Taking some time over the holidays to do some work on the boat.
The mast is down and I just finished sanding it down to the bare carbon ready for a new clear coat. That should start tomorrow. Three or four coats should do it. I'm taking advantage that the Doyle loft is shut for the week and they have been kind to let me use it. Indoors should be easier on my and should help with faster curing.
Having the standing rigging looked over to see if it needs replacing, hopefully it is good for a couple more seasons.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
South Beach YC Winter Series - December Race
Today we went out to race in my old stomping grounds, the home of the South Beach YC and the World Series Champs. It will be the last race of the 2010 season. The forecast for today was less than ideal, with rain scheduled all day, however the wind forecast was a respectable 10 - 20 knots from the SW, shifting to the S.
Rob was back from school, and he joined Andrew and myself to round up the crew. Started the day with our now traditional breakfast at Ole's, and after some good pancakes, waffles and bacon we were off to the boat. Loaded the boat up and started the motor to San Francisco from the Estuary. It was overcast, but no rain. Maybe the rain would stay away. We had a nice ebb out of the Estuary and got to South Beach with enough time to hang out at the guest dock for a little while.
We followed Wasabi and Wild One out of the marina and headed to the start area. Course 12 was called, which had us going around Treasure Island, either way, and back to the finish. We got a jump on the start and the big kite went up immediately. Our lead was short lived as Wasabi quickly caught up. We were a little higher and holding our own particularly during the gusts. Wild One was close behind and constantly threatening. The 3 lead boat all chose to round TI to port. There was much change in position or distance between the boats, until we got under the bridge and the winds lightened up. In this area every boat got to extend their lead on the boat following, opening the gap between the boats. A few hundred yards from the bridge we dropped the kite to start making our way toward the end of the island.
Breeze was now consistent between 10 - 12 knots and with the help of the current we were making good speed. We got around the the north end of the island but stayed close to shore on the west side to stay away from the ebbing current. We followed Wasabi close to shore, but Wild one headed to the city side. Right before crossing the bridge we were able to host our reaching kite for maybe a mile, but soon we were back to white sails to make the finish. It clearly payed to stay close to the shore of TI as we had made a huge gain on Wild One. We were the second boat to finish behind Wasabi and corrected to first place. Not a bad way to finish the season.
Merry Xmas to all, we will be back in the new year ready to go again.
Rob was back from school, and he joined Andrew and myself to round up the crew. Started the day with our now traditional breakfast at Ole's, and after some good pancakes, waffles and bacon we were off to the boat. Loaded the boat up and started the motor to San Francisco from the Estuary. It was overcast, but no rain. Maybe the rain would stay away. We had a nice ebb out of the Estuary and got to South Beach with enough time to hang out at the guest dock for a little while.
We followed Wasabi and Wild One out of the marina and headed to the start area. Course 12 was called, which had us going around Treasure Island, either way, and back to the finish. We got a jump on the start and the big kite went up immediately. Our lead was short lived as Wasabi quickly caught up. We were a little higher and holding our own particularly during the gusts. Wild One was close behind and constantly threatening. The 3 lead boat all chose to round TI to port. There was much change in position or distance between the boats, until we got under the bridge and the winds lightened up. In this area every boat got to extend their lead on the boat following, opening the gap between the boats. A few hundred yards from the bridge we dropped the kite to start making our way toward the end of the island.
Breeze was now consistent between 10 - 12 knots and with the help of the current we were making good speed. We got around the the north end of the island but stayed close to shore on the west side to stay away from the ebbing current. We followed Wasabi close to shore, but Wild one headed to the city side. Right before crossing the bridge we were able to host our reaching kite for maybe a mile, but soon we were back to white sails to make the finish. It clearly payed to stay close to the shore of TI as we had made a huge gain on Wild One. We were the second boat to finish behind Wasabi and corrected to first place. Not a bad way to finish the season.
Merry Xmas to all, we will be back in the new year ready to go again.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Nose and Tail Job
This season we did a few upgrades to the boat to improve handling and lighter air performance. The boat always rocked on strong conditions (over 18 knots), but we suffered a bit on the light airs. Boat still moves well but its hard to race to its rating when in displacement mode as we are normally bunched with boats with larger waterlines.
We also had been suffering from a bit of helm. The boat will always want to turn to starboard if the tiller was let loose. It took a while to realize what was wrong, but after some close inspection it was obvious that the rudder was off the vertical axis of the boat. I'm not sure it affected performance much, but going 18knots with the kite up, the last thing I wanted was for the boat to want to round down. I could have just repaired it by realigning the rudder post, but since the saws-all will be coming out I decided to upgrade the steering system on the boat, with a new rudder, beefier rudder post and bearings and a new composite tiller. I already had the original designer of the boat, John Swarbrick, working on a design and production of a new bowsprit for the boat, so I added the new steering system to the order. The rudder is a little deeper than the original and tracks quite nicely compared to the original one.
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| Original tiller |
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| New tiller and rudder assembly |
The second improvement was a new bowsprit, It is 3' long and we got an A2 and A5 to fit the new dimensions. We got everything installed just before the end of the season and it is looking very promising. We'll know more after a full season in 2011. The bowsprit is pretty nice looking, and makes the boat look a bit meaner than it already looked.
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| Side view of bowsprit |
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| Bow view of bowsprit |
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Vallejo 2
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| By Sue Estey |
The wind at the start was just right to try out the new A5. This is a reaching spinnaker, and with the wind just ahead of the beam it was perfect for the reach out of the straits. We set up high on the start line to have some runway to set the kite, and as soon as we got a clear lane the kite went up. We quickly passed most of the boats in our fleet and got to chase Outsider who got off to a clean start and was leading. As far as I could tell we were the only boat flying a spinnaker and we were making good speed. We got ahead of Outsider, but put the kite in the water during the douse and they caught up. We again picked a high line to exit the river and it payed off well, leading the sportboat fleet out to San Pablo Bay.
We shore tacked off the north side of the channel to stay out of the main current, and took a hitch across before getting too close to the restricted area. We were now chasing Arcadia and some of the Wylie 30's. We had wanted to keep a loose cover on Outsider but we split sides at this point. Initially the split worked for Outsider as they found some favorable current closer to the channel (a bit counter intuitive as it should have been flooding), but the angle was better on the left side and the wind eventually filled from the South ultimately giving us an advantage.
Around Pt. Pinole, a couple of rain bands started to pass through making things a bit miserable onboard, with the light winds and soaking conditions. We found some emergency rum onboard to keep us warm through the worst of it. We stayed patient and continued working the left side (South) of the course. For the conditions we were holding our own as the lighter conditions upwind are not very favorable for JetStream. The Hobbie 33, Olson30 and Express27, with their larger genoas were not far behind and well within the corrected credits.
We cleared the Richmond restricted area and set the reaching kite one more time to the finish. It payed off again, allowing us to pass a few more boats in route. We had a good finish boat for boat, but didn't quite put enough time on our competitors to correct strongly. So the success of Saturday was not repeated on Sunday, but a good time was had nevertheless. For the regatta we would finish 2nd behind the Express 27 Motorcycle Irene. Link to preliminary results and race article in norcalsailing.
Closing the 2010 Season - Vallejo 1
This past weekend we had our final race of the Singlehanded Sailing Society 2010 Season. The Vallejo 1-2 is a 2-day race. The first day the whole fleet sails singlehanded from the Berkley Circle to the Vallejo Yacht Club, and on Sunday we reverse courses and sail doublehanded from the Vallejo Yacht Club to the Richmond Yacht Club. Mark joined me on the Sunday race. JetStream would have to defend its win last year.
Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day. Day started as our usual sailing days with an early breakfast with Mike at Ole's. A little grease and grits to take us through the day. The new (used) 6 HP outboard, although a bit heavier, is both smooth and quite and showed great reliability. It also pushes the boat at 7 knots which makes for a bit quicker deliveries and has an external fuel tank which eliminates the need to continuously refill. The forecast called for a strong 15 - 25 from the SW, so we prepared for a fast race. SW winds meant that we would be reaching across San Pablo Bay so we initially set up with our reaching kite. But ten minutes before our start, the earlier starters looked to be in very light air so we switched back to the large running spinnaker. We had a decent start with the whole fleet starting on port reaching up towards Red Rock. With the T650 to windward and Outsider to leeward I choose to stay in the middle and stay in touch with both boats. Soon it looked like we could set the kite and hold our course above the buoy marking the restricted area off the Richmond fueling docks. With the big kite up in a beam reach we started trucking and passing some of the earlier starters. It would have been better to have the reaching kite up for this leg, but right after the restricted area we would have to bear off and be in a full downwind run. The boat is not set up for spinnaker peels so we committed to the big kite. It was some hard work to reach above the mark while holding the spinnaker, but our center position paid off putting some distance between ourselves and the rest of the sportsboat fleet. Before getting to the Richmond Bridge we had caught up many of the early starters, and only had about a dozen boats still in front of us. The winds had stayed pretty moderate with about 10 knots as we made our way to the Brothers.
After rounding the Brothers there were now just three boats in front of us. 'True North', 'Arcadia' and 'Ragtime!'. True North was sailing non-spinnaker so we quickly passed them. Halfway to Pinole Pt we caught up with Arcadia and by Pinole Pt we were in the lead. The wind had know picked up to the low to mid teens and we were in a beam reach fully powered up.We were sail a hotter angle than the rest of the fleet and we extended our lead through this section. We sailed conservatively the rest of the way, crossed over to the Vallejo side of the channel and prepared for our spinnaker douse as we entered the Mare Island Straights. I could have kept the spinnaker up a little longer, but didn't want to risk and emergency take down inside the Straights. But the winds were light and we lost some of our lead here. Still, JetStream was the first boat to finish the race and was received with the blast of a gun. We made record time for us, getting to Vallejo before 1:30 PM. It was a good start for our title defense.
Sunday's race report to follow.....
Sunday, September 19, 2010
2010 SSS Richmond to South Beach
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| Courtesy of Stephen Buckingham |
On Saturday we had the continuation of the SSS race series with the Richmond to South Beach race. This is the penultimate race of the SSS calendar with the culmination of the series in a month time with the Vallejo 1-2 race. I'm racing the series in the doublehanded division, but my crew couldn't make it this time and a last minute attempt to find a replacement wasn't fruitful, making Saturday a day for me and the autopilot to get to know each other a little better. The forecast for the day was for a mellow 5 - 15 possibly going to 15 - 25 later in the afternoon, and most of the race would be in a light ebb.
Good start to the day with an early breakfast at Ole's in Alameda with Greg and Karl. And then we were off to the long delivery from Alameda to Richmond. I'm using a borrowed outboard while I sort out a replacement for my now defunct outboard. It is an old 2-stroke 2-cylinder 4HP Evinrude. It runs like a dream. The 2-cylinders make for a very smooth and quiet ride compared to my previous 1-cylinder 3.5HP Nissan. It was an uneventful delivery with a flat bay and minimal currents.
The start of the race is inside the Richmond breakwater. We setup for the start in lightening conditions and we suffered a bit. A few boats with genoas roll over us and we are sagging and falling behind. Had to take a painful clearing tack to get on a lane with clear air and little by little started picking boats back up. But the damage was already done. Both Outsider and Flight Risk were able to stretch a few hundred yards ahead of us on the light conditions. After clearing the restricted areas around the Richmond fuel docks, I set the kite and start heading towards The Brothers. I start catching a few of the slower boats that started ahead of us and soon join the procession of boats rounding The Brothers and heading back upwind towards Little Harding.
I head towards the right hand side of the course staying right of a current line under the Richmond Bridge. SOG confirms that we are doing better on this side. We finally catch Flight Risk after the Richmond Bridge. I probably came a little closer than I should have, prompting Flight Risk to try to pinch me out, but we were able to hold our lane and get ahead. I see Arcadia and Uno in the distance and focus on them as the main targets. Can't tell where Outsider is, but hopefully we'll be back in contact again. Keep playing the right hand side footing down a bit to avoid getting too close to shore and fall prey of any windholes. As I approach Racoon Straights I get a glimpse of Outsider crossing on port from the left side of the course a half mile ahead of us. Not good, we have some serious catching up to do. We have a fast traverse of the Straights, first staying close to the Tiburon side and crossing over to the Angel Island side mid Straight.. I nailed the lay-line to Little Harding and catch a few more boats in the process, and we are off on a reach above Alcatraz towards 2NAS. I was hoping the wind would have built up a bit more my now, but we were still sailing in about 10 - 12 knots. We are still doing 8 and 9 knots on the white sail reach, but not the full potential of the boat had it been blowing 15+.
Here we start to reel in the Wylie Cats and some of the bigger boats, and I can now see Outsider and Sweet Jane ahead. We set the kite around Alcatraz. It is still a beam reach. I try to keep the sheet on the ratchet only to have a bit more control of the kite, but after a few minutes I'm spent and my driving is suffering, so I give it a wrap around the winch and settle down. I'll probably get some snide comments from my crew, but the winch works better when singlehanding the boat.
We are able to sail a bit higher and hold the spinnaker quite a bit longer than Outsider and Sweet Jane. We significantly cut their leads, with Outsider maybe a quarter mile ahead and just behind Sweet Jane as we round the last mark and head towards the finish. This area of the South Bay is notorious for shifty and gusty winds, but only the shifts materialize and the winds stay on the moderate side. It turns into a cat and mouse game, playing the shifts and trying to make some gains. But I'm unable to get ahead of Sweet Jane and we finish in that order for our class. Outsider, Sweet Jane, Jetstream. The resutls aren't yet in, but I think I still corrected over Sweet Jane. But Outsider, finishing around 5 minutes ahead should have covered his handicap.
A good, long day on the bay.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
A weekend of seconds
Labor Day weekend is a busy sailing weekend. This year we had planned to do back to back races. Friday is the traditional Windjammers Race from San Francisco to Santa Cruz. We would do Windjammers aboard Ocelot which normally means that with a 9 AM start we can be in Santa Cruz before sunset. Enough time to drive back home get a few hours of sleep and get JetStream on the water Saturday morning in time for the Jazz Cup. The Jazz Cup takes us from Treasure Island to the Benicia around 26 miles.
Friday's forecast was for light winds in the ocean. We started with a fresh breeze in the Bay, but as we worked our way through the Golden Gate into the ocean the breeze lightened up. We went through quite a bit of our sail inventory. Started out with our #2 jib, up to our #1 jib as we cleared Seal Rocks, to our Code 0 near Montara, momentarily to our jib top, back to the Code 0, to the A1 past Half Moon Bay, to the A2 by Pigeon Point, A2 plus stay sail by An~o Nuevo when the breeze finally picked up to 15 - 20 kts, finally back to the #1 jib as we made the turn into Santa Cruz for the last few hundred yards to the finish.
Most of the morning was a pretty close race with boats all around us. But the race within the race was between Ocelot, the ID 48 and a Melges 32. In this light to moderate conditions the Melges stayed close to us the whole way down the coast and would eventually correct out for 1st place in division and overall, leaving us on Ocelot on 2nd place in both division and overall. Not a bad day in the ocean. We finished just after sunset, with plenty of time to put the boat away and hit the Santa Cruz Yacht Club for a few rum drinks and some clam chowder before jumping on the car for the ride back to Alameda.
At home by midnight to get a few hours of sleep before the 8 AM dock call for JetStream and the Jazz Cup.
The Jazz Cup is a great race for JetStream, mostly reachy and downwind. We were defending champions for our class so we were pretty psyched to get out racing. This year Mike and Andrew rounded up the crew. Conditions were to build to 15 - 25 for the afternoon, great conditions for us. In our division this year we would have our friends from Head Rush (the Antrim 27), two Flying Tigers and Wasabi (a Kernan 44) amongst others. Wasabi was the scratch boat with a -44 rating (compared to our 75), that means they will owe us 119 seconds, almost two minutes, a mile. The Antrim rates the same as us and the tigers are on the 50s range. Our strategy was to stay in touch with the Antrim and the Tigers as they were the more closely rated boats.
We had a great start, in a strong position mid line and a good lane. After a couple of hundred yards we could clear the starboard boats to windward and we tack on port to head to the right side for more pressure. As we approach the windward mark we are in a great position, we round in 4th place behind Wasabi, the ID35 and on the hip of Bloom County, with our Antrim and Tiger competition behind us. The next part of the race is a reachy run across the central bay, these are prime conditions for JetStream and we are soon in second place after passing Bloom County and the ID35. We now begin our effort to cover the fleet while avoiding entanglements with all the slower boats that started ahead of us. We work on staying high and clear so we can more easily pass the slower boats. Most of the boats in our fleet are now following us except for the Antrim who took a lower track towards Richmond. On days with a strong ebb current this is a good strategy, but today we didn't have much current and we decided on the rhumb line to Red Rock. As you approach Richmond the wind bends to the south and you get lifted, so we took an early jibe back to the east to be in a better position covering both sides of the fleet. Boat was moving well, but as we got into more of a downwind run both the Tigers and the Antrim started to catch up some. Next decision was to choose which side of Red Rock to go. Traditionally most of the fleet leaves Red Rock to port. Yucca was heading in that direction and more often than not, they are the boat to follow. But looking at some of the catamarans well powered up on the left hand side, we decided to break tradition and leave Red Rock to starboard. It paid off hugely, and we gain some of our loses back.
We have good pressure up to the Brothers and make our right turn into San Pablo Bay. This section of the race was mostly a procession. The wind angle locked you into a deep and slow downwind run. Not our best point of sail, but we had clear air all the way through and were able to hang on to our position.
Half way to Pinole Point, the wind freshened and it helped moved our apparent wind to the beam. This is the sweet spot for JetStream, we just accelerated and were off to the races. We were on a drag race with a Melges 20 but we soon were able to pull a bit ahead of them. In the next 20 minutes we would put about a 1/4 mile on the fleet behind us. And for a while Wasabi, who was doing a horizon job on the fleet started to get larger and larger. We were having a blast aboard JetStream.
As we approach Vallejo the wind shifted right a bit more and lighten up a bit and we were back in downwind mode. In this mode, the other boats in our division with larger spinnakers tend to do better than us, so it is always a bit nerve recking. We continue to play our angles and keep the boat moving fast, but as we enter the Carquinez Straight they are back within striking distance. We head to the North side of the channel as we are getting great pressure and a good angle from the breeze reflecting off the hills. We decide to go back in for another run of these winds into the Glen Cove area. This is were we lost the race.... As you can see from the charts, the shallow waters come out quite a bit at Glen Cove. Something that I should have been paying attention too as well. Just as we start our jibe back out, we slowly come to a complete stop. Andrew turns to ask 'what am I doing?' and the realization that we have run aground quickly sets in. Immediately we bring down the spinnaker, shift all our weight to one side to help heel the boat and start the process of coercing the boat to point towards the deep water. After a few more minutes of back-winding the jib we get the boat pointing back at the channel but still stuck. At the same time, both Andrew and I say, "lets rehoist the kite". We were beam to the wind and it will both give us more power and heel to drive the boat back to deep water. Moments after hoisting the kite the boat start to move forward and soon we are back sailing. Not soon enough though.... By this time we have let the Antrim, one Tiger and the ID 35 get ahead of us. There goes first place. Our mood on board changed immediately. There was no need to be so aggressive to the edge of the channel as the currents were pretty negligible at this time. We were far ahead enough of the competition that we just needed to play it safe to keep our front spot. I also had my iPhone chartplotter available, which should have had out. That would have avoided this mistake. For the next few minutes we were all pretty bummed at what we allowed to happen.
But the breeze started to fill up and the boat started to go fast again, and we were soon having fun. We were crossing jibes with a trimaran and the Melges 20 (yes, they too caught up after our grounding). We pass the ID 35 as we approach the finish area. For this race, to finish you have to leave mark G"25" to port and go around 2 temporary marks before crossing the finish line. The temporary marks are small and hard to see. For a moment both the Antrim and the Tiger ahead us, ahead in the fleet and with no one to follow, started going straight to the finish instead of the required temporary marks. They discovered the errors of their way before giving us a chance to catch back up. So we finished behind both of them.
Ultimately however we corrected to second place behind Head Rush in our division. We also finished 11th overall for the race, and the second monohull overall. Don't really want to think what the results would have looked like had we not spent 9 1/2 minutes on the mud... So it was to be a weekend of second places for us.
Friday's forecast was for light winds in the ocean. We started with a fresh breeze in the Bay, but as we worked our way through the Golden Gate into the ocean the breeze lightened up. We went through quite a bit of our sail inventory. Started out with our #2 jib, up to our #1 jib as we cleared Seal Rocks, to our Code 0 near Montara, momentarily to our jib top, back to the Code 0, to the A1 past Half Moon Bay, to the A2 by Pigeon Point, A2 plus stay sail by An~o Nuevo when the breeze finally picked up to 15 - 20 kts, finally back to the #1 jib as we made the turn into Santa Cruz for the last few hundred yards to the finish.
Most of the morning was a pretty close race with boats all around us. But the race within the race was between Ocelot, the ID 48 and a Melges 32. In this light to moderate conditions the Melges stayed close to us the whole way down the coast and would eventually correct out for 1st place in division and overall, leaving us on Ocelot on 2nd place in both division and overall. Not a bad day in the ocean. We finished just after sunset, with plenty of time to put the boat away and hit the Santa Cruz Yacht Club for a few rum drinks and some clam chowder before jumping on the car for the ride back to Alameda.
At home by midnight to get a few hours of sleep before the 8 AM dock call for JetStream and the Jazz Cup.
The Jazz Cup is a great race for JetStream, mostly reachy and downwind. We were defending champions for our class so we were pretty psyched to get out racing. This year Mike and Andrew rounded up the crew. Conditions were to build to 15 - 25 for the afternoon, great conditions for us. In our division this year we would have our friends from Head Rush (the Antrim 27), two Flying Tigers and Wasabi (a Kernan 44) amongst others. Wasabi was the scratch boat with a -44 rating (compared to our 75), that means they will owe us 119 seconds, almost two minutes, a mile. The Antrim rates the same as us and the tigers are on the 50s range. Our strategy was to stay in touch with the Antrim and the Tigers as they were the more closely rated boats.
We had a great start, in a strong position mid line and a good lane. After a couple of hundred yards we could clear the starboard boats to windward and we tack on port to head to the right side for more pressure. As we approach the windward mark we are in a great position, we round in 4th place behind Wasabi, the ID35 and on the hip of Bloom County, with our Antrim and Tiger competition behind us. The next part of the race is a reachy run across the central bay, these are prime conditions for JetStream and we are soon in second place after passing Bloom County and the ID35. We now begin our effort to cover the fleet while avoiding entanglements with all the slower boats that started ahead of us. We work on staying high and clear so we can more easily pass the slower boats. Most of the boats in our fleet are now following us except for the Antrim who took a lower track towards Richmond. On days with a strong ebb current this is a good strategy, but today we didn't have much current and we decided on the rhumb line to Red Rock. As you approach Richmond the wind bends to the south and you get lifted, so we took an early jibe back to the east to be in a better position covering both sides of the fleet. Boat was moving well, but as we got into more of a downwind run both the Tigers and the Antrim started to catch up some. Next decision was to choose which side of Red Rock to go. Traditionally most of the fleet leaves Red Rock to port. Yucca was heading in that direction and more often than not, they are the boat to follow. But looking at some of the catamarans well powered up on the left hand side, we decided to break tradition and leave Red Rock to starboard. It paid off hugely, and we gain some of our loses back.
We have good pressure up to the Brothers and make our right turn into San Pablo Bay. This section of the race was mostly a procession. The wind angle locked you into a deep and slow downwind run. Not our best point of sail, but we had clear air all the way through and were able to hang on to our position.
Half way to Pinole Point, the wind freshened and it helped moved our apparent wind to the beam. This is the sweet spot for JetStream, we just accelerated and were off to the races. We were on a drag race with a Melges 20 but we soon were able to pull a bit ahead of them. In the next 20 minutes we would put about a 1/4 mile on the fleet behind us. And for a while Wasabi, who was doing a horizon job on the fleet started to get larger and larger. We were having a blast aboard JetStream.
As we approach Vallejo the wind shifted right a bit more and lighten up a bit and we were back in downwind mode. In this mode, the other boats in our division with larger spinnakers tend to do better than us, so it is always a bit nerve recking. We continue to play our angles and keep the boat moving fast, but as we enter the Carquinez Straight they are back within striking distance. We head to the North side of the channel as we are getting great pressure and a good angle from the breeze reflecting off the hills. We decide to go back in for another run of these winds into the Glen Cove area. This is were we lost the race.... As you can see from the charts, the shallow waters come out quite a bit at Glen Cove. Something that I should have been paying attention too as well. Just as we start our jibe back out, we slowly come to a complete stop. Andrew turns to ask 'what am I doing?' and the realization that we have run aground quickly sets in. Immediately we bring down the spinnaker, shift all our weight to one side to help heel the boat and start the process of coercing the boat to point towards the deep water. After a few more minutes of back-winding the jib we get the boat pointing back at the channel but still stuck. At the same time, both Andrew and I say, "lets rehoist the kite". We were beam to the wind and it will both give us more power and heel to drive the boat back to deep water. Moments after hoisting the kite the boat start to move forward and soon we are back sailing. Not soon enough though.... By this time we have let the Antrim, one Tiger and the ID 35 get ahead of us. There goes first place. Our mood on board changed immediately. There was no need to be so aggressive to the edge of the channel as the currents were pretty negligible at this time. We were far ahead enough of the competition that we just needed to play it safe to keep our front spot. I also had my iPhone chartplotter available, which should have had out. That would have avoided this mistake. For the next few minutes we were all pretty bummed at what we allowed to happen.
But the breeze started to fill up and the boat started to go fast again, and we were soon having fun. We were crossing jibes with a trimaran and the Melges 20 (yes, they too caught up after our grounding). We pass the ID 35 as we approach the finish area. For this race, to finish you have to leave mark G"25" to port and go around 2 temporary marks before crossing the finish line. The temporary marks are small and hard to see. For a moment both the Antrim and the Tiger ahead us, ahead in the fleet and with no one to follow, started going straight to the finish instead of the required temporary marks. They discovered the errors of their way before giving us a chance to catch back up. So we finished behind both of them.
Ultimately however we corrected to second place behind Head Rush in our division. We also finished 11th overall for the race, and the second monohull overall. Don't really want to think what the results would have looked like had we not spent 9 1/2 minutes on the mud... So it was to be a weekend of second places for us.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
2010 SSS HMB, non-race
A bit of disappointment....
Spend weeks of preparation for the first offshore race on JetStream. Since this was to be the first ocean outing, I decided I would go on my own, didn't want to be responsible for anyone else. A few additional pieces of equipment needed to be added and many friends chipped in. Andrew converted my jacklines from Travieso to fit on JetStream. Mike gave me a spare 25W VHF radio he had. Greg went on to fabricate a real cool carbon hard cover for the hatch opening. I had some lifelines made for the boat, got a new tether for my harness, got a new battery for my EPIRB (these aren't AAs, read $$$). The new main was ready with a reefing point and so was the skipper.
All week I had been monitoring the forecast, early on the week 10 - 20 knots, perfect for our first ocean outing. But later on the week, first 15 - 25 kts then 20 - 30 kts.... Even though we have easily handled the boat in >35 kts in the bay, the big North Pacific is a different story. You can start feeling pretty small out there and on JetStream you are pretty exposed as well. I drew the line at 20 - 30 kts, if it would blow that much we would just stay home. As we got closer to race day, the forecast moderated to 15 - 25 again, but all day Friday the buoys off the shore were all recording >20 kts. Needless to stay, I didn't get much sleep Friday night. I would wake up every couple of hours and check the buoy readings on my iPhone. By about 2 AM the buoys started reading 17 and decreasing, so it was game on.
It was an early morning call on Sat 4:40, which normally coincides with AJ's feeding, but not this morning. Pack up the car and ready to head to Alameda by 5:15. Have to wait for the grocery store to open at 6 AM to get some provisions for the day. By 6:30 I'm at the yard ready to drop the boat. Hook it up to the hoist, engage the card reader and 5 seconds later it shuts down. WTF? Its supposed to work for 15 minutes at a time from each swapping of the card. Not good. It takes me over 20 minutes to get the boat in the water, by myself, having to run back and forth between the card reader and the guy lines for the boat. What a nightmare, its not yet 7 AM and I'm already covered in sweat.
Load up to boat and start to motor to the start of the race, a good 1 1/2 hours away. Rig all of the life lines and jacklines on my way to the start. Its a nice motor out of the Estuary, but we are welcomed by 20 knots on the nose and a nasty chop just outside. Thank goodness we have a favorable current, as the little 3.5hp outboard pushing us is not happy on the hobby-horsing on the chop and the 20 knot head winds. We aim west to try to get to the SF side as quickly as possible and get a bit of protection. We are following Uno who just motored by us, we try to exchange a few words but with the wind and the rumbling of my outboard I can't hear a thing. We wave and continue on our way to the start area.
Get to the start area about ten past 9, our start is not until 9:50 or so. A quick check of the offshore buoys, still showing a moderate 15 knots, though in side the bay is blowing around 20. So I kill some time to conserve energy for the race. Bad idea.... As it would have it, I should have worked on getting the main up as soon as I got there. As 9:30 approaches I start to get ready. On Travieso I could get the main up in no time. A reliable inboard, a mainsail with slugs on the mast, cake. JetStream, different story. There is no protection on the start area, so the outboard is struggling to stay in the water and keep the boat moving at a slow pace. The main on JetStream has a luff rope, and as soon as I unrolled it I knew trouble will follow. We hit a couple of nasty pieces of chop and the boat lost momentum and got sideways to the wind. Even the autopilot couldn't help us there. The unrolled mainsail is now everywhere including the some of it in the water. In the rush of gathering the main, I let go of the halyard and now it is streaming off the top of the mast. Great.. We turn the boat back downwind, I recover the halyard and re-attempt to raise the main. Now I have a pile of sail everywhere so we try the exercise again as I hear the 5 minute warning signal for our start. Second attempt also fails, I need to keep the sail under control in those conditions so I scramble to get a couple more sail ties on it.
At this point I just want to start the race, so I unfurl the jib and start racing. Takes me a good ten minutes just to cross the start line. To be an official entry I had to turn off the engine on the five minute warning so now I need another approach to getting the unruly mainsail up. As it would have it, sailing upwind with the jib up is not a bad strategy for getting the main up. Its not as fast as motoring into the wind when another pair of hands is available but it worked. I just had to slide the sail ties back enough for a good pull of the halyard and go about 5 feet at a time. After a few minutes the main is up and we are now sailing. I'm sure a few of the folks on the Race Deck were amused by this exercise...
Right after the start, since I knew I had no chances of placing anymore I immediately withdrew from the race. Not a great option for the season scoring, but being that far back already it was likely going to be DFL for me anyways. No point in enduring the delivery back on Sunday for that. Best to spend the rest of the weekend with the family. But after getting the main up and going through all that trouble and preparation I figure I would go on my own private race. How many boats could I catch before Seal Rocks... So we continue racing towards the Golden Gate. Catch a few of the late starters and one of the slower cruisers, and I'm feeling a lot better. The boat is handling great, though I should really have the main reefed (not that I didn't try, but as the reef was just done this last week I didn't have a chance to rig it on the dock. My clew line is all twisted and the tack strop doesn't reach the hook -- this is all getting fixed now) but we are still well in control. After getting close the the North tower of the bridge I tack back to starboard and the a loud 'BANG'. My first thought is that I just dropped the mast, but I look up and it is still there. I ease off the main and bear off to ease the load on the rig and try to spot the damage. Nothing up top, but the jib is looser than it should be. Looking over the deck I see the problem, the jib track is bent and done. Well, that put an end to my little private race. I furl the jib and point the boat back to Alameda. Under autopilot and main alone we are still doing over 10 knots.
Looking back I think I know what did the jib traveler in.... I had the spinnaker tack line secured to the chainplate and tightened. This prevented the jib car to slide down towards the edge of the track where all the support is. Instead it was stuck midspan on the track where there is no support and it wasn't able to hold the load. This is the result:
Certainly a few lessons handed down by the boat and some new sail handling techniques learned. Next singlehanded race is Vallejo in October, we will be ready.
Spend weeks of preparation for the first offshore race on JetStream. Since this was to be the first ocean outing, I decided I would go on my own, didn't want to be responsible for anyone else. A few additional pieces of equipment needed to be added and many friends chipped in. Andrew converted my jacklines from Travieso to fit on JetStream. Mike gave me a spare 25W VHF radio he had. Greg went on to fabricate a real cool carbon hard cover for the hatch opening. I had some lifelines made for the boat, got a new tether for my harness, got a new battery for my EPIRB (these aren't AAs, read $$$). The new main was ready with a reefing point and so was the skipper.
All week I had been monitoring the forecast, early on the week 10 - 20 knots, perfect for our first ocean outing. But later on the week, first 15 - 25 kts then 20 - 30 kts.... Even though we have easily handled the boat in >35 kts in the bay, the big North Pacific is a different story. You can start feeling pretty small out there and on JetStream you are pretty exposed as well. I drew the line at 20 - 30 kts, if it would blow that much we would just stay home. As we got closer to race day, the forecast moderated to 15 - 25 again, but all day Friday the buoys off the shore were all recording >20 kts. Needless to stay, I didn't get much sleep Friday night. I would wake up every couple of hours and check the buoy readings on my iPhone. By about 2 AM the buoys started reading 17 and decreasing, so it was game on.
It was an early morning call on Sat 4:40, which normally coincides with AJ's feeding, but not this morning. Pack up the car and ready to head to Alameda by 5:15. Have to wait for the grocery store to open at 6 AM to get some provisions for the day. By 6:30 I'm at the yard ready to drop the boat. Hook it up to the hoist, engage the card reader and 5 seconds later it shuts down. WTF? Its supposed to work for 15 minutes at a time from each swapping of the card. Not good. It takes me over 20 minutes to get the boat in the water, by myself, having to run back and forth between the card reader and the guy lines for the boat. What a nightmare, its not yet 7 AM and I'm already covered in sweat.
Load up to boat and start to motor to the start of the race, a good 1 1/2 hours away. Rig all of the life lines and jacklines on my way to the start. Its a nice motor out of the Estuary, but we are welcomed by 20 knots on the nose and a nasty chop just outside. Thank goodness we have a favorable current, as the little 3.5hp outboard pushing us is not happy on the hobby-horsing on the chop and the 20 knot head winds. We aim west to try to get to the SF side as quickly as possible and get a bit of protection. We are following Uno who just motored by us, we try to exchange a few words but with the wind and the rumbling of my outboard I can't hear a thing. We wave and continue on our way to the start area.
Get to the start area about ten past 9, our start is not until 9:50 or so. A quick check of the offshore buoys, still showing a moderate 15 knots, though in side the bay is blowing around 20. So I kill some time to conserve energy for the race. Bad idea.... As it would have it, I should have worked on getting the main up as soon as I got there. As 9:30 approaches I start to get ready. On Travieso I could get the main up in no time. A reliable inboard, a mainsail with slugs on the mast, cake. JetStream, different story. There is no protection on the start area, so the outboard is struggling to stay in the water and keep the boat moving at a slow pace. The main on JetStream has a luff rope, and as soon as I unrolled it I knew trouble will follow. We hit a couple of nasty pieces of chop and the boat lost momentum and got sideways to the wind. Even the autopilot couldn't help us there. The unrolled mainsail is now everywhere including the some of it in the water. In the rush of gathering the main, I let go of the halyard and now it is streaming off the top of the mast. Great.. We turn the boat back downwind, I recover the halyard and re-attempt to raise the main. Now I have a pile of sail everywhere so we try the exercise again as I hear the 5 minute warning signal for our start. Second attempt also fails, I need to keep the sail under control in those conditions so I scramble to get a couple more sail ties on it.
At this point I just want to start the race, so I unfurl the jib and start racing. Takes me a good ten minutes just to cross the start line. To be an official entry I had to turn off the engine on the five minute warning so now I need another approach to getting the unruly mainsail up. As it would have it, sailing upwind with the jib up is not a bad strategy for getting the main up. Its not as fast as motoring into the wind when another pair of hands is available but it worked. I just had to slide the sail ties back enough for a good pull of the halyard and go about 5 feet at a time. After a few minutes the main is up and we are now sailing. I'm sure a few of the folks on the Race Deck were amused by this exercise...
Right after the start, since I knew I had no chances of placing anymore I immediately withdrew from the race. Not a great option for the season scoring, but being that far back already it was likely going to be DFL for me anyways. No point in enduring the delivery back on Sunday for that. Best to spend the rest of the weekend with the family. But after getting the main up and going through all that trouble and preparation I figure I would go on my own private race. How many boats could I catch before Seal Rocks... So we continue racing towards the Golden Gate. Catch a few of the late starters and one of the slower cruisers, and I'm feeling a lot better. The boat is handling great, though I should really have the main reefed (not that I didn't try, but as the reef was just done this last week I didn't have a chance to rig it on the dock. My clew line is all twisted and the tack strop doesn't reach the hook -- this is all getting fixed now) but we are still well in control. After getting close the the North tower of the bridge I tack back to starboard and the a loud 'BANG'. My first thought is that I just dropped the mast, but I look up and it is still there. I ease off the main and bear off to ease the load on the rig and try to spot the damage. Nothing up top, but the jib is looser than it should be. Looking over the deck I see the problem, the jib track is bent and done. Well, that put an end to my little private race. I furl the jib and point the boat back to Alameda. Under autopilot and main alone we are still doing over 10 knots.
Looking back I think I know what did the jib traveler in.... I had the spinnaker tack line secured to the chainplate and tightened. This prevented the jib car to slide down towards the edge of the track where all the support is. Instead it was stuck midspan on the track where there is no support and it wasn't able to hold the load. This is the result:
Certainly a few lessons handed down by the boat and some new sail handling techniques learned. Next singlehanded race is Vallejo in October, we will be ready.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Main sail getting there
After some great support from the sailmakers at Doyle the mainsail is really starting to look good. The problem seems to have been matching of the luff curve between the mast and sail. Before we started adjusting the luff curve on the main we decided to have a go at the rig. From day one I really hadn't been happy with the mast prebend and curvature on the lower half. Even with the lowers all the way out, it wasn't enough to induce mast bend. After discussing with Glenn at Hansen Rigging, we simply added a toggle to the lowers to extend them an extra inch and a half and see the results. We went from a pretty straight mast section to a nice even curve.
Loading the main really showed the difference. The initial wrinkle coming from the full size bottom batten disappeared by better matching the mast bend to the luff curve. A quick sail and a little tunning had us looking really good.
A bit more work to be done to figure out the various rig settings for a range of conditions, but looks like the main is good to go. We took it out for the Oakland YC Wednesday night races and it took us to a win and a gun. Nice debut!
Loading the main really showed the difference. The initial wrinkle coming from the full size bottom batten disappeared by better matching the mast bend to the luff curve. A quick sail and a little tunning had us looking really good.
A bit more work to be done to figure out the various rig settings for a range of conditions, but looks like the main is good to go. We took it out for the Oakland YC Wednesday night races and it took us to a win and a gun. Nice debut!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
2010 YRA Fall 1 Race
On Saturday, Andrew and Rob joined me for the YRA HDA Fall-1 Race. It was going to be a day on central San Francisco Bay, which in the summer means big winds. It didn't dissapoint. We started on the western edge of the Berkeley Circle. We had a fun sail up to the start (once we cleared Treasure Island from Alameda) with Andrew and Rob taking the boat on a power reach up the slot, the boat doing an easy 9 and 10 knots. Here is a short clip of that reach, showing off the new mainsail from Doyle. The mainsail still needs a bit of tunning for the upwind trim, though in this reaching shot it looks great.
Just before the start we notice that the rubber joint connecting the tiller to the tiller extension is split and only has a bit of rubber holding the whole thing together. Andrew gets to work and we do an 'ankle tape job' on it. I think we spent half a roll of tape. It was all a bit stiff but it held perfectly for the full race. In the conditions we were expecting, loosing the extension during one of the downwind runs could have been catastrophic. This is something I will be keeping a spare of in the boat from now on.
We got going on the first start with about 12 - 15 knots of breeze. In the sportboats class we could see the Antrim 27 "Head Rush" and Henderson 30 "Family Hour" and a small Viper. The Flying Tigers didn't come out to play, so our focus would be on the Antrim who always gives us a good fight.
During our pre-start we decide to go for the pin end as it was favored both in angle and distance to the windward mark, but I got distracted during the sequence and only managed to get a quarter of the way down the line before the start gun. Who do I see starting at the pin? the Antrim boat... So much for execution.
We started a bit behind the competition. We do a clearing tack to get a clear lane and quickly come back to join the rest of the fleet on starboard. On the beat from the start to Point Blunt we are trailing the Antrim, with the Henderson right on our heels. On the moderate conditions we are as fast as the Antrim but dont quite have the point. We manage to stay in touch. A bit of a problem with the main halyard slipping from the clutch costs us a few seconds, but Andrew and Rob quickly get it fixed. Near Angel Island we lee-bow the Antrim and with better speed and point manage to get in front. The rest of the way to Little Harding we play loose cover with the Antrim. We round the windward mark first on the Sportsboat fleet and with a perfect set we are off to the races.
We are averaging 12 - 14 knots downwind. By the time I look back and see the Antrim and the Henderson set their kites we are easily 300 yards in front. We focus on keeping the boat on its feet and looking for the downwind mark. On the upwind leg we spotted the downwind mark and decided at that point we wanted to be on port tack at Pt. Blunt. For a few seconds, while we struggle with the GPS we are heading to the wrong mark, but just in time we spot the leward mark and jibe for it. Right after the jibe we get a blast of wind and we are now barrelling towards the mark at 16 and 17 knots. Things are coming up real quick. Jib out and kite down... oh, why isn't the kite coming down... the tack line got a bit tangled up and in a few seconds Rob and Andrew had it all figured out. It was a good day to have 3 on board as this could have been a bit complicated if we were only double handling the boat. One last jibe to get around the mark for our second upwind leg and suddenly a BANG!
What was that? The mast still up, good, but the boom is skyed. We blew the vang on the jibe. All my fault as I should have been ready to release some of the main after the jibe. Worst of all the night before we had spotted some fraying on the cover of the loop holding the vang together and decided the the core was intact and it would hold for another day of racing. We guessed wrong. Not a big deal, we wouldn't need to vang for the next upwind leg and Andrew got to work on a jury rig for our next downwind run.
After rounding we start looking for our competition. We can only see the Antrim and they are struggling with their kite and go into a broach. It takes them a while to recover, they drop their kite and continue racing. We can see where the Henderson or the Viper are. We carry on the second upwind leg pretty much on our own. By now the current has turned and we are in a slight ebb so we can play a bit more towards the center of the bay. The wind is now building to the mid 20s so we start preparing for our next downwind ride. We really just come out for these downwind runs, they are a rush. We have a video camera on board, but there is just too much going on to get one of us to mess with it. I think it will be great footage, so need a way to mount it on the boat (or strap it to my head).
Off we go around Little Harding and set the kite again. This time we have a longer run all the way to mark D on the Circle. Quickly after rounding we figure out our initial vang jury rig is not working, so Andrew ties the tail of the main halyard to the boom vang strap through the bail at the base of the mast, and straight back to the winch. Grind it down and now we have a working vang. We now go into full speed mode and scream down the bay, holding 14 knots and bursting to the 17s in the gusts. Everyone is smiling and enjoying the ride. We nail our jibe angle to the leward mark (actually, we nailed all the laylines in the race), do a safe windward douse and head towards the finish line on a power reach. The boat holding 9 and 10 knots on white sails.
We get a gun at the finish line and head back towards Alameda. We were all hungry and thirsty after 2 1/2 hours on course, so we take it easy to make sure we empty up the cooler before we get to Alameda. We ended up covering 21.3nm on course on 2h27m for an average of 8.7 knots, not bad for W-L course. A couple of things will need to get repaired, need a new tiller extension joint (plus a spare), need to fix the vang attachment (Andrew has a good idea to try out) and we blew one of the small spinlock cleats that needs to get replaced. Not too bad for a fun day in the water.
Race Results
Monday, August 2, 2010
New Main sail arrived
Sunday, July 4, 2010
New Main sail on the way
Time to replace the original main sail. Going with Doyle and a carbon and kevlar 'Stratis' flat-top main. Should give a little more sail area.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
BAMA Racetrack 07/03/2010
The Bay Area Multihull Association has put forth an interesting challenge. The have set up a course around the bay where you can race around any time you want and as many times you want to try to get the best time around the course. You can find more information on their website at BAMA Racetrack.
Today, Andrew and I took our first stab at it on JetStream. Winds were good, in the 15 to 20 range, so we were psyched to give it a go. But early in the course we quickly discovered that the currents weren't favorable. I had the feeling this was the wrong choice for the currents but it was the only time so far we had the chance to go out so we gave it a shot anyways. It turned into a lot of upwind sailing, not the best to get the best lap time.
We started up at Blossom Rock heading north to YRA 8. That was a fun, screaming reach, with the boat topping out at 13.4 knots with only white sails. After YRA 8, we had to leave Alcatraz and Little Alcatraz to the north which resulted in a beat up to Alcatraz. We played the Alcatraz 'cone' to avoid the worse of the current and made our way to Harding. Harding was almost a beat, we maybe cracked off 10 degrees.
After Harding we had to make our way Blackaller, which meant crossing the entrance to the bay and the worse of the current. Due to the current it also turned into a beat to windward given the SW winds today.
We got around Blackaller, and finally got to set the kite. At this point we had done a lot of sailing and were looking forward to the spinnaker run. The winds lightened up a bit, but the bay was nice and flat so we played our jibe angles. A third of the way down the winds picked back up and we had a screaming run back to Blossom rock.
We'll be trying again with more favorable current conditions, which should greatly help us improve on our time across the course. This time it took us 1hr 35m 35s to get around the track. Over a 10 nm course (we sailed much more than that) we averaged 6.3 knots. We can do better. Oh, and next time we will probably have new sails as well. Will post an update when the new sails arrive.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
YRA HDA Spring 1
On May 22nd we had the first race of the HDA season. We got enough interest from the Sportboats fleet to get our own division this year. Hoping that a few more boats will join.
Forecast was looking very favorable with 15 - 25 knots in the bay for the afternoon racing. Our preferable conditions. Mark and Andrew joined me for the days racing. The extra pair of hands would become a welcomed decision later in the afternoon.
We set off to our long slog from the Oakland Estuary to the Golden Gate Yacht Club. Got there with plenty of time to spare and sailed around waiting for our start. By the start time the wind was well into the 20 knots and the ebb had been building, throwing up a decent chop in the bay. We had a pretty clear start and soon tacked away to the center of the bay to take advantage of the ebb current. Crossed a few boats, and rounded the first windward mark (Blackaller) in third place behind some of the longer waterline boats. Had a perfect spinnaker set and the race was on. We took off in the fresh conditions and soon were leading the fleet. We were averaging between 14 and 15 knots of speed, with both Mark and Andrew doing an excellent job with the kite. Looking behind I could see one of the Tigers struggling with their kite, but the fast Antrim 27 with their blue kite was quickly approaching. We rounded the Blossom rock (the leward mark) in first position and headed back to the second lap. The Antrim was the only boat in our fleet we could still see and they were following behind about 80 yards. We would need to keep a watchful eye on them for the second downwind run. However, they had to drop out of the race due to an emergency and we were left to race on our own. We had a strong second upwind leg averaging around 7.5 knots, with some favorable current. Soon we were back at Blackaller and readied for the next downwind run.
Another flawless set and we were again off the races. The chop had built significantly from the first run and we were now constantly getting water over the decks. You could feel the boat accelerate on every puff. On one of the strongest puffs we plowed into the back of a wave, throwing a wall of water over the decks. The water knocked the crew back and I lost control of the boat and rounded up into a broach. We tried to bring the boat back, but it wouldn't come up with the spinnaker up. So with a quick release of the halyard we brought the boat back and dragged the spinnaker back into the boat. We thought we heard a tear on the spinnaker so didn't reset. As we were far ahead in the fleet we finished the downwind leg with just our white sails.
We now just had our final upwind leg to the finish. The wind had continued to build and we were seeing gusts in the upwards of 30 knots, so we played it conservatively. Got a gun at the finish and turned the boat around to head back home. Pretty tiring for a 2 hr race. Got some cold beers from our wet bilge and settled for our sail home. Good day out onboard JetStream and a good start for the HDA season.
Results for this race:
| SAIL # | BOAT NAME | BOAT MODEL | RATING | FINISH | ELAPSED | CORRECTED |
| 9045 | Jet Stream | Custom JS 9000 | 78 | 13:50:20 | 1:50:20 | 1:54:12 |
| 15 | CentoMiglia | Flying Tiger 10 | 54 | 14:11:03 | 2:11:03 | 2:21:02 |
| 41 | Wild One | Flying Tiger 10 | 54 | 14:17:22 | 2:17:22 | 2:27:50 |
| 24 | Ilex | Viper 640 ODR | 96 | DNF | ||
| 21 | Head Rush | Antrim 27 CM | 75 | DNF | ||
| 46595 | Family Hour | Henderson 30 | 48 | DNF |
Sunday, April 11, 2010
2010 SSS Corinthian
We knew it was going to be exciting as it coincided with a storm arriving in the area. The forecast was for winds of 10 - 15 knots, with gusts in the 20s. Needless to say it was substantially off, as we were seeing gusts over 30 just before the start. Throughout the race we saw winds in the 15 - 25 range with gusts in the 30s.
Since Mark lives just up the hill from Tiburon I would just pick him up at the yacht club before the race. This meant that I would do the 2+ hours delivery from Alameda by myself. So it was an early start for me with a 6am wake up call. Well, more like a 4am wake up call since our 3 month old decided it was breakfast time. Already up, gathered my stuff and headed down to the boat. I left the dock by 8am, autopilot on and outboard purring nicely up the Estuary. The wind was already filled in and soon after I excited the Estuary I was able to turn off the outboard and jib sail all the way to TI. It got a little light around TI and we motor sailed the rest of the way to Tiburon. Arrived at the club around 10 AM for our 11:25 start. Lots of boats already sailing around of what would be a fleet of over 100 boats for the race. I tied up at the club, went up to chat with some of the other sailors and race committee and waited for Mark to arrive.
Mark soon arrived and we got dressed for the wet and cold weather, and got the boat ready. Already some strong gusts where hitting the marina. It would have been nice to raise the main in the protection of the marina, but it would have required a few turns in close quarters to get out. JetStream doesn't like tight turns, so we elected to back out of the marina and power out. All went smooth, except that it was gusting to 30 knots outside the marina and very bumpy, and we still needed to get the main up. We motored out to Angel Island to try to find some protection on the lee of the island, but there wasn't much to be found. But the main had to go up, so Mark and I got on task. After a few tries it was up and we were powered up.
Not having a reef on the main, during some of the stronger gusts the thought came to my mind to pull the plug. The rig didn't look too happy with the sails thrashing around, so we took it easy on the pre-start staying out of the way and waiting for our sequence. We had a great start, close to the pin, and within a few minutes we were leading our fleet. We stayed on the ebb all the way to Little Harding and cracked off on a course east of Alcatraz on our way to Blossom Rock. We went a little deeper than the rest of the fleet. This would be a good leg for us and I knew we would be passing a few boats on the reach and wanted to avoid a string of luffing duels. It paid off as we gave Alcatraz a wider berth and were able to catch a few boats that fell into the windhole on the east of Alcatraz. The wind had moderated a bit from that of the start and we were pretty comfortable aboard JetStream....
The conditions made for an easy trip to Blackaller. With the SW winds you could almost lay the mark. A quick short tack to make up the difference and we were around Blackaller. On the way to the mark we had some very strong puffs, so we were debating whether to set the kite after the rounding towards South Hapmpton Shoals. But it felt light enough after we rounded and the kite quickly went up. What a ride.... we had a couple of moments of pure speed and adrenaline. We don't have a knotmeter on board so we can't say how fast we were going and during our top speeds we had no free hands to look at the GPS, but if we didn't hit 20 knots, we were at the very top end of the teens... The only boat with a kite up ahead of us was the F-24 Tri and they were putting up a lot of spray.... During the run a ferry crossed right in front of us putting up a huge wake. I was worried the the boat would just plow into the wave with negative consequences... but it punched through the first wake and skipped over the next and we were off again. I overstood the layline to our next mark and jibed too late. We couldn't hold the tighter course with the kite up and crashed the boat in a broach. Mark released the kite, but it took releasing the vang to get the boat back on its feet. We got the boat going full speed again and prepared to drop the kite. At this point it was really blowing, upper 20s, but Mark pull a great windward douse.
After rounding SH, we had an upwind leg up Racoon Straits back to Little Harding (again). It was blowing now, easily 30 knots on the beam and whitecaps everywhere. No risk today of the dreaded wind hole behind Angel Island. On the contrary, seems the SW winds were compressing and accelerating in the gap between Angel Island and Tiburon. With the help of the ebb, it made for a quick leg back to Little Harding. All that was left now, was the downwind finish. We felt pretty comfortable at this point and again reconsider putting up the kite, but someone else had already set theirs and ours went up immediately. There were only a couple of trimarans and 2 or 3 larger monohulls ahead of us at this point. After a couple of jibes we crossed the finish line with an elapsed time of about 2 hours and 30 minutes on an 18 mile course, a 7.2 knot average over the course. Not bad for a 30 foot boat.
We pulled back into the marina to drop off Mark and enjoy some well deserved cold beers. We were tired and sore from the challenging conditions, but full of adrenaline from our performance. After about an hour I couldn't further delay the inevitable delivery back to Alameda. I wanted to take it easy so the main was off the boom. I jib sailed all the way to TI and motor sailed the rest of the way. Half way down the Estuary the sun came out and helped dry things off. With the help from Andrew put the boat away and got on my way home. Got home around 7 PM, 12 hours after I left.... Long day.
4/12 -- Results are in. JetStream finished 1st in Sportboats Class, and 2nd Overall in the Doublehanded division, with the fastest elapsed time for a monohull.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
2010 SSS Three Bridge Fiasco Race Report
This past Saturday we had the first race of the SSS season. Mark came
back as crew to try to defend our double handed season championship
from last year. This year it will be good challenge with the regular
top contenders of Timberwolf, Arcadia and Great White, and the
addition of the singlehanded season winner Outsider, coming out to
challenge the doublehanders.
Berthin in Alameda, the races starting at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, tend to be a long day, with almost 2 hours of transit (motoring) each way. In ourboat and our engine that is a torturous
affair, as you feel and it sound like you are inside a blender.
I hadn't seen Mark for a couple of month, so after a 7 AM dock call,
we tried to catch up on our lives over the sound of the engine.
We got to the starting area around 9:30 with an hour to kill before
our start, and double and triple guess our strategy for the day.
Where is our competition? which way are they going? where is Kame and
Yucca? With over 350 boats entered for the race, it wasn't
necessarily easy to find the boats of interest. With about 20 minutes
for our start the wind pretty much died. We had stayed plenty clear
of the starting area and now got a bit worried that we wouldn't make
it to the line and went to start the outboard. Outboard didn't want
to play... After a few minutes of trying to get the engine started I
went back to concentrating on getting the boat moving towards the
starting line and Mark took the position at the back of the boat to
work on the engine. After a few more stressful minutes, Mark got the
engine going and we started looking for a spot to position ourselves
for the start.
There was a huge pileup at the pin end of the line with boats drifting
in all directions. Even though the current would be more favorable
outside (on the pin side), with our small rig we needed to find a
clear lane and headed towards shore on the west side of the line in
preparation for a counter clockwise run of the course. We found some
familiar faces in the vicinity with Yucca, Timberwolf and True North
in the same area and the same idea.
We had an uneventful first leg towards TI, picking up a few boats
along the way. Closer to the Bay Bridge it got a bit weird with boats
inside and outside of us doing better... The boats giving a wider
berth to TI seemed to be having a bit more pressure so we headed that
way. As soon as we cleared the southern end of TI we immediately set
the kite for our run down to Red Rock. Kite went up with a twist.
After a few seconds we got it untwisted, but something still looked
wrong. Tack and clew were attached incorrectly, so kite down, swap
the lines and back up. We were racing again. By this time it was
already ebbing on the eastern side of TI. We jibed early on an angle
that was pointing us exactly to the northeastern tip of TI. Moving
well in the light conditions. As soon as we cleared TI we got a nice
header that put our course straight to Red Rock Weather was
beautiful, boat was moving well, so it felt right to pop a beer! Not
bad sailing in T-shirt (long sleeve t-shirt) weather in the middle of
the winter.
As we approached Richmond, the ebb was already flowing from the north
bay. We stayed a little too long on the deep water and lost some
ground to the guys closer to shore. About this time we could see
Outsider coming... I wasn't sure we would see them all day, since
after we started they seemed to be lined up to go on a clockwise
run. They must have changed their minds at their start. Now we had
a fight in our hands racing both Ousider and the Antrim 27, Always
Friday which seemed to be attached to us with a rubber band. The gaps
would change but every 20 - 30 minutes they would be there again.
This will go on all the way to the finish.
Although the natural course would suggest a port rounding of Red Rock,
due to the conditions and the current a starboard rounding looked
favorable. It really felt counter intuitive and risky, but that is
the way we went and it payed off huge. I was hoping Outsider would
split and go the other way, but they were right there with us rounding
RR to starboard.
From RR to Blackaller we had some very favorable currents, averaging 8
to 9 knots over ground going upwind. Another tricky leg.. It was a
bit light for our boat and we were a bit underpowered. So the focus
was not to loose too much ground to our competition. Some of the
folks getting close to Tiburon seemed to have done well. It's always
tricky on that shore, I've had both great successes there and some
memorable failures. So I played it safe. After looking at the race
track, probably needed to go a bit deeper into the deep water channel
to get the most benefit from the current. But mostly focused on
playing the significant shifts that came along. It was a conveyor
belt through Racoon Straits, getting spat out on the Sausalito side in
no time. Here we stayed on the river as long as possible. The wind
picked up a bit on our reach across the bay and JetStream turned on
its afterburners passing a handful of boats on that leg and recording
our top speed of the day at 10+ knots.
Now we just had the short leg from Blackaller to the finish at GGYC.
Not a fun leg for use as we lost as many places as we gained on the
previous leg. The ebb was in full rage at this time and quite a bit
of boats converged in the area at the time of our rounding. The
strategy here was to stay as close to shore as possible to avoid the
worst of the current. It not always easy on our boat with a mixed
fleet of symmetrical and asymmetrical spinnakers. We need to keep a
hotter angle to keep moving and it was made more difficult with the
narrow runway and more than a few boats being able to square back
their poles and aim straight down the runway. Both Outsider and
Sapphire got back ahead of us in this leg, and we dropped a couple of
places on the Sportsboat division on the last mile.
We finished the race and kept the kite up all the way to TI. Made it
first to the hoist in Alameda (not a gun at the finish, but a good
reward nevertheless).
As of this writing the results are not yet posted. I'm hoping we will do top 10% on the fleet and I think we are looking at a 5th place in our class. Thanks Mark for a great day and great work.
back as crew to try to defend our double handed season championship
from last year. This year it will be good challenge with the regular
top contenders of Timberwolf, Arcadia and Great White, and the
addition of the singlehanded season winner Outsider, coming out to
challenge the doublehanders.
Berthin in Alameda, the races starting at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, tend to be a long day, with almost 2 hours of transit (motoring) each way. In ourboat and our engine that is a torturous
affair, as you feel and it sound like you are inside a blender.
I hadn't seen Mark for a couple of month, so after a 7 AM dock call,
we tried to catch up on our lives over the sound of the engine.
We got to the starting area around 9:30 with an hour to kill before
our start, and double and triple guess our strategy for the day.
Where is our competition? which way are they going? where is Kame and
Yucca? With over 350 boats entered for the race, it wasn't
necessarily easy to find the boats of interest. With about 20 minutes
for our start the wind pretty much died. We had stayed plenty clear
of the starting area and now got a bit worried that we wouldn't make
it to the line and went to start the outboard. Outboard didn't want
to play... After a few minutes of trying to get the engine started I
went back to concentrating on getting the boat moving towards the
starting line and Mark took the position at the back of the boat to
work on the engine. After a few more stressful minutes, Mark got the
engine going and we started looking for a spot to position ourselves
for the start.
There was a huge pileup at the pin end of the line with boats drifting
in all directions. Even though the current would be more favorable
outside (on the pin side), with our small rig we needed to find a
clear lane and headed towards shore on the west side of the line in
preparation for a counter clockwise run of the course. We found some
familiar faces in the vicinity with Yucca, Timberwolf and True North
in the same area and the same idea.
We had an uneventful first leg towards TI, picking up a few boats
along the way. Closer to the Bay Bridge it got a bit weird with boats
inside and outside of us doing better... The boats giving a wider
berth to TI seemed to be having a bit more pressure so we headed that
way. As soon as we cleared the southern end of TI we immediately set
the kite for our run down to Red Rock. Kite went up with a twist.
After a few seconds we got it untwisted, but something still looked
wrong. Tack and clew were attached incorrectly, so kite down, swap
the lines and back up. We were racing again. By this time it was
already ebbing on the eastern side of TI. We jibed early on an angle
that was pointing us exactly to the northeastern tip of TI. Moving
well in the light conditions. As soon as we cleared TI we got a nice
header that put our course straight to Red Rock Weather was
beautiful, boat was moving well, so it felt right to pop a beer! Not
bad sailing in T-shirt (long sleeve t-shirt) weather in the middle of
the winter.
As we approached Richmond, the ebb was already flowing from the north
bay. We stayed a little too long on the deep water and lost some
ground to the guys closer to shore. About this time we could see
Outsider coming... I wasn't sure we would see them all day, since
after we started they seemed to be lined up to go on a clockwise
run. They must have changed their minds at their start. Now we had
a fight in our hands racing both Ousider and the Antrim 27, Always
Friday which seemed to be attached to us with a rubber band. The gaps
would change but every 20 - 30 minutes they would be there again.
This will go on all the way to the finish.
Although the natural course would suggest a port rounding of Red Rock,
due to the conditions and the current a starboard rounding looked
favorable. It really felt counter intuitive and risky, but that is
the way we went and it payed off huge. I was hoping Outsider would
split and go the other way, but they were right there with us rounding
RR to starboard.
From RR to Blackaller we had some very favorable currents, averaging 8
to 9 knots over ground going upwind. Another tricky leg.. It was a
bit light for our boat and we were a bit underpowered. So the focus
was not to loose too much ground to our competition. Some of the
folks getting close to Tiburon seemed to have done well. It's always
tricky on that shore, I've had both great successes there and some
memorable failures. So I played it safe. After looking at the race
track, probably needed to go a bit deeper into the deep water channel
to get the most benefit from the current. But mostly focused on
playing the significant shifts that came along. It was a conveyor
belt through Racoon Straits, getting spat out on the Sausalito side in
no time. Here we stayed on the river as long as possible. The wind
picked up a bit on our reach across the bay and JetStream turned on
its afterburners passing a handful of boats on that leg and recording
our top speed of the day at 10+ knots.
Now we just had the short leg from Blackaller to the finish at GGYC.
Not a fun leg for use as we lost as many places as we gained on the
previous leg. The ebb was in full rage at this time and quite a bit
of boats converged in the area at the time of our rounding. The
strategy here was to stay as close to shore as possible to avoid the
worst of the current. It not always easy on our boat with a mixed
fleet of symmetrical and asymmetrical spinnakers. We need to keep a
hotter angle to keep moving and it was made more difficult with the
narrow runway and more than a few boats being able to square back
their poles and aim straight down the runway. Both Outsider and
Sapphire got back ahead of us in this leg, and we dropped a couple of
places on the Sportsboat division on the last mile.
We finished the race and kept the kite up all the way to TI. Made it
first to the hoist in Alameda (not a gun at the finish, but a good
reward nevertheless).
As of this writing the results are not yet posted. I'm hoping we will do top 10% on the fleet and I think we are looking at a 5th place in our class. Thanks Mark for a great day and great work.
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