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.
Bummer!
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