Category: Race Reports

After ferocious winds these last few days, we were prepared for another knock-down battle with mother nature, but the scene at the marina portended a different kind of night.  Clear blue skies, warm sunshine, flat water and a solid breeze, but nothing maniacal.  With David away, and Calvin on the injured list (sprained finger or something like it), we imported a ringer from the Tuesday crew, and Four-Hands was definitely the difference maker tonight.

Setting a course when the wind is from the NW is always tricky on the bay, but I really like what the RHYC committee decided to do.  They dropped a mark south of 14, closer to the Hamilton shore and sent us on two laps of a triangle course.  It was a short beat up to mark #6, then a fetch to Mark #1 on a close reach (with plenty of gusts), and then a reach down to the drop mark (just low enough to carry the spinnaker).

Before the race, we sailed with the #3 jib, and really enjoyed great balance in apparent winds up to 18 knots, with 7+ knots of boat speed.  No need for more power at all.  But then, just as the sharks were starting, a great big lull settled onto the bay.  We were half way between changing to the #1 (or the #2, we couldn’t make up our mind) when the wind came howling back, so we stayed with the blade as a headsail.  Looking back, the #2 might have been the better choice, as we were a little slow on the beat.  But when the gusts came on, we certainly didn’t lack for power.

Our start was okay, timing was good, but somehow we struggled to accelerate, and Top Gun and Battlewagon got away.  Approaching the first mark, we were in third and then misjudged the layline (twice in one week — arrrgggghhhh).  By the time we threw in two extra tacks, the others were well in front.  But the fetch to #1 was a good leg for us on both laps.  Bert kept adjusting the jib to get the most out of every gusty shift in wind direction, and Gadget kept us flat and surging forward when the gusts came.  Meanwhile, Lazy Sheet and Four Hands got ready for a jibe set.  Around we went, up went the kite and we started flying.

PERSPECTIVE loves a hot spinnaker angle in 12 knots of wind.  A quick glance over our shoulder, and we had overtaken Battlewagon in the hoist and started adding distance.

After the douse, we got caught in some bad air from slower boats and lost a bit of ground to Battlewagon before we broke free, but they were still astern when we rounded #6 again.  This time, we stretched away while they got caught in the bad air from the same slower boats.  Once again, we played the gusts well and extended our lead.  The next hoist wasn’t quite as quick, but we soon got flying again.  Here’s a clip of us overtaking Christephanie on the second spinnaker leg:

By the time we started the final beat to the finish line, we had a generous lead over Battlewagon.  Yes Top Gun finished well ahead of us, but we were all very satisfied with our performance.

Back at the dock, Skootch and Stitches greeted us with smiles and snack and we all enjoyed a mellow time on a gorgeous summer evening.  Let’s have more of these!

OK, I see the pros doing it.  I’ve heard that it matters.  But I’ve never felt it before.  I’ve never noticed its impact.

But now I have!

With the boat tuned much better, we are starting to notice the finer details.  A few cm of trim on the mainsail tweaker can give us an extra degree of pointing ability….and so can one more guy on the rail!

It was a perfect night for noticing the finer details, with steady wind right in the range that PERSPECTIVE loves best.  With the new #1 flying tight and the mainsail drawing fully (just a flutter of backwinding), we could focus on a technical race.  As each lad came to their spot on the rail, we pointed one more degree closer to the wind.

Kiwi gave us another great start, and we held our lane on Battlewagon, eventually climbing up to put them in our bad air.  Meanwhile, Top Gun came out to play, and we held our lane on them too later on in the race.

All the tacks were crisp.  Here’s a nice example, with a little treat at the end as all three boats were in close quarters!

Yep, that was Battlewagon just crossing the bow of us and Top Gun.  Looking back at the upwind leg, we probably put in an unnecessary pair of tacks, losing a couple of boat-lengths.  Then, someone (the flibberdigibbet on the mainsail) misjudged the layline to the mark, so we needed another pair of quick tacks to round.  That threw off our hoist, and when we finally got flying downwind, there were just too many boat-lengths to make up.

It felt like we made up some of the distance, but not enough to overtake.  Top Gun got the gun, Battlewagon second, and we were a bit behind.

Results just came in…we did just enough to claim 1st for the Tuesday Spring Series. Way to go guys!

This is the best of summer.  Bright sky with watercolour clouds, and a steady moderate breeze.  It was the kind of night where details matter — technical sailing — and there was time to focus on the details.  And it was the kind of night PERSPECTIVE loves best.

But the evening began with a hiccup.  The engine wouldn’t start!  Odd, since its been starting like a charm lately.  David got busy troubleshooting and trying some workarounds, but no luck.  With the wind off our starboard stern, we sailed gently out of the slip under mainsail, while Calvin was a few docks down with a long black docking line on our bow to make sure we started our turn.  Piece of cake — and we picked him up at the poop dock without even stopping!

We took our time choosing the headsail.  #1 or #2?  That was the question.  The wind was just right in the middle of the zone.  When the moment came to decide, it was gusty, so we opted for number 2.  By the time we started, it had eased a bit, and we were starting to wonder if #1 would have been better.  We’ll never know, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t have had much effect.  With the smaller, flatter genoa, we could power up the main the whole time, and point the boat nice and high.  Might have gotten more speed from the #1, but would probably have been overpowered, and sacrificed some pointing by having to ease the main.

As it turned out, it was just fine!

We had our eye on a starboard start near the pin end of the line, in order to push out to the better wind near the Hamilton shore, but we were a bit early.  I tried to dump speed and add distance, but we were still going to be about 20 seconds early.  Battlewagon were going for the boat end of the line, and running a bit late, so we tacked onto port, rode the line a bit to get speed and then hardened up right at the gun.  It was a well timed start, and we crossed well ahead of Battlewagon.

A short time later, we tacked and found ourselves parallel to Battlewagon, and well ahead.  We pushed well into the Hamilton shore, put in another clinical tack and were almost laying the mark.  This gave us the time to tweak the trim, get the most out of the boat and enjoy the ride.

David went solo on the foredeck for the first time tonight — flawless! Squirrel trimmed the genoa perfectly.  Lazy Sheet’s releases on the tacks were textbook.  And Gadget got everything out of the mainsail as the wind grew and faded.  It was a pure joy to get everything right!

Around the mark, hoist and away!  We had a sizeable lead on our rivals by now, and settled into making the boat go fast downwind.  We put in a couple of jibes to stay near the rhumb line and extended our lead.  We doused a wee bit early, just to make sure it all went well, and enjoyed more technical sailing up to claim our gun!

And then a special treat:  we sailed the boat right into the marina, and into our slip, docking PERSPECTIVE like a dinghy.  Clinical!

Afterwards, Brian Garrett stopped by to commend us on our boat handling.  Nice!  Here’s a video of our start, and cool docking 🙂

With a chilly gusty breeze coming off the Burlington shore, the race committee set an interesting course, which amounted to a near fetch, a fetch, a reach and a fetch.  It’s so fun and pretentious to use all these special words, so I’ll translate:

A beat is when you have to tack back and forth to sail upwind to the mark.

A fetch is when you can get there without tacking.

A reach is when you are sailing across the wind.

I made up the near-fetch…meaning that you spend almost all the time on one tack and just a wee bit on the other.

We did all that in 34 minutes!  Add the gusts, and the course made for a lot of action on board for a crew of four.  We all had to bounce around between multiple roles with Afterguy on the foredeck (mostly), (un)Lazy Sheet tending just about every line at some point or another.  I was mostly on the main, but somehow ended up with the spinnaker sheet in my hand AND in the hole for the douse.  Kiwi drove and took care of anything he could reach.  Megatasking at its best!

And all that hustle paid off with yet another gun in the match-race with Battlewagon.  AND we made all the right sail choice decisions.  AND Kiwi was sharp as ever.  AND Afterguy was awesome on the foredeck (first time on his own up there).

We left port with the #3 hoisted, and it felt like the right choice as the gusts were strong and shifty, but when we saw the course they had set, we realized there was very little pure upwind sailing, AND if we didn’t hoist the spinnaker (big breeze, short-handed crew), we would want the bigger sail area for the reach. So, with not much time to spare, we changed over to the #2.  By the time we had set our cars, we were a good distance from the start line and our sequence had already begun!  YIKES.

But check out the beautiful shape that the #2 genoa has.  I love that sail!

With a full head of steam, we charged back down to the committee boat, reaching it with just one minute to go.  So much for the idea of a port-tack start at the pin end.  Battlewagon pulled that off while we were still on Starboard reaching along the line toward the pin.

Never mind, the wind had shifted a bit by this time, so we carried further on starboard and put in a great crisp tack to almost lay the mark.  Approaching the layline we were on port, Battlewagon on starboard (with the right of way).  Kiwi brought us right in snug, we tacked over hard and made the mark with Battlewagon in our lee bow.

On the next leg, the fetch, Battlewagon was breathing down our neck, but Kiwi pinched a bit now and then to keep them from rolling over us, and eventually we got the boat into a great mode and began to stretch away to the next mark.

All this while, Afterguy was rigging the boat for a jibe-set, and spotted that the halyard was on the wrong side — BRILLIANT!  We jibed around the mark, set the pole, and were about to hoist when the wind shifted forward in a gust.  Kiwi spotted it and we rode it out with the genoa and only hoisted after the gust had passed.  Fantastic.

Ahead of us, boats were broaching, so we eased the boom vang as a precaution, and steered through the puffs. By now, we had extended our lead nicely.  A smooth douse, quick tack, and off went to the committee boat to collect another gun!

Feels great to put together such a great race on a breezy night with just four on board.  And feels great to know we have depth in the crew with more and more people getting comfortable on the foredeck!

Yep you read the windspeed right — up to 20 knots, gusting even more.  It was ripping out there!

And we were completely overpowered by flying the wrong headsail.  Although it was windy at the start (around 15 knots), several forecasts showed the wind dropping shortly after the start, so we opted to fly the old #1.  Besides, it wasn’t a long way upwind to the windward mark, and we would be grateful for the extra sail area on the final upwind when the wind dropped.  Right?

WRONG!

The forecasts were wrong and the headsail choice was wrong!  Instead of dropping for the final beat, the wind grew to a veritable roar, and our only option at that time was to partially furl it to maintain a modicum of control.  So we spent the night hanging on for dear life, and loved it!

Until the final beat we sailed a great race.  With the shrouds tight, the backstay on, the outhaul maxed and the genoa in as tight as it could go, we were hitting 7+ knots upwind.  In the lulls, Gil could get a bit of the mainsail to draw, but then another gust would come and the main was completely inside-out with just the genoa drawing.

We started on starboard near the boat end, powering up a bit late, so that Battlewagon — who started on port tack near the pin end — were able to cross ahead of us.  Shortly after that we tacked onto port and nailed the layline to the mark.  Halfway there, Battlewagon came across on starboard with the right of way, but we were able to squeak by them.  That translated into a couple of boat-lengths lead at the windward mark.

We were set for a bear-away spinnaker set, but I had my angles backwards in my head, and had  Calvin and David re-route everything for a jibe set.  (WRONG AGAIN!)  We rounded the mark, bore away and voila, we were on the rhumb line for the leeward mark down by the golf-course.  So, Calvin and David re-routed everything again (they should have thrown me overboard by this point), and we hoisted a bit late.  It didn’t cost us much, though as we were flying along with the big #1 and full main, clipping almost 8 knots.

But then the excitement hit another gear.  Have a look:

Yes, two broaches and a new speed record.  WOOHOO!  10.7 knots of blasting along.  To get there, we had all our crew weight at the back of the boat on the windward side to keep it as flat as we could and help the boat get onto a plane.   (Hull speed is 7.6 knots).  What an amazing feeling!

With all this craziness, we were able to extend our lead by a few more boat-lengths at the leeward mark.  The lads put in an awesome douse under high winds, and we jibed around the mark to discover ourselves woefully overpowered for the final beat.  After struggling along for a while, we furled part of the foresail.  Meanwhile, Battlewagon, flying a #3 jib, and using all her beam was able to grab a line straight to the committee boat, pass us, and add quite a lot of distance.

Hats off to our rivals for their win, tonight.  What a thrill ride!

I’d love to do it all over again with a smaller headsail.  Encore, Encore!

Absolutely gorgeous evening, tonight — warm, sunny, with just enough cloud to make a great sunset, and a big juicy moon rising early.  It doesn’t get much better than this!

And neither does a race 🙂

Tonight was a match-race between Battlewagon and us.  Kiwi had us at the line right on time, just to leeward of them, pushing them up at the committee boat.  They came down on us — if they hadn’t, they would have been over early.  We protested and I tried to goad them into doing their turns, but they refused.  So, we started to leeward of them and half a boat-length astern.  In other words, in their bad air.  They pushed forward and as soon as we could, we tacked under their stern.  They tacked to cover.

We were ahead and to leeward, and there wasn’t enough room to tack across their bow.  In other words, they were controlling us.  So, we got into pointing mode (yes! it is starting to make sense!), and climbed up high enough to start putting bad air on them.  They tacked.  We tacked to cover.  But the difference in the quality of our tacks made a big difference.  The guys nailed our tack and suddenly we were to windward of them and even.

With a focus on sail trim — fine-tuning the jib car, the traveler and both sheets, we got into a nice high fast groove, keeping pace and pointing just as high as Battlewagon.  Next tack, same thing again.  Afterguy and Lazy Sheet put in another crisp one and now Battlewagon was behind and to leeward.  One more tack onto the layline and we were leading at the windward mark by about 5 boat-lengths.

A solid hoist extended our lead, but Battlewagon began to hunt us on the downwind, trying to steel our wind.  I think we were just far enough ahead that this didn’t have much effect.  Eventually, they chose a higher angle and more speed.  We jibed twice to the mark, whereas they pushed out further toward Hamilton and came in with just one jibe to the mark.

Our douse was  pretty smooth, except the halyard got jammed between the genoa and the spreader.  Funny, we never had that happen before.  Couldn’t see anything on the video, so it remains a mystery.  Around we went, getting into our groove quickly, and putting in another crisp tack before looking back.  Clearly our rivals had some trouble with their douse, because they were coming back from well below the leeward mark.  (I learned later their pole up line had jammed in its sheave, causing no end of trouble, and Chris Cumming almost ended up in the drink!  Fortunately, no one hurt and everyone back safely).

With the door closed, we focused on speed and pointing and put in one last tack to get the gun at the line.  Great race! Great teamwork! Great result!

And now for the extra bit!

On the weekend I changed the fuel filter and the water separator filter.  Afterwards, I bled the engine and ran on idle for about 30 minutes.  Everything seemed fine.  Tonight, heading out, the engine stalled several times.  When it was time to come back in, she wouldn’t start. Odd!

So, we sailed into the marina and docked under sail.  The wind was light, but it was shifty, so it became an interesting puzzle to solve.  Twice, we were drifting backwards, and once — just as we were about to dock — the wind shifted 90 degrees and we had to bail.  Here it all is on video.

After tying up on the ‘poop dock’, I was wracking my brain to find the root cause.  Something was bugging me, so we checked.  Sure enough, I had left the fuel shut-off valve closed!!  Won’t make that mistake again 🙂

So, after snack, we fired up the engine and docked her properly in slip #214.

Yep, enough breeze tonight to rip the rust right off an old bolt, wash the topsides of the deck, and power up every line!

Grinding was tough, gusts demanded attention, and that darn spinnaker pole had a mind of its own.  We worked for our gun, and PERSPECTIVE didn’t let us down.  Here’s how it went…

It was a balmy summer evening, as the 33C heat of the day was mellowed by a thin haze that kept away the twilight chill.  By the time we all gathered at the boat a lovely 12 knot breeze from the SW made it even more comfortable and we headed out with full sail. Old #1 Genoa, and cap shrounds a wee bit tighter.  Calvin finished the last few bolts in the seat lockers, we stored the tools and prepped the ship.

Out on the water, once we opened up the genoa, we were flying, and each tack got neater as we started to remember last year’s rhythms and Bert found his groove on the foresail trim for the first time.  There were more boats out than Tuesday, so the committee boat organized two starts, sending off the boats without spinnakers first, and us 5 minutes later.  This time we heard the horn correctly, and timed our start well.  We had the chance to push Pandora over the start line, but since this was a practice race, I made a little room for them.  Of course, that put us in a slot with bad air between Pandora to windward and Battlewagon to leeward. There was nothing to do but foot off and go for speed, which let Battlewagon climb clear ahead of us and continue to send us bad air.

Approaching the layline on port, Battlewagon was dead ahead and tacked early.  Pandora was behind us and to windward.  I didn’t think we’d be able to cross them,  so we pushed on a bit further, and I tacked expecting to have to duck them.  But something magic happened, and we got quickly into a high mode, cleared Pandora and sawed off a corner that also left Battlewagon behind us at the mark rounding!

Our hoist was smooth and it took us a bit to get into good spinnaker trim, but we extended our lead on Battlewagon, who chose to sail higher than us.  Pandora took a low course, so the three boats fanned out with us in the middle, pulling slightly ahead.  Pandora jibed first and chose a deep line to the leeward mark.  We jibed a bit later.  The jibe was good, but I turned up to a hot angle before we had our pole firmly set and spinnaker filled.  Yep, that was a cobweb that blew away quickly.  I think Gil, Calvin and Bert all got longer arms trying to control the power in the sheet, guy and pole.  Eventually, I realized I should turn down to a lower angle and the guys got the pole secured (and a few wraps on the sheet).

Then we turned up to the course to the leeward mark and the boat just took off!

We outpaced Pandora, and Battlewagon jibed even later than us, putting them well astern into the approach to the leeward mark.  Our douse was great — and we even remembered to harden our halyards and outhaul and backstay and such beforehand!  Skootch popped in the hole and  gathered in the big kite in a snap.  Around we went, got ourselves trimmed up, and then tacked over to find the better breeze away from the Burlington Shore.

A big laker was anchored in our path.  I tried to pinch above it, but no dice.  We saw a nice slot of pressure close in, so we tacked late and enjoyed some heavier air and gusts (I saw 20 knots apparent wind in one of the lulls, so there was plenty of wind).  Battlewagon looked to be coming up strong, and I worried for a while that they might lay the finish line.  But just like us, they needed another tack to finish, so when we put in our tack to cross the finish line, it was clear we had closed the door on them.

What a great practice outing for the Thursday crew!

Ten boats showed up for a practice race in 5 knots of breeze on a cloudy, cool May evening.  They started us all at once, but that’s not where tonight’s story begins.

Kiwi, Afterguy, Four Hands and I all got to the dock in plenty of time, took a look around and got familiar with the new instruments.  A Velocitek compass/start timer that is really easy to use (if you hear the 5 minute warning gun), and an iPad showing Performance on a scale where 100 equals the Polar Table theoretical speed for the conditions.

At six, we left the dock, motored out and hoisted sail.  A few tacks later, we had swept away some cobwebs and started to remember the way things go.  By now, we were pretty far from the committee boat, and decided to hoist the spinnaker to sail downwind toward them.  Good thing we did — we found out that the spinnaker halyard was caught between the genoa halyard and the forestay, so we had to take down the genoa in order to free it.  Once that was done, we were flying our great big blue kite….

…and we had a long way to go to the committee boat.  Over the radio we heard that they were about to begin the start sequence, and we were still ten minutes away.  A little diplomacy over the VHF, and the start was delayed ten minutes.  Wonderful.

Douse.  Tap the pin end of the line and the committee boat on the Velocitek.  Oops, pressed the wrong button.  Do it again.  Got it!

Horn.  Hit the gun button.  Get focused.  Kiwi at the helm, bring us near the line with a minute to go.  We sail along it.  Horn.  Away we go.

Wow, what a great start —  all the rest of the boats are way back.  Hmmm.  Something wrong?  Horn.  Ahhhh, we started a minute early!  (but somehow so did Battlewagon!)

Back we went for our second start, with Battlewagon just astern.

Upwind we played the wind shifts well, and stayed in decent pressure, so that we climbed back above everyone else except Perry-Eh, who were sailing really well.  The feedback from the iPad was really good, pushing us to not be satisfied with our trim.  Hoist was smooth, and we were comfortably secure in front of Pandora and Battlewagon.  Tonight all the maneuvers were really smooth.  It was great practicing in the light breeze.

But then we got greedy.  Rather than sailing a deep line to the finish, following Perry-Eh, we opted to jibe, sail higher and faster and then jibe back.  Unfortunately, we sailed out of the good air, and by the time we rejoined the others we were to leeward and just a hair behind Battlewagon and unable to overtake.  They finished about 15 seconds before us.

But this is why we practice!