Author: Rob DeWitte

Had a fantastic belated father’s day with Skootch today.  We departed Port Dalhousie on placid waters and motored west for an hour until the breeze began off our starboard stern.  Up went the spinnaker and we enjoyed a four hour cruise with the kite drawing us westward between 4 and 6 knots.  With the auto-helm doing its job, we munched sandwiches on the bow, in the shade of the chute!

We even jibed a few times and had no trouble dousing.  Just after we got the spinnaker down, the wind shifted to the south and picked up quickly — our timing was charmed.

Thanks for a great day Skootch!

And now’s she’s snug in Newport, looking dangerously fast!

Calvin and I competed in our first ever pursuit race today:  rather than boats starting simultaneously, each boat has a different start time, calculated so that all the boats would finish simultaneously according to their PHRF handicap.  That meant we were the second last boat to start the race.

NEWS FLASH:  We were the third boat to finish!

Conditions were light.  In fact they looked like another drifter was possible.  The lake was eerily flat with long winding ribbons of milky smooth surface.  After yesterday’s experience I was paranoid about falling into more holes, but the wind indicator showed something between 5 and 8 knots.  One advantage of starting later than others was that we could watch other boats and choose our strategy.  We saw nearly everyone aim straight at Port Dalhousie in a drag race.  The good news was they were all moving!

It seemed that our fleet all had the same idea as us — point higher, just in case the wind shifts.  So one by one, the purple fleet headed about ten degrees above the rhumb line.  They seemed to be doing well, so we made that our plan too.

Starting was a little different, but our scheme worked well.  I synchronized my watch to my iphone, then set my alarm on my iphone for six minutes before our start.  That gave Calvin the chance to start our 5 minute race timer at the right time.  When the race committee called out our one minute warning, we had 59 seconds on the clock.  Perfect!

Genoa out. A couple of tacks.  Still early.  Luff the main. Power up. Reach to the committee boat. One second left.  At the line. Honk. Turn up and go!  That was fun!

During the next 90 minutes we chased the rest of the boats out there, opting finally to sail a little bit of a lower course to maintain boat speed.  As we entered each of those milky patches we held our breath, took note of wind speed, boat speed and heading and were delighted to find out that the wind was not lighter, and it didn’t change direction!  What a relief!  Still, we didn’t dare harden up to a close hauled course, afraid that if we pinched we would lose boat speed and may take a long time to get it back.  The result was that we sailed on the same line as most of the other boats, while our purple fleet carved out a higher line.

It was surreal to be out in the middle of the lake in glassy smooth water, ghosting along at 5+ knots overtaking boat after boat.  Calvin and I were nearly silent, motionless and focused as we let the autohelm hold our course while we held our breath.  During this period we floated by Blue Eden (Paul & Colleen Gravelle’s 54 foot cutter), and Free Spirit and Chewan, all of whom seemed to be standing still.  Later that evening, Paul said he thought we must have had the motor on!

By this point, there were only ten boats or so ahead of us, but I didn’t like where we were. What if the wind dies out here? What if there is better breeze near the shore?  What if the wind changes direction?  All the rest of the purple fleet were in a better position to take advantage of any change like that.  So we made a bold move. We tacked away from everyone, and sailed at least 30 minutes toward shore.  As this was not the favoured tack, we gave up ground to everyone, all based on the conviction that we would be better off in the long run, if we were near shore.  We punched through the line of boats from our fleet, just half a boat length astern of Big Yellow, who was behind Bobby McGee.  We were ahead of the other purple fleet boats.  And we sailed on with conviction.  Sure enough, there was more wind near shore.  And one by one, boats began to notice and follow.

But we were more determined than any of them.  More determined that there was better wind near shore.  So, long after they turned back to the favoured tack , we pressed on.  And we were rewarded with even better air!  Satisfied (and wary of some milky patches ahead), we turned back onto the favoured tack and wondered how this would play out.  Had we gone too far?

And then the wind shifted and built.  We were lifted thirty degrees and heading straight for the finish, booking along at 7+ knots, and we felt like geniuses even though we were mostly lucky (we could have gotten knocked instead, right?).  The lift continued, and the wind continued to build so that we sailed the last half hour on a reach screaming along between eight and nine knots (top speed 9.1!!!).  Eventually we got binoculars on the finish line, adjusted course (we had been aiming too high) and powered on to finish behind Bobby McGee, who lost to Big Yellow by half a boat-length.  Our finish was definitely a highlight of the day.  Picture us flying along at 8.5 knots on a reach, and then right as we passed the committee boat, we turned up to cross the line close hauled — all that in an arc that surged by the tail of the committee boat leaving only a foot or two of water.  What a crescendo!

At the dinner afterwards, we were delighted to win the third place prize, and got many high fives from our Burlington friends.  Let’s do it again!

Some lessons learned:

1. Keep your boat speed in light wind by avoiding the risk of pinching — sail low and fast.  Why?  The boat is generating quite a lot of its own wind, so once motion slows, the apparent wind drops and it becomes much harder to get boat speed back.
2. Milky patches aren’t always holes. Sometimes the wind bounces off the water, so there is no surface texture, the wind is still there, but aloft
3. On hot sunny days, there is more wind near shore.
4. If you are in a hole, trim your sails to the top tell-tale of the jib, not the bottom one (ie: look at your windex), so that you are ready to catch a whisper of wind aloft and generate some boat speed.
5. Don’t be afraid to take a longer route if you believe there is wind to be found somewhere else.
6. Sail with conviction.  If you are wrong you will lose.  If you are right you will win.  Place your bet and stick with it.
7. No matter what you do, chance is a big factor — like any other game!

Oh, and we are getting much better at sail trim and rig tuning 🙂

For the second leg of the race, I was joined by long-time friend and canoeing afficionado (aka sailing novice) Geoff.  We joined all the other boats in a flotilla through the lift bridge and started the race on the other side.  The course was a long one, chosen on the basis of promising wind for the day:  To Stoney Creek, turn and straight to Oakville.

Ha!

At the start we and our fleet got up a good pace in moderate wind and gobbled up lots of slower boats, but when the turning mark was in site, with just four or so boats ahead of us, the wind just died.  The last ten boat-lengths to the mark took ten minutes, and though we gave a wide birth to the mark, luck would have us drift slowly until we made contact (glad it was a soft kind of mark).  I called out to our dozen witnesses that we had hit the mark and would do my 360 when I had two knots of boat speed.  Everyone seemed to think that was reasonable.  And sure enough five minutes later, we all had some wind, and we did our penalty turn.  At that point some of the fleet stayed along the niagara shore, while most of us turned back to where we knew there was better wind.

Long story short:  the boats that chose the niagara route found 8 knots of steady breeze and blasted to Oakville in two hours.  The rest of us fell into two more windless holes, each longer than the other.  The third of these was the worst and the best.  The two tallest boats near us caught some wind aloft and were able to sail away, while the rest of us just sat still.  It was infuriating, especially as we could see the other group heeled over and having a great time.

We swam 🙂

Then we hoisted the spinnaker and turned toward the lift bridge.  The kite got us moving, and as we generated boat speed, we created our own wind until we had 5 knots of boat speed!  Once we were sure of better wind, we doused — yes, I found a way to douse the spinnaker myself while Geoff steered — that was fun!   Things were looking up, the boat was moving quickly (6+ knots), heeled over nicely as we sailed up the sea breeze near the Burlington shore.  In fact, we had every hope of finishing the race before the curfew until the wind dropped for good and the flies started biting.  We retired from the race, and motored in.

NB:  the boats we left in that last hole stayed exactly where they were until they retired.  So even though we took a very long route, it was the far better choice.

So it was a day of nearly every kind of wind, plenty of sun, a good swim, and a great day spent with a great friend.

What a contrast from Saturday!  Very light winds — a great chance for a picnic cruise with my ladies.  Spinnaker up and down twice with four on board.  First time for all!

  

Saturday was a blast competing white sail against Coyote and others with just two of us on board in big winds.  Squirrel and I worked hard to bring the boat around a long windward-leeward course six times (three races, two laps each) in big winds.  By the third race, we figured out where the biggest wind was, and pushed ourselves to stay in that “nasty stuff” as long as possible, earning the gun on Coyote: a first ever for PERSPECTIVE.  (They still beat us by a long ways based on PHRF).

So how much wind was there?  Most of the course was 15 knots gusting to 20, but in the nasty slot it was 20 knots gusting to 30!!!

We sailed without a reef in the mainsail for most of the afternoon….just choosing to shorten sail for the first upwind leg of the second race — and when we did, we were second around the first windward mark (just a few boatlengths behind Sabotage, and ahead of Top Gun).  We are learning how to get speed and point high with reduced canvas in heavy air.

Back on shore, we had had so much wind, sun and fun that we wished for a couple of hammocks…

Just for fun, I sped up the entire video feed of our race on Tuesday:

Thanks for these great shots, Calvin!

 

 

NEWS FLASH

(Burlington Ontario, June 23, 2016)  PERSPECTIVE Race team, in their first ever season flying a symmetrical spinnaker has seized a position on the podium in the highly contested green fleet.  This rookie crew has startled the Burlington Bay sailing community with their snazzy matching shirts, matching sunbrella trim and matching spinnaker.  Says one competitor, who preferred not to be identified “They look so good, I wish we had shirts like that.”  The entire assembled audience roared their approval as skipper StarPort received the blue flags for third place (Thursdays) and third place (Overall) on behalf of his crew.  When asked to comment, he stated simply:  “It matches perfectly”.  He was asked to comment on what would happen if they win second prize (Red flag) or first prize (Yellow flag) in the future:  “I guess we’ll get new shirts”.