JetStream Racing

JetStream Racing

Monday, April 28, 2014

2014 Vallejo Season Opener



Rob, Andrew and I raced the Vallejo Season Opener this past weekend.  The forecast for the race was a little mixed with a couple of fronts coming through the weekend.  We would have a very competitive fleet in the Sportboat1 division with a couple of heavy hitters: the always competitive J90, a pair of Tigers, a pair of 1D35 and the new Melges30 Rufless.  It was going to be a fight.

Saturday started really light. After a 1 hr postponement the RC was able to start two fleets, but as the final countdown to our start was about to expire, with all boats drifting backwards on the line, the RC was kind enough to postpone again.  No complaints on our side, we were happy to sit it out and wait for the westerlies to fill in.  After another 30 minutes or so, it did start to fill in and we were sent on our way.  We almost pulled off the port start, but not making it cost us dearly.  It was still pretty light and the better light air boats started to pull away as we struggled to find a good lane.  Halfway up to the windward mark we recovered a bit and set our sights for the long downwind run to Vallejo.  We set the kite at the mark and started chasing the boats ahead.  Rufless and AlphaPuppy (1d35) had extended out at this point.  The breeze hadn't fully filled in so everyone parked it up behind Angel Island.   We took advantage of the restart.  We stayed to windward, with Rufless and AP to leeward.  They hooked up to the new NW breeze first, but it wasn't long before it got to us.  Back to white sails and back on the chase.  We closed reached all the way up Richmond to San Pablo point.  After the bridge we dove down to shore to get some current relief and it paid off for all the boats that did it.  We were still running third on our fleet at this point.  We got to the San Pablo mark and turned right towards Vallejo.  We could see that the two leading boats in our fleet hadn't set their kites... The wind was far enough back that we could hold our A2 so we set right away and got to chasing again.  We started making some big gains.  Halfway to Pinole the breeze started to build and we could no longer hold our angle, down with the A2 and up with the Code0.  This transition across San Pablo Bay has become the deal maker for us.  In this mode we separate from the fleet.  Up ahead still, Rufless now had their kite up and were extending.  That Melges 30 on the right hands is one hell of a fast boat...  Past Pinole Pt we went back to our A2.  We passed AP, but Rufless has still leading and we weren't closing the gap.  We would have to see how the correction worked out at the end.  We stayed right by the fuel docks, but switched over to the left at the wall and short gybed all the way down the wall to the Mare Island entrance.  It got pretty exciting down the wall, we were steadily holding 17s and 18s through this section.



Around the point it got a bit frustrating.  There was a strong ebb coming down the Napa river and the wind was just a set of gusts from 0 - 20 with 30 degree shifts...  We stayed close to the middle not wanting to risk having to tack later on.  But the current relief close to the East bank payed off for the boats willing to risk it.  We crossed the line behind Rufless so we will have to wait for the results to see if we would correct out in front or not.

All week we had been trying to figure out what to do overnight.  Both marinas at Vallejo had depth problems as they hadn't dredged and we didn't want to sit in the bottom all night.  The folks at Glen Cove marina had assured us that they had 8 - 9 feet of water at low tide, so we turned back and headed there.  A bit of a bummer as we like to hang out with our friends and fellow competitors after racing.  20 meters after entering the Glen Cove marina we found the %$#*^& mud !!!!  What do you need to do to get accurate depth information from harbormasters???  We tried everything, outboard out, Rob hanging out on a halyard, forward, backwards...  Nothing.  And the tide was still running out.  Monti from the big powerboat on the end tie came to the rescue.  He got on his dinghy and tried to pull us in, nope.  We were close enough to get a line to the dock, and with Rob still hanging from the halyard Andrew as able to pull the boat next to the power boat where we rafted up.  A quick cleanup, a couple of cold beers and all was good with the world again.  Kristen picked us up and we headed to the yacht club for a little socializing before all of us going to my place for a nice steak dinner.

Fast forward to Sunday morning and everyone is hitting the bottle of profen.  Egg, sausages, croissants, coffee and more profen for breakfast and we are back to the boat for the race back.  There was already good breeze all the way across San Pablo bay, so things were looking good.  We had a bit of time to kill as we are the 15th start of the day.  The wind is too far forward, so its only white sails out the river.   This time we edge to the East shore for the current relief but it doesn't really pay off, the folks on the right found enough pressure to stay ahead.  The current was still flooding pretty hard so we played the wall out of the river.   Rufless has pulled ahead already but we are in close touch with the J90, the Henderson, the Tiger and the other Melges30.  The wind is now a bit from the SW so we pick a lane and start the fetch towards Pinole Pt.  Not much tactically to do at this point, just keep your eye on the speedo and keep the boat moving fast.  We had lost sight of Rufless (not a good sign) and both the Henderson and the J90 were ahead of us.  After Pt. Pinole there was a bit of a transition, with a new NW breeze filling in.  The J90 was further North so they just took off, Rufless was further South and got hurt by the transition, we were mostly down the middle so lost a bit to the J90 but gained huge on Rufless.  Rufless, the J90 and the Henderson, bet us to the finish, so again we would have to wait on the corrections to see how it all panned out.

With the results in, we corrected to first on Saturday and second (behind the J90) on Sunday.  A tiring but competitive and successful weekend on the water.

Monday, April 7, 2014

Unofficial Doublehanded Lightship


Earlier this year JetStream got denied entry to the Doublehanded Farallones even though it met all the objective criteria and equipment requirements for the race.  For the Doublehanded Lightship we would need to get some waivers from the race committee for a couple of the items on the NCORC list that it used for its required equipment list.  We requested the waivers from the committee and they were respectfully denied.  Oh well, we wouldn't be allowed to participate on the race but we are free to go for a sail around the Lightship any time we want.  My crew Rob and I already had our schedule open for this race so we decided to ghost the fleet as they raced.

The Lightship buoy stands about 11 miles Southwest the Golden Gate bridge.  We had officially done this race two years ago in 2012 on JetStream without any problem, but this year with the 'new' rules and without any waivers the boat no longer qualified.

We had an early wakeup call Saturday morning.  With a start scheduled for 9am off the Golden Gate YC, we would need to leave the dock in Alameda by 7.  At least be boat was already in the water from our Friday night race.  But it still took us three trips to the car to load up all the offshore gear and pretty much the full 1.5 hours delivery to the starting line to set it up and stow it.  The list of equipment we don't keep onboard for our bay racing is quite extensive:

- offshore flares and Epirb Jug
- large dry bag with:
  - sail repair kit
  - radar reflector
  - extra flashlight
  - search light
  - spare nav lights
- autopilot
- danbuoy
- offshore hatch
- jacklines, tethers
- 8' vhf mast/antenna
- full sail inventory, #3, #4, A2, A5, C0
- extra fuel

Rob found space for every piece in our shelves while keeping some of the key emergency items at easy reach.

The forecast had been quite promising all week.  Early in the week it was showing 15 - 25 and by race day it had moderated a bit to 10 - 20 with higher gusts.  During breakfast the lightship was already reporting 20 knots of breeze from the NW.  This would make for a quick fetch once we cleared Pt. Bonita and hooked into the NWesterlies.  With remaining ebb pushing us out at the start it would make for a very fast trip.  On the way to the start we could already see a more Northerly direction on the breeze than usual.  This would be great for the ocean but it meant NO wind inside the Bay.

Smartly, the RC did not postpone so that the fleet could still use the remaining ebb to get out of the Gate.  Initially I was planning on starting just after our 'division' (of course we wouldn't cross the starting line to avoid confusing the RC), but since there was literally no wind, we didn't want to interfere with the guys racing and decided to stay a few hundred yards away from the starting line towards the center of the Bay.  We were in a bit better current so we started to drift ahead of first fleet.  Caught a few SW puffs that help us inch towards the Gate.  It was all a little painful as we had just our #4 up, preparing for the smackdown we were expecting outside Bonita.  But we stayed patient and drifted along taking advantage of whatever breeze we could find.  Close to the gate we started getting a light but consistent Westerly breeze and we got on our upwind leg to Pt. Bonita.

We wanted to exit lands end on the North side.   But at Bonita the wind backed down again.  That made for some uncomfortable sailing.  The seas, though not big, were pretty confused in the area and with all the bouncing around we couldn't keep much flow on the sails.  We were back to less than 2 knots of boatspeed, bouncing around in the chop.  But we knew the NW breeze was out there.  So we tacked back to starboard to try to get it as quickly as possible.  At Bonita, both Condor and Outsider were beginning to come up behind us.  Condor pulled the plug and Outsider continued on port tack for a bit longer.  Our tack payed off and little by little we started to get the expected lift and a few moments later the breeze began to fill in gradually.  We were now on a very comfortable high teens fetching the mark.

We were sailing straight up the channel with the building breeze.  The waves weren't particularly big and once we got in the channel they got more structured.  We were now screaming at around 9 knots straight at the mark.  We cleared the channel and had both the Lightship and the Pilot ship in sight.  I was thinking that the sea state would mellow out in the deeper water but we came across a couple of steep sets.  Between the steepness and our speed we had a couple of decent slams and with the Lightship about a mile away (another 10 minutes at the rate we were going) we decided we had enough distance to enjoy the downhill ride back and turned the boat around.

By now we were in the solid 20s and our decision to just put the #4 was rewarded.  We soon jumped to the mid teens in boatspeed, with just the white sails up.  With a couple of the surfs we would jump to 17-18 knots touch 20s a few times.  The boat was effortless in this conditions.  It still amazes me how well behaved the boat is.  With the white sails up I could pretty much take the boat anywhere.  We could come up hard for speed and to big bear aways to hook up to the swell and surf down.   We set our A5 as we exited the channel and had a really fun ride back to Pt Bonita never really dropping below 13 knots.  At this windspeed and angle the boat required very active trimming.  With the big accelerations down the waves the apparent wind changes were pretty drastic.  Inside Bonita the wind backed and dropped a bit, so we had a pretty mellow spinnaker run.  We cleared the South Tower and headed towards Crissy.  By 12:10 we were back inside Gate.  A little over 3 hours to cover the 23 (for us) mile course.

It is certainly a physical boat in the upwind conditions, and rewardingly easy on the downwind portions.  We learned a few things.  For me, my offshore gear is just to bulky.  It is fine for spending the night on the rail on a big boat or standing behind the wheel, but for the active sailing on the JS probably a bit lighter drysuit, or moving to an offshore smock would feel less restrictive.  Also, need to streamline and better plan the offshore gear particular with our limited space.

Bottom line is that the boat performed very well under the normal Gulf conditions of 20+ knots and reasonable seas.  For short duration, near shore races (like the Lightship, HMB and even Drakes) waivers should be granted so we could officially participate, and even some of the shorter downwind rides to Santa Cruz and Monterey would be very doable (if I had a road trailer to bring the boat back).

Thanks to Rob for his excitement and energy to take the boat for an offshore ride.