Category: Race Reports

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!

Today the weather played every tune it knows, but it didn’t give us much wind.   The morning was gray, the early afternoon it poured, then the sun came out and the wind disappeared.  Slowly, slowly the wind built to something pleasant.  Slowly, slowly it faded away.  And slowly, slowly we sailed around the course.  It was warm and sunny and there was live music from Hamilton’s shoreline. A splendid evening, but a little more wind would have made it perfect.

Drifters like this are tricky.  It’s hard to stay focused, yet focus is needed to keep the boat moving and find the ideal trim.  And just when you’ve got the boat going, the wind shifts or fades or builds and you have to start over.  And there’s too much time to think about tactical and strategic decisions.  Too much time for second guessing, and regretting.

The race began with a fine start, leeward of Top Gun, just astern of Legacy, and we pushed far to that Hamilton shore.  Sandpiper had the same idea and pushed even further than us.  But once we tacked over onto port we had trouble building boat speed and fell into some holes.  Even so, we rounded in a good position, hoisted quickly and searched for the wind.  There were little puddles of wind here and there, too many choices, none of them great!  Battlewagon kept it simple — sailing high over toward Hamilton and jibing back to the mark.  It was the best choice.  Top Gun, Legacy and Big Yellow, jibed over toward the middle of the bay.  It was the worst choice.  We split the difference, and were able to close in on Big Yellow by the leeward mark.  In fact, there wasn’t much distance separating the fleet at that point.

As we prepared our douse, on port jibe fetching the mark.  Big Yellow approached on Starboard jibe.  I called out offering them mark room — they had a definite overlap on us — but they kept calling out Starboard, and aimed right at us.  Odd.  They were deliberately overstanding the mark, and preparing to jibe?  In typical fashion, they wanted to engage in robust dialogue while on the course, an invitation I declined.  We doused, headed across their stern rounding to windward of them, puting in a ‘quick’ tack back toward Hamilton.  Meanwhile they got stuck in a cloud of sails, as smaller boats had by now established a position between Big Yellow and the mark.

Here’s the replay

So, we were in a great position relative to our fleet, and sailing in the direction we wanted, but then the twitchy wind and the details of sail trim got us.  Slowly we lost ground to Big Yellow.  Then Sandpiper overtook us like we were standing still.  And finally, it looked like Eclipse might overtake us before the finish line.  We rallied our focus, found another half knot and made darn sure to put ourselves between Eclipse and the finish line.

With a sigh of relief we crossed ahead of them.

Drifters just prove how much we still have to learn!  Proof?  Chatting with Bob Duggan at the dock afterwards.  He had a terrific race!  I felt like young Luke Skywalker talking to Yoda.  Time to go get some power converters!

(But the engine works now!)

 

What an unexpected thrill ride!

And what a fantastic crew!

As we gathered at the dock on a sunny warm, calm evening we all had the same thought — not much wind, but a welcome chance to enjoy a lovely summer evening on the water.  And that’s how it began.

In fact, there was a bit more breeze at the start than we reckoned, a pleasing 7 knots or so.  Great!  We won’t struggle to keep the boat moving.  We even noticed a nice patch over on the Burlington side but none of the sharks were going for it, so we opted instead to go toward Hamilton.

Our start wasn’t bad, but a little late.  Under a cloud of canvas we opted to sail low and fast over to the better air at the Hamilton shoreline.  ReMarkable had the same idea, and pushed into the shore ahead of us, while the others tacked earlier to stay in the middle of the bay.

And then an unexpected wind shift hit us at the perfect time:  it backed just enough that when we tacked onto port, we were laying the mark!  That meant more time sailing upwind for the others in the fleet and a quick fetch for us.  The wind had also begun to build.

As we approached the windward mark, we had to cross the path of many boats that had begun their downwind leg.  It was great fun threading the needle among the beautiful spinnakers to claim our spot: we rounded just behind Top Gun.  ReMarkable had a commanding lead.  And this is how tonight’s video starts — sorry about my backside in the foreground, just focus on the periphery, where all the action is.  You’ll see us finding a line through thick traffic during which we did not have the right of way at all.

As there was no time on the layline, our hoist took a few extra moments, but then we powered up with Top Gun in our sites.  With the wind shift in place, it was a drag race to the leeward mark and the wind began to build even more, with some pretty strong gusts.  We watched the boats ahead to see where the gusts were.  One by one they nearly broached as a gust caught them unawares.  We were ready though, kept the pole nice and low, and begain to steer downwind as soon as the gust began to hit us.  As a result, we kept the boat flat and fast.  It was total concentration and great fun!

A clean douse a little early, around and back up.  It wasn’t a fetch all the way to mark #1 so we chose to tack early, and used Pandora II and Coyote to judge our line to the windward mark, splitting the difference between their choices.  Coyote had it right and we could have pushed a little further toward Hamilton, but at least there was no risk of overstanding.

Battlewagon and Sandpiper opted to stay along the Burlington shore, and we all got a lift when we needed it.  As a result, they were able to avoid the extra tacks we had done, and Battlewagon rounded before us, with Sandpiper astern.

Hoist again, clean again, and now it was a downwind drag race with Battlewagon.  We quickly came even with them as they took a bit longer to hoist and had traveled a bit further toward Hamilton.  Separated by 5-10 boat lengths we wrestled side by side down the bay.  Now they would pull ahead a bit, then we would catch a gust and gain on them.  Neck and neck the whole way.

Time to douse.  Clean for both.  They had a slightly hotter angle to the mark and pulled clear ahead.  I gave them mark room.  A shark had the inside lane on them, Chris had to give the shark mark room, and a window of opportunity opened up.  A very narrow window.  More like the eye of a needle.

As the shark doused and rounded, I swung wide before the turn, and then turned hard into the gap between the shark and Battlewagon, nearly clipping the shark’s outboard engine and squeezing into a tiny space to windward of Battelwagon.  Everyone was ready and we hardened up  just inches from Battlewagon.  Close enough to discuss world affairs.

Yup, we threaded that needle too!  (too bad the camera had been bumped, and was pointing a bit at the sky)

But with the wind up in the 12 knot range, it was really time for the #2 genoa.  The black one that is nice and flat and lets us point high.  The #1 is quite deep, and soon we could feel the effect of this.  Battlewagon pinched and pinched until we couldn’t fill our sails and we slipped gradually astern, giving us no choice but to foot off and sail for speed.  This meant an extra two tacks for us, conceding the race to Battlewagon by about 30 seconds.

Meanwhile Sandpiper crossed not far behind us.  It will be interesting to see how all this comes together after PHRF handicaps are applied.

And there are some lessons to learn in here.  Should we have changed headsails?  Could we have done it?  Should we have tacked away from Battlewagon, rather than losing the pinching match and footing off?  Was the backstay on hard enough?  Good things to ponder.

But for now, we will ponder the great thrill of threading the needle at both ends of the course!

Four guys on board on a foggy, chilly, windy night, pulled off a very satisfying 2nd place behind Top Gun. Legacy (a new J35 that sails well) finished ahead of us, but was over the line before the start and didn’t go back to make it right.  Satisfying because we came from behind after a poor start.  Satisfying because we established overlap on Big Yellow at the leeward mark, doused cleanly and kept them in our dirty air in the fetch to the finish line.  Satisfying because it secures us in second place on Thursdays (for now).  Satisfying because we had some things going wrong but recovered quickly and kept on going.  What a great night!

The only blunder we didn’t make right was failing to turn on the camera!

Close your eyes and visualize… (no wait, open them or you won’t be able to read this).  OK, so you’ll just have to imagine lots of water over the rail, Calvin taking a spill as jib sheet wraps around his leg in a tack, Mark falling onto his backside after a tack.  (I guess we were heeling a bit!), Mark facing a completely tangled spinnaker halyard at the tail end of the douse when I needed to jibe the genoa (and Calvin simply unclipping the halyard from the head of the sail and dealing with it on the foredeck) so we could complete our rounding while Big Yellow gave us inches of mark room.

Oh and I split a nail somehow on the mainsheet.

And Lifeline (David) and Lazy Sheet were like octopi managing three jobs between the two of them.  Fantastic!

Here’s how it went:

During the prestart, we had the #2 genoa set and ready.  The wind continued to build, and I was doubting our choice when we saw several of our competitors load up their #3 sails.  Hmmm, looks like we were going to be overpowered.  It was too late to change, so we opted instead to unfurl our genoa only in the final approach to the start.  That was a mistake, because I had expected more of a leap in boat speed.  This meant we were out of position for the start, and ended up smothered in bad air crossing the line at least 20 seconds after the others.   Soon though, we got some clear air and picked up speed.  Time to do something different from the others.

We were the first over on port tack, sailing high and fast in our own clear air.  We buzzed Battlewagon’s stern.  Others boats tacked right away to cover us.  Zig and zag up the course, and we shaved Big Yellow’s stern and made up some ground on Sandpiper.  Still, we were second last around the windward mark.  During our approach, we really had to pinch to make the mark, and gave up quite a bit of time getting around.

But then our hoist was clean and we quickly gained on Sandpiper, who kept their kite below decks in the big wind.  So did Battlewagon.  It was a ‘sheets and guys’ kind of night.

Time for strategy:  The mark was dead downwind (slow).  The wind was stronger toward Hamilton.  Let’s jibe quickly, get over into better air, jibe again and sail a hotter line to the leeward mark.

Good move!  Our jibes were smooth, and after the second one we really heated up the boat speed on a great line to the mark well down yonder.  Big Yellow stayed on the low and slow course and we gained on them steadily.  By holding off our douse for a few more boat lengths we got the inside lane overlapped at the leeward mark, and this was the magic ingredient.  Down came the kite — extremely smoothly for a short-handed crew on a windy night.  Big Yellow gave us mark room, but only inches to spare and there was a moment when we had to jibe, the halyard was jammed and Big Yellow was closing in.  Thanks to Squirrel’s quick thinking, and Lifeline’s quick return to take over the mainsail, we got the barky powered up onto a near fetch to the finish line.

I pinched the whole time to avoid another tack, and to avoid giving Big Yellow a passing lane to windward.  That kept them in our dirty air, so they couldn’t gain.  Their only choice would have been to foot off and tack.  Not a promising option, so they stayed astern.  With a boat length to go to the committee boat, we shot the line to finish just a boat length or two ahead of Big Yellow.  And well ahead of the others!

Bravo Thursday!

What a lovely evening!  Warm, sunny, and more wind than forecast.  It was about 8 knots or so, with a few soft patches and it backed nicely right when we needed to jibe  to the leeward mark, so we got to sail high and fast with the kite up. Four of us on board handled the hoist, jibes and douse with no trouble, and we used our new GHYRA-learned algorithm to keep tweaking to get more boat speed.

Our start plan was to go for the pin end of the line on starboard and tack over to port quickly, as we saw ALL the sharks head over that way.  But on our way to the pin end, it became apparent that all the other boats had the same goal in mind, meaning we got smothered by a lot of canvas.  We opted instead to tack over onto port nearer to the boat end of the line and surge into clear air.  Great decision!  By the time we crossed our fleet, we were just behind Top Gun and ahead of everyone else.

WE SHOULD HAVE TACKED THEN TO CONSOLIDATE OUR POSITION AND STAY IN THE SAME AIR AS EVERYONE ELSE.

But we didn’t, and were punished with a light patch that saw two boats overtake us:  Remarkable and Battlewagon.  Drat!  Never mind, Eclipse and Sandpiper were well astern.

Hoist was clean, a quick jibe after it filled and we sailed a hot angle in pursuit of Remarkable.  Battlewagon had some spinnaker troubles after their jibe and we pulled away.  The wind backed, we jibed and had a quick run down to the leeward mark.  Remarkable maintained their lead, so we decided to douse early to make sure it was clean, and the last leg was a simple fetch to the finish line.

THIRD!

And why was this report called “Dinghy Time?”.  With the engine still not starting, we sailed in and out of the marina, just like dinghy’s do.  Piece of cake, thanks to great advice from Nonsuch — we left and returned under genoa alone.  Sweet!

A short race today to finish off the series.  Going into this finale, we were tied in first with PerryEh (9 points each) and one point ahead of Tardis.  Battlewagon wasn’t in contention.  The goal was to finish far enough ahead of PerryEh to beat them after PHRF correction.  But we owed them a lot of time — we had our work cut out for us.

There was light wind (almost no wind) when we first got out of the marina, but there was a whisper on the water that was promising.  The race committee set a short course for this “around the bay” race (6S-1-11-9-8F), and as our start approached, the wind built into a lovely 8 knots, steady from the West.  It was building from the Burlington shore line, so our goal was to have room to tack right after the start.

At the start line, our timing was good, but PerryEh offered a dangerous choice.  Could we tuck in between them and the committee boat, or was it a trap?  After a moment of hesitation, we chose the conservative option, and started with them just ahead and to windward of us.  No room to tack!  The other option would have been great unless we were early — would have put us ahead and to windward of PerryEh, but they might have been able to push us over the line or — even worse — force us to do a 360 just to avoid the committee boat.

So, we chose the safe option, but had our work cut out for us.  As soon as we could, we tacked toward Burlington, nipping under PerryEh’s stern.  They tacked to cover.  At the Burlington shore, we tacked back, and just made it over their bow.  Not on the layline yet, so one more push toward the Burlington shore.  Now we had gained nicely on PerryEh, but Battlwagon came up and put a lee bow on us at the layline, slowing us down and we lost a few boat lengths.

Hoist was clean and fast.  Which way to go?  Battlewagon headed deep down to mark 11.  Should we stay on their tail?  Should we jibe over to Burlington?  Decisions.  Indecision!

In the end, we probably fiddled too much.  We sailed a hotter angle, jibed over toward Burlington, jibed again and then hunted Battlwagon to the leeward mark.  Yes we did finally close the gap on them, but meanwhile PerryEh held their ground on us sailing deep to mark #11. Hmmm.  One consolation — by this time, Tardis was well behind.

Around we went.  Good air now.  A quick reach over to the golf course and then a beat to the finish line.  Squirrel read the layline perfectly and we tacked onto it while Battlewagon overstood the mark and got tangled up with Celtic Spirit.  Nonetheless, they still finished 30 seconds ahead of us (this has got to stop!).  Looking around, we couldn’t pick out PerryEh at the finish.  Had we beat them by enough time?

Later at the awards gathering, I chatted with Clarke Perry, and we both thought the other of us had won.  He thought we were far enough ahead.  I wasn’t convinced.  Turns out I was right.  Not only  did PerryEh beat us, they also beat Battlewagon, so we took third.

It was all over in 75 minutes.  I wish we could have gone for another lap, but that was all she wrote.  After the race, we hoisted the spinnaker again and enjoyed sandwiches on board.  Back at the dock, one final apres-sail and then our band of merry men went our separate ways.

What a blast…can’t wait to do it all again next year!

What a wonderful day!  Spinnaker up for 3.5 hours from Port Credit yacht club to the Burlington bridge in a breeze that started off around 6-7 knots and built to 14 or so by the end. Not only did the breeze build, but the swell came on as well.  Right now while typing this, i am still swaying in my chair!

This was our first chance to try a spinnaker start — something I’ve always wanted to do, but of course, had no real concept how to do it.  We watched closely as Adrian Hanley (It’s a Conspiracy) pulled off a perfect spinnaker start in the fleet before us.  Under mainsail alone he maneuvered to a position ten boat lengths to windward of the line.  Then with 30 seconds to go, he bore off and went for the line, only hoisting with ten seconds to go.  Bingo, he accelerated and hit the line just a few seconds after the gun.

OK, I can do that (says me), but one problem…I’m near the boat end of the line and can’t accelerate under mainsail alone.  What to do? Improvise.  We just drifted up parallel to the line.  With twenty seconds to go, we were up near the pin end not far from Adrian’s spot, and we did the same thing he did.  Bingo!

Away we went, with the best start in the fleet, spinnaker full and charging away.  But something was wrong.  Smaller boats were overtaking us with their spinnakers filled.  Aha — the halyard was on the wrong side of the forestay, so our hoist wasn’t complete.  What to do.  Quick decision.  Genoa out.  Douse spinnaker. Calvin rejigs line.  I sail higher, across Battlewagon’s stern to windward of them.  Hoist.  OK, we are only a few boat lengths back, and start gathering speed.

Next mistake:  our fleet sailed out toward the middle of the lake on a high angle in search of better wind.  Rather than following  and looking for an opportunity later (maybe trim better than they do, or something like that), I chose a lower, slower course that was more of a straight shot to the finish line.  I guess, I was thinking that the breeze near the shore would grow first.  But I was putting all my eggs in one basket, and as it turned out, the bet didn’t pay off.  In fact, as our air softened, I had to sail hotter angles to keep up boat speed and after about an hour, it became apparent that we had fallen quite far behind our fleet

It was time for a bold move.  We jibed back toward shore and sailed deep again. Once again we were on the rhumb line, and now the stronger breeze supported a deep point of sail with good boat speed (nearly 7 knots, sometimes more!).  For a while it was looking good, and I learned later that we made the fleet nervous as they saw us picking up speed and sawing off a massive corner in the course.  But when we converged, Battlewagon was ahead, PerryEh crossed at the same time as us and Tardis was just behind.  Correcting for PHRF, it was a fourth place for us.

But what a great day to fly a kite!

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.

No T-shirt for anyone 🙂

We FINISHED!

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!

Here are a few shots, courtesy Lazy Sheet:

Today we hit a new speed record:

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.

C’est la vie!  Never mind — we went over 10 knots!