce an exhilarating race, blowing away any cares that were stewing in the back of our minds. Did I mention that it was windy?

And the result was exactly what we needed to clinch 2nd spot for Tuesday Spring Series.

Our success began at the dock as we hardened the shrouds for the expected wind, and bent the new #3 to the forestay.  I think we’ll call this new weapon “Black Magic“.  (You’ll see why in a minute).  Once that was done, a short pause, until Dinghy basically sprinted from his car on board and we set off.  His class in Toronto had run over, and he missed the intended train. Away we went to meet the whitecaps driven by the SW wind.  We opted to hoist the mainsail with a reef, but after a few tacks, confidence was up and we shook out the reef.

Kiwi was at the helm. so of course we had a good start, choosing clear air at the pin end.  And tonight was the first chance I had to focus as tactician, and pass a keen eye on our sail trim throughout the race.  I really loved the role, finding little opportunities to eke out a bit more performance, sometimes boat speed, sometimes pointing, and keeping an eye out on the competition and other boats on the course.  It’s amazing what you can see when you are at the stern of the boat, and not staring at tell-tales!

Back to the race: Black Magic struck immediately, as Sandpiper gained on us from windward, but couldn’t hold our line.  By out-pointing them, they ended up in our bad air, fell astern and footed off beneath us.  So often that has been us, in the backwind of one competitor or another, and here we were for the first time on the winning side of the exchange.  It also helped to have a complete set of big lads hiking hard to keep the keel gripping the water under the hull.

But our friends on Sandpiper are not easily deterred.  By sailing low and fast while we sailed high and slow it was an even contest, and each time we crossed, we exchanged positions, with the port tack boat dipping the starboard tack boat.  When it mattered most, though, they were able to eke their way around the windward mark just ahead of us.  Game on!

The lads put in a clean hoist, filled the kite and got right abreast our rivals.  Kiwi drove us onward, while we changed the headsail to the #2 for the final beat.  The wind had begun to slacken a bit.  There was a hint of an opportunity to push both Pandora and Sandpiper up as we converged with leeward boat rights, but Pandora’s wind shadow proved too much of a deterrent.  Eventually, they jibed before us, and we opted to take some leverage, before putting in our own clean jibe.  This proved to be a game-changer, since our approach to the leeward mark was a bit hotter and faster than Sandpiper’s.  Although they had the inside lane, we pulled clear ahead just before the three boat-length circle, held our douse until the last possible moment, and rounded ahead.  Even better, a smaller boat from an earlier fleet had overlap on Sandpiper, so our friends had to give them mark room.  By the time they were around and clear, we were well ahead.  It’s amazing how a boat-length can turn into an entire minute!

Now our job was to cover Sandpiper, and with the slightly lighter wind, and my favorite headsail (#2), we had the perfect combination of power and pointing to do just that.  Special shout out to Dingy for masterful and attentive mainsail trim throughout the whole race — glad we waited for you at the dock! The net result was a finish a minute ahead.  Yes, Top Gun took first, but this was the result we needed to secure second place in the Spring Series.

The feeling on board was irreplaceable.  Everyone was in the zone the whole race, the teamwork was incredible and the result was so gratifying.  After putting everything away, our toast had the gusto that comes rarely in life and is so addictive.  Let’s do this again!