 Dan Knox Consulting |
June 2008 |
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June 2008 A view from the rear . . .OK before we start anything today first thing we need to do is to congratulate Harry and his crew on Pacific High for two Bullets on Saturday. Way to go Harry! Next remember the number 1640. OK so now for the details on our wonderful weekend of sailing. First stop Friday afternoon and the Beer Can Race at South Beach. Joining us this week were John of Freedom Won and Debbie from Pacific High. How can you have a sail boat race with no wind . . . well you can. Of the sixty or so boats in four fleets I think half a dozen finished. We actually sailed most of the time until the last mark and no matter what we tried we could get around that mark and when it became clear that we were not going to finish by the 10 PM cut off we motored back to SBYC for dinner. I hate to do that. I don’t mind being last but I don’t like to give up. Once last winter we finished a race more than two hours behind the winning boat but at least we finished. (Freedom Won won that race and we were the last boat to finish.) When we called in with our finished time the RC told us thank you and promptly gave us a DNF as you need to finish within 45 minutes of the winner and our 2 hours behind did not impress them one bit. Anyway I think we did win the race on Friday for the most beer and cocktails consumed during the evening but that does help you move up in the standings. First race of the weekend: DNF. OK well Friday is just a Beer Can Race so that is not really a race right? The big race is on Saturday and instead of our usual crew of six or seven Christian and I are double handling. We are not upset about that because for the last we couple of days we have had about zero wind and who knows it may actually help out. Or at least that is what we keep telling ourselves. We arrive at the course about 90 minutes early and eat lunch as we drift around in the flood. There is some wind, maybe 5-7 so we are feeling good. We are listening on the VHF and Charles is not on the EYC RC boat. Charles is wonderful as a RC, just about the best there is but these days I think he has more important things to keep his mind. (Kathryn we are pulling for you! Kathryn is another person that we have never beaten . . . ever . . . she beat us with a boat full of girls one time!) After lunch we put up the main and sailed back and forth a bit. We shot the line and the wind and planned our start. We are hoping for a windward/leeward course for the first race and maybe a longer reaching course for the second. This worked very well at the last YRA race and everyone seemed to like it. Especially those boats that actually sailed the correct course. (Not the two boats that went off to never never land, OK we were one of those boats but we correct and actually got around the course.) We liked the pin end of course but we are concerned about the lack of wind and the strong flood coming in. We talk about staying high of the RC boat before the start and trying to start in the middle just in case the wind drops so we will have a bit of extra room to maneuver. The wind is very iffy. We figure everyone else but maybe Tom and David will start by the RC boat so we should have some clean air. Well the start goes according to plan except for one thing the wind drops and we can’t get anything going and we hit the damn marker on the pin end. We hit it by about a foot and now we are drifting down away from the start line and we have to turn around get back to the line and restart. To make matters worse we see a wind line about 10-15 boat lengths from the starting line and most of the other boats that started at the RC Boat end are about to ghost to that wind line and then take off. Remember that number at the top? Well it takes us 16 minutes and 40 seconds to sail back and go though the start finish line. NOT good and this is going to be our good race of the day! Any way we get started and are not too far behind the SF180 class. This is the class for Catalina 30’s, Newport 30’s and the Cal 29’s. This is the class with “Harry” (not Harry the guy but Harry the boat) and Goose. Both of these boats are very good so while Christian and I figure we have no chance of catching our fleet we still have a race to sail trying to catch these guys. And not 10 minutes after we get started the wind picks up a just a wee bit. (Just a bit outside . . . ) I know no one is going to believe me but it went from 2 to 30 knots in 10 minutes. Now we have zero weight in the boats and we are freight training it. The good news is that there is little or no traffic which is a good thing as both Christian and I are up on the high side and we can’t see anything on the other side of the boat anyway. We make the first mark after a couple of pretty good tacks with only the two of us on board and now we need to set the pole for the run to the leeward mark. This is going to be a lot of work since there are only to the two of us and because we are so far behind we say heck with it and just sail a very deep reach with both sails on the same side of the boat. (We think about putting up a Spinnaker to lose with some style points but that will be even more work and while we can get it up pretty easy it is the taking it down that might be a problem.) We are going to keep this reach and speed for about half the course then gybe around and make the mark and then go close hauled to the finish. Everything is OK but we look down and the traveler is up about an eighth of an inch off the deck. Oh man this is down wind. This is going to be fun on the gybe and I have no clue about what it will do once the sail is loaded up on the upwind leg. Anyway we do a very gentle gybe and don’t have a problem. The leeward mark is a gate and we have no problem getting though it for the short beat to the start finish line. All the other boats are finished anyway. As we harden the sails and head upwind the traveler is now lifting about twice as high off away from the deck and we can see the fiberglass starting to show signs of cracking. But we are still going for it and I tell Christian there are lots of bolts in there and I am sure it will hold. (I’m not really sure but what the heck why should he worry too!) Anyway we make the finish 20 minutes after all the boats but ahead of most of the SF180’s. A small victory for us. We have to tack three times at the finish and almost run into the RC Boat but we don’t. (The good news is that we finish ahead of a Benny 36.7 that even started before us! They must have had bigger problems that we did.) We role up the 135 and get plan for the next race. We talk about retiring but after such a terrible start in race one, we now have a DNF and a last place for our weekend. Not exactly what I had planned for. The wind is now a perfect I36 20-25 knots and we are really to go. We are going to go for the standard barge the line I36 start because we messed up setting the clock for both the 5 and 10 minute countdown so we are estimating our start based on the 4 minute warring. Besides everyone else knows the start so it should be OK. We will just get in with the other boats and we will be OK. We do a big “S” about 90 seconds before the start and we are in good position except that Harry has a hook on us and while we can shut out all the bargers he is going to be able to shut us out. So we luff up early and let him pass. We are going to tack around (kind of a chicken gybe) but then I change my mind at the last minute and call for a gybe behind Harry. We pull this off perfectly except with only Christian and I onboard we don’t let the headsail all the way back out before the gybe and we wrap it around the forestay. So now we have pulled this great little maneuver to get leeward of Harry and we now have a headsail that is wrap and we are totally screwed. There is no way we are going to get this unwound with just the two of use unless we sail downwind; Exactly the wrong direction we want to go. To make matters all the better Christian tell me it thinks there is now a small rip near the luff of the 135 about 20 feet from the deck. So now we are totally screwed. Headsail wrapped and ripping. Traveller about ready to rip out of the deck with a last and DNF already in the bank. We fall way off away from the other boats (hell we are now leeward of everyone anyway) and come around and gently gybe the boat and sail downwind away from the starting line and all the other boats and get the headsail unwrapped. It takes a while and no one is at the helm and we are sailing a deep reach with the main out and Luna Sea is taking care of the steering all by herself. After clearing the wrap we head up into the wind roll up headsail. Next we get the RC on the VHF. We tell them we are going to start the race with one sail and after we cross the starting line we are going to retire. Thanking them for a job well done. They don’t make any comments to us about our sailing. But I am sure that think we are just totally nuts. One the way back to Pier 39 I switch on the RADAR to work on playing with the gain. If doesn’t come on and the auto pilot won’t either! This is why I love racing: We practice all week. We sail three races getting one last and two DNF’s and we now have a boat load of repairs. By the way I think we are now back in last place. Oh and I almost forgot Cindy is back from 154th Annual Regatta at the NYYC. She got me a couple of very nice hats with a Rolex logo but no watch. (Aren’t you supposed to win a watch?) They did well in the J-105 fleet on the windward/leeward courses but they WON the around the Island Race. Great job Cindy. But mostly I am so happy for Harry. Two bullets; I’m still smiling just thinking about that! --Dan
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