A different type of Delta Ditch

I see it has been a long time since I last posted.  But this last weekend was a memorable one in more ways than one.

Before this weekend, it is worth mentioning that the JetStream crew joined Greg and Karl on Outsider for a division win in the Spinnaker Cup and a second overall (just a minute behind in corrected).

With the Delta Ditch the following weekend, and the JetStream crew getting back together again for a another run, the anticipation was building.  We were all excited that this would be a trailer delivery instead of the usual 13 hours upwind slug from Stockton to Alameda.  The boat however still needed some preparations so Rob and I spent most of Memorial day preparing the boat for trailering.  Still everything hadn't been done, so Friday turned into another boat work day.

Oh, and this year we also updated the sailplan on JetStream, with a longer boom and a bigger main to help in lighter conditions.

Drilling into solid steel

One of the main items to convert the boat for trailering was attaching a hoist ring to the keel in order to retract it and set the boat lower on the trailer, safe enough for highway speeds.  The keel on the JS fits inside a trunk that goes all the way to the deck, also serving as the mast step.  The keel already had a threaded hole on the top of it, but in the down position it wasn't possible to screw in a hoisting ring, at least none I could find would fit.  So we decided to drill a new hole a bit further back with enough clearance to screw in the hoist ring.

With my drill bits and tap for a 5/8th hoist ring, my electric drill and some cutting oil ready, I set out to just drill a hole.  Clearly I have never tried to drill a hole into hard solid steel before.  A small pilot hole went in quite readily, this was looking like an easy job.  But as I started to upsize my drill bit, I quickly discover that my choice of hole position wasn't ideal as it was split between the core steel and the encasing fiberglass.  Guess which way the drill wanted to go?  So change of plan, and start drilling at a slight angle to get back to the steel.  To keep this short, a trip to home depot and 4 hours or drilling later I had my hole.  The actual raising of the keel would have to wait until we arrived at Stockton since the mast needs to be down to be able to raise the keel with the boat hoist.  In the meantime Andrew build 20 beautiful splices for the 5 point hoisting strop, while Rob fixed our forward bilge pump, restrung some foredeck rigging and dealt with some cabling issues down below.  Full days work for the whole crew.

Forecast

Its the Delta Ditch, who needs a forecast.  There was to be a 30 degree differential between the coast and Stockton, that is at least 25 knots of wind.  The forecasters clearly didn't know what they were saying when then were forecasting 0-10 knots throughout the course.  Nah, its going to blow, lets go racing

Race Day

We woke up to a warm morning with no marine layer.  Hmm, not a good sign, but its the Delta Ditch, nothing to worry about.  Just to make sure there would be wind I dressed in just short and t-shirt, not the usual base layer.  Clearly tempting nature this way would ensure payback in the form of wind and spray.  Its over a 2 hr delivery from Alameda to Richmond where the race starts so we were off the dock at 7:30.

As we got to the start area, we went to run the line and quickly found the muddy bottom of the bay since the race committee set the boat end of the line in 5 feet of water.  A quick backing of the main and a heavy heel quickly freed us.  A few words with the race committee and they quickly moved the boat to navigable waters.

With enough breeze on the course we got off with a nicely timed downwind start on a spinnaker run towards San Pablo Bay.  Played the shore side to avoid the worst of the ebb and this was looking like a good day.  After turning Pt. San Pablo, the first signs of trouble showed themselves.  The breeze began to lighten and we could see the end of the wind ahead.  For us it was a chance for a restart, as we caught up to the larger boats and multihulls ahead.  Next decision was how to setup for the next transition, should we go towards the channel or stay inshore?  Did the forecasters get it right?

Mistake.  We anticipated a current change that didn't quite materialized and by choosing the channel, half of the fleet got by us on the inside as we made our way back to shore.  Little by little we picked up the boats in front and after a good move in Vallejo we were back with the front runners.  The leg through Suisun Bay was both challenging and fun.  With a variety of conditions and a couple of windholes it was a cat and mouse game with the boats around.  Different boats excelling on different conditions resulting in many position changes.

It was now around 4 o'clock and we were still at Pittsburg, it wasn't going to be a record breaking year.  Normally we would have been very frustrated in these conditions, but the new larger main seems to have given the boat the performance to be competitive in the lighter conditions.  I guess the forecasters were right.  I'm sure we all knew they would be, we just didn't want to admit it to ourselves.  By this point we were committed, the trailer was waiting for us at Stockton and we only had enough fuel to push us a few miles, we still had over 30 miles to cover.

Pittsburg delivered another wind hole, but as the trailing boats brought the wind with them we started to build up our lead again.   This time we didn't miss mark '19'.  In the moderate conditions its a little easier to track it down.  And by habit be brought down the kite as we rounded it.  This was a bad move as some of the boats behind kept their kites up for a while and made some gains on us.  Around the top of the hump it was a battle with a F31 Tri and a Melges 24.  As conditions continues to lighten it was a battle that we lost.  By the end of the hump another Melges 24 also caught up.  We managed to hold them off for a couple of miles but they eventually were able to reach over us and get ahead.  It was getting dark now, spirits were still very good on board.  It had been a long day but one that was pretty satisfactory and the end of the race was near.  We made some bets on finishing time, mine being the most conservative at 10:30 pm.  But there was no evening breeze and as the night set in, the breeze decided to go to sleep as well.  We were now drifting towards the finish line, with a surprising late running flood still pushing us slightly towards Stockton Sailing Club.  

Needless to say 10:30pm came and went.  We drifted by the always partying 'Lost Isle', got buzzed by a few power boaters going way too fast on a dark night and continued to creep ever so slightly towards the finish.  Around midnight we passed the F-31 that had previously passed us, and caught up with the J-111 that was also struggling keeping the boat pointed in the right direction on the conditions.  But we could see the finish line ahead.  It was a bit annoying that the race deck was sounding the 'finish' horn to every boat that had pulled the plug and motored in.  I guess they too had been waiting a long time to do 'something'.  It was looking like we will finish after all, still dead calm, but enough current to get us to about 30 feet from the finish line.  And then 1 am came.  I had not bothered to check the race instructions for a 'time limit'.  It is the Delta Ditch, it always blows.    But as we sat motionless to leeward, urging the boat to keep creeping towards the finish line, the current finally turned and the stroke of 1 am meant we will not finish the race.  We would have been the 4th monohull across the line.

Post Race

After putting the boat away we set off to make camp for the night.  I had packed the Jeep the day before with our camping gear and delivered it with the trailer.  As we are unpacking the car, the camping chairs came out, so did the sleeping bags and sleeping pads, but where is the tent?  Well, clearly I didn't pack it.  We decided to grab some food first and figure our next move while we ate, it was now well past 2 am.  Luckily they had saved some ribs for us and we got some needed calories before calling it a night.  It was decided, Rob and Andrew would sleep on the truck, and I would crawl back to JetStream to try to find a dry spot to lay down for a few hours.

The Keel

Maybe you've read some of our previous delivery stories.  Taking the boat back to Alameda over the water is a 13 hour upwind ordeal.  This year I had prepped the boat to deliver back on a trailer at 60 mph.    We had worked hard making some modifications to the boat and Greg hooked us up with a trailer.  We were able to push the rudder out from under the boat while the boat was in the water.  The mast quickly came down, all was left was to raise the keel with the hoist and drop the boat on the trailer for the ride home.   Raising the keel was the only unknown.  The keel on JetStream had been secured in the down position probably since the boat got put together.    We took off the 3 traverse bolts keeping it in place and set to raise it.  Well, it didn't move.  After over 4 hours in the 100 degrees of Stockton trying to raise the keel, we gave up.  The keel looks to be very aggressively shimmed in place and all the friction was preventing the keel from releasing.  The story is not over.... the boat is still in Stockton where our friend Chris is trying to work his magic, and if that doesn't work a trip to the local boat yard is on deck to release the stubborn keel.

Always an adventure

Epic Delta Ditch

Last Saturday was JetStream's inaugural Delta Ditch Run.  I had done the race previously on other boats but never taken mine.  The race is generally a downwind run from the Northern San Francisco Bay, up the Delta through the San Joaquin River into the city of Stockton.   About 65 miles.  Navigation is key to this race as there are mud flats hidden outside the marked channels and knowing what corners to cut is critical to do well.  Though sticking the boat in the mud could easily end the day.  I had been stressing about the navigation and memorizing and documenting as much as possible.  With a short crew of just 3, we can't always have someone focused on navigation and with the predicted strong winds the twists and turns will come very quickly at us.

For the race we had our regular crew with Andrew and Rob.  Andrew would be the trimmer, a long day on that spinnaker sheet, and Rob would do everything else while I drove.  I think at the end Rob ended up with the more demanding job, both working the pointy end, preparing the boat for the many transitions in the race and navigating us to the finish.

The start of the race was pretty hectic.  We didn't have a stellar start and were a few seconds late.  It was a downwind start and soon everyone was working to get their kites up.  We started at the pin on the leeward side in order to be able to cleanly bear away and set and we were off to the races.  With boats broaching in front of us, we chose a low line to stay clear of the mayhem.  With solid 20 knots and some flood current to help us along we were soon in San Pablo Bay making our way to Vallejo. 

Into San Pablo Bay there was a lot of South component to the breeze which make it impossible to hold the big kite up and stay clear of the Pinole Channel.  At this point we were even with the J125 Double Trouble leading the fleet out to Vallejo.  Over the protestation of the crew I called to switch down to our Code0 to come up on the course.  It was a good call.  DT below us carried the kite a bit longer but had to drop to white sails, same with the rest of the fleet behind us.   As we passed Pinole Pt. the wind started to clock back and we went back to our A2 leading the fleet into the Carquinez Straight.   By this point the wind had moderated back into the teens and DT, the Melges 32 and the Sierra 26 were charging hard behind us.  As we got under the Carquinez bridge DT had snuck ahead and the Melges and Sierra continued their chase through Benicia.

Into Suisun Bay the winds continued to stay on the lighter side the Melges had gotten in front of us and the Sierra was close approaching.  As we tried to stretch the edges of the channel to reduce the number of gybes we were always paranoid about the mud flats.  Rob did a great job keeping us in deep water.   Two of our close competitors wouldn't be as lucky.  The Sierra found the mud on the Northern edge of the channel, though after a few minutes they were able to free up and continue racing.  For DT the encounter with the mud on the Southern edge will end their day.  The wind and current pushed them into shallower water and they eventually had to use their engine to free themselves.  Through the Mallard Slough it was just the Melges leading the way (thankfully with strong local knowledge of the Delta) with us matching them gybe for gybe all the way through to Sherman Island.

The winds have kept of building from the latter part of Suisun Bay onwards and we were now clocking some good speeds over the water.  We were soon approaching a notorious mark of the course, Marker 19.  This section of the course looks like an upside down U, which forces a few sail changes and transitions.  We thought we could hold our smaller kite, but we had killer puffs coming over Sherman Island into the mid 30s.  The water in front of us was churning white and some of the multihulls ahead were in pure survival mode.  So down comes the kite and we are back to white sails as we reach up the back side of Sherman Island.  This was a crazy reach with winds now in the high 20s and 30s.  These are pretty good conditions for the JS and we were able to get ahead of the Melges again and leading the fleet of monohulls.  Around the top of the inverted U there are opportunities to cut some corners and reset for a short downwind section.  But without the lead of the Melges we decided to be conservative and stay in the channel.  We also didn't have a good chance to prepare for this transition and weren't prepared to set the small kite on the top section.  So we chose to reset the Code0 again.  It helped, but the boats behind us who got to set made up some ground on us.  We were still neck to neck with the Melges, but we had some issues as we came down the backside of the inverted U and they got ahead again.

We had an opportunity to catch them again when it was time to reset the big kite for the start of a long narrow downwind section to the finish after Prisoners Point.  Give the ferocity to the winds we had just experienced we decided to go back up with the A5, but as we entered the narrow channel the winds subsided.  We had to go back to white sails while we set up to reset the bigger A2 and by then the Sierra got back in front of us.  It is good to have all the options on the sails.  But managing all those sails with just 2 crew and a 3 foot wide foredeck showed some limitations.  It is something we will plan better the next time around.

This next section of the course, the final stretch, worried me a bit.  I wasn't sure how competitive we could be on a 300 - 400 ft channel doing gybe after gybe downwind against boats that could square back their symmetrical spinnakers and just go straight down the river.  But we built a significant cushion on the reachy legs of the course to hold them back.  The Farr 40 behind us made a strong push to catch us into the finish but they ran out of course.

@ Slackwater   At the finish

We were the 3rd monohull to cross the finish line, with the Melges 32 and the Sierra 26 in front of us by only a couple hundred yards.  It was a really fun battle with those two boats, exchanging places multiple times during the race.  We had completed the race just shy of 6 hours and were very satisfied with our performance.   Both Andrew and I had cramping arms, and Rob was both mentally and physically exhausted from all the demands we put on him.  It had been a good race.

Thanks to Rob and Andrew for a great race and helping delivering the boat back the next day.  That was mostly a 12 hr hate mission.  But I'll leave that for another post (or not).  Need to find a road trailer before next years race.