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.
Bummer Dan. Dont tell me that you would not have brought me out there because it was too dangerous. Sounds like you could have used the hands.
ReplyDeleteNext time you think about the ocean, I am coming with.
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Thanks Mark... I definitely could have used the extra set of hands on Saturday. You were in Russia anyways :) Better get yourself a PLB and a handheld VHF if you want to come out to the ocean...
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