A full weekend

We had a full schedule for this weekend.  Friday night for the Encinal series, Saturday the fully crewed Farallones race on Ocelot and Sunday the HDA South Bay race.  Andrew and Rob would be on JetStream both Friday and Sunday.

Friday
After attending the life celebration for Rui Luis of Rooster Sails (both him and Rascal will be missed) I went to get JetStream ready for a little Friday evening racing.  Rob free climbed the mast to retrieve the main halyard that I accidentally skied after the last raced.   Rob indulged me by wearing a harness and a safety line, but the guy is a bit of a climber.

There had been plenty of breeze all afternoon but it went a little light towards the start of our race.  A windshift during our start sequence put us in a bad position for our start, and we were just half a boat length from clearing the fleet on port.  But we didn't and the boat that did ended up winning the race.  Instead, we were forced back to startboard (going the wrong way) and locked in that tack for too long by a boat that refused to tack and head up the Estuary.  Oh well, that was pretty much our race.  We had to pick through the fleet and manage to crawl back for a 5th place.

Saturday
An early dock call had Andrew, Rob and me eating breakfast at Ole's at 6:45.   A full belly and we were off to Ocelot for a race to the Farallones.  The forecast was calling for strong winds (20+) and on Ocelot that is ideal.  So the crew was pretty excited.

We got off the dock and I headed over to the 'daddy corner' to catch up on my sleep.  There are a few sleep deprived crew on the boat with small children, and the hour delivery to the start is an ideal time to crawl up on the forepeak and take a bit of a snoozer on top of the spinnakers.

As expected, as we got to the starting area the wind was already hovering on the high teens.  The #3 went up and we got ready for the long slog to the Farallones.  Kokopelli, Ocelot and Condor, left the gate in that order and we will remain as such all the way to the islands.  4 long hours of sitting on the rail beating in some significant wind chop and 20 - 30 knots.  It is not the funnest part of sailboat racing, but most of the time you have to put the time on the rail before enjoying the rewards of high speed downwind sailing.    A bit of a sidebar, the conditions outside Pt. Bonita were quite similar to the ones during the SSS Farallones race that we tried a few weeks back.  Amazing what and additional 10 feet of waterline and 3 feet of freeboard makes.  Ocelot gracefully powered over the tops of the waves, while JetStream tried to cut right through them.  Needless to say it was a bit more comfortable on Ocelot with no sense of being overly exposed.

Back to the race, we rounded the Farallones in second place and we got ready for our speed run back hoping to make some of the ground on Kokopelli.   Where did the wind go?  As we came out of the back of the Farallones our talk changed from 'would we need the A5 for the tight reach back' to 'why did we leave the A1 on the docks'.  The wind shifted to the West and dropped 10 knots...  aargh.    All that pain upwind for a mellow cruise back.  Shouldn't complain, as I was on one of the fastest boats on the fleet, and the rest of the fleet was looking at a really long day ahead of them.  15 miles later as we exited the longitude of the channel we found the pressure closer to shore.   We approached the bay entrance from the North and we were moving now steady in the low teens.  As we got close to the South Tower, the wind continued to build and we still had the A2 up.  At this point we were running on kite alone with the main out and vanged off.   The boat just kept accelerating toping at around 19 knots.  This is what we had hoped to do for a couple of hours, not just the last 15 minutes of the race.  At this angle we weren't making the finish and an attempt to try put us into a broach, which we conveniently used to get the spinnaker down.  We finished with main and stay sail still doing over 12 knots.   There were smiles all around.

Sunday
A late 1PM start allowed for some good family time in the morning.  Rob and Andrew were back on JetStream.  A beautiful day, the sun finally came out around 11 as the fog cleared and the temperature started to rise.  We headed towards South Beach for our HDA start.  After a few practice runs we were ready to go.  There was some really nice flat water and as the minutes ticked the wind continued to build which is always good for us.  I would estimate we raced in between 12 - 18 knots.

Today it would just be one race.   A huge disappointment was the low turnout for the race.   I have been hoping to get some of the other sportboats excited about coming out and getting a fleet established.  But out of the 6 boat entered only 4 showed up, and two of the 4 decided to race in the non-sportboat division, WTF?  The Henderson and the Ultimate 24 didn't race with us.  So our race would be a match race between JetStream and an 1D35, with the boats crossing the finish line within 3 seconds of each other.  The race would be Start - W - Reach mark - L - W - L -W - L - Finish.  So a nice long race (I think about 10 miles).

Both boats went for a pin end port start as it was highly favored.  We must have just made the line as the gun went off and slightly won the start.  We stayed in front 3/4 of the way to the windward mark before the 1D35 got ahead of us.  Those boats are an upwind machine with better speed and point and killer when the wind goes light (at least compared to us).   The next leg would make our race.  We had tried out the angle before our race and made the call of going with the smaller reaching kite (A5) as opposed to our big kite (A2).  That made the difference in the day.  We set immediately around the windward mark and went on a screaming reach into the mid teens.   The 1D35 instead reached high with its white sails and it was halfway up the leg before they set their kite.  In that leg alone we measured a 4 minute advantage between the boats.  We would need that buffer.

We held our lead down to the leeward mark before heading back upwind.  We worked a loose cover on the 1D35 and hedged towards the left side which seemed to have more pressure.  There was enough separation that both boats were on different wind so we just had to play our shifts.    We got around the windward mark ahead but the 1D35 had made a significant gain on the upwind leg, cutting our lead in half.

Now the big kite went up and with the building pressure we were easily doing 12 and 13s towards the mark.  Us playing our 'power' angles while the 1D35 was pretty squared back and going on a more direct course.   We managed to gain a bit of our lead back.

We repeated the upwind leg, with similar results.  This time the 1D35 rounded just about a minute behind us.   The wind dropped some for the last downwind leg so we didn't gain much back on the other boat, so it was going to be a tight upwind leg to the finish.   We got ourselves into cover mode and worked a tight cover on the 1D35, but little by little they chipped at our lead.  Up to about 100 yds to the finish we were ahead and went to protect the right hand side.  But it wasn't to be.  A tack duel ensued and in the lighter conditions they were faster and got the gun by something like 3 seconds.  At least we put a good show for the race committee and we will still correct to first place.

A nice spinnaker run back to Alameda and finished the day watching the Mav's beat the Heat while enjoying an all you can eat Prime Rib dinner.   I think I'm going to be full for the next three days...

JS 9000 Jetstream South Bay Racing from rob blackmore on Vimeo.

Coming up: Coastal Cup
My favorite race of the mid distance Ocean Series.  San Francisco to Catalina Islands starting on Wednesday.  I'll be back on the J111 'Invisible Hand'.

2011 SSS Farallones - First Attempt

After much boat prep ahead of the Farallones, JetStream was ready to give it a try, Plan A. After discussions in the morning with Outsider about the expected sea state, we decided to have a look for ourselves anyways. Made it to the start just in time. Had a great ride to the bridge and Bonita, by the time we got close to Bonita I could see the fleet ahead either well heeled or flogging their sails, even some boats were already on their way back. Would have been a nice spot to put on the reef. Within a few minutes we were in the middle of square seas and winds I would guess in the mid twenties. I tried to set the boat up to tuck a reef in, but in that sea state I wasn't too confident on the pilot as I was very actively steering around the worst of the waves. It would have massacred the main (and skipper) to continue racing with full main. Even though I really wanted to at least try to get to the organized swell to see if the ride would get more comfortable, the quiet voice inside my head kept saying that it was enough. So we turned around a few miles past Bonita before reaching the first of the markers. And... Holy Shit, is the end of the world really coming.... Surfing back through the confused seas with sustained mid-teens on the speedo and a couple of 20s. The fastest the boat has ever gone and we didn't even had the kite up. We did bail out on a couple of the steep drops, but surfed our way back to Bonita in no time.

I was really curious to test out the boat some more since we were already out, so once inside Bonita we turned back around, tucked in the reef and went back out for a second look. Not too comfortable either. The wind was manageable, but the sea state made me feel very exposed. Also learned that we need a better system to pull in the clew reef point. No purchase, and no access to the winch is not going to cut it even with no pressure on the main. So after a bit of abuse we bore off on startboard tack. This time I stayed on this tack for a while and could really appreciate the swells. Still screaming, pulled in a gybe and headed back to the gate. That was the end of Plan A.

Congrats to the skippers that got around the rockpile and back! It was a fast but difficult day.

JetStream was also entered for the HDA series. With a mid day start we still had plenty of time to go racing. A few phone calls and we had crew lined up. I pulled up to the docks at GGYC and waited for the crew to arrive. The skippers of Outsider and Starbuck, who had both also bailed from the Farallones race rounded up the crew. It was now blowing mid-twenties in the bay. Boats at the edge of control and we have to deal with a starting line right smack in the middle of the leeward gate for the team-racing folks. Someone wasn't really thinking.... Everyone did the right thing, but having all those boats in that close proximity is just not smart.

We were in our conditions, rounded the windward mark just behind the 1D35 and headed on a white sail reach. By the time we decided to set (and after a couple of budged attempts at hoisting) we had gone a bit too far and were struggling to clear Alcatraz. So a quick douse and we were power reaching again. Rounded the leeward mark first and covered the 1D35 all the way to the finish for the gun. So Plan B turned out a bit better. It was supposed to be a two race day for HDA, but at this point I was spent, we lost the spinny tack line on the quick drop, and decided to call it a day. Not a bad day.

After a beer back at GGYC, jumped back on the boat and jib sailed back to Alameda.

2011 Vallejo - Part 2

Sunday was the return race from Vallejo to San Rafael, normally an upwind affair but a little shorter and with favorable current this time.   Due to our late arrival on Saturday, my participation on the night festivities was restricted (though sufficient).  This meant that I felt pretty good Sunday morning.

I stayed with the family in St. Helena and was a little late getting to the boat, but Andrew had everything ready to go.  Something about my text messages at 7 in the morning (seemed reasonable at the time).  We got to the starting area with plenty of time and setup for the kite run down the river.   We had a good start windward of Ragtime and immediately set the kite.   Sailed to the lee of Ragtime as they hadn't set and didn't want to give them the opportunity to luff us up.   We started pulling away from the fleet with the 11-meter on hot pursuit.   We were about 100 yds in front of our fleet when we arrived to a wall of boats blocking the whole river struggling with the last of the flood and light air.  Here it was a crap shoot.  First we tried the West side just to see pressure and current relieve on the East side.  So we crossed over to the East, things look good momentarily, just to see the wind build on the West side and watching as the fleet walked away on us.    So we were in catch up mode.

As we exited the river I wanted to take a few tacks along the wall before crossing over, but Andrew convinced me otherwise (he reminded me how it paid off for me last year when he was racing against us).  It was a good call, it was still about another hour before any real ebb materialized and there was good pressure and angle on the South side.  We kept playing the shallows 2/3rds of the way to Point Pinole where the wind line shut down.  By then we had worked our way into deeper water to take advantage of the current.  There was barely a zephyr of wind, but with the current pushing us into the wind, the increased apparent wind meant we were able to keep the boat moving the whole time.  It was enough to allows to get ahead of the 11-meter and the Tiger that had beat us out of the river.

The wind did eventually filled from the West with good pressure to get us to the finish line.  We just tried to play the wind and current with various degrees of success.   The Tiger caught up to us and got ahead close the finish and we could see Ragtime not far behind us.

We never really saw much of the Henderson, mostly because as I would learn from the results they were plenty ahead.   They sailed a great race.   We had a good race ourselves correcting to 2nd in our division.
Sunday Results

The best part of the day was Andrew's run from the Richmond Bridge to the Alameda entrance on a tight reach on fresh conditions.  It doesn't get old.

2011 Vallejo Season Opener

This weekend Andrew and I raced JetStream on the Vallejo Season Opener. This year we got two Sportboat starts. We were on the fleet with the larger Sportboats including the 1D35, Flying Tigers, Henderson 30, Azzura 310, J90 and Hobbie 33. Saturday is normally a downwind ride to Vallejo, but this year we were welcomed by a Northerly that made it a beat to the Richmond Bridge and mostly to San Pablo point.

Andrew described the race quite accurately. Saturday we had three races, from the Berkeley Circle to the Richmond Bridge, from Richmond Bridge to Point San Pablo, and from San Pablo to Vallejo. We won two out of the three with the benefit of winning the last leg and taking a first in our division.

The first leg wasn't ideal as the wind settled from the windy delivery to the start line. In the lighter conditions we struggled with some of the bigger boats. We started on the right side of the course near Berkeley but with a remaining flood and more pressure on the left side boats, we cut our loses and headed left. We weren't doing particularly well until the winds really got light and we were able to coast, on a bit of private pressure, past the fleet on the West side of Red Rock. We were looking good at the end of the first leg.

After Red Rock it was still an upwind beat up to Point San Pablo. Here we split with Outsider. He tacked away and went right, and we stayed left. This turned out to be a mistake as we got caught on the center of the bay when the ebb started and the winds continued to lighten. We had to again made a painful crossing to the Richmond shore. Things weren't looking good under white sails, we weren't making any gains on the current. So we set our A5 spinnaker and sailed as high as we could. This finally got us to the current relief on the shore and we were again within striking distance from the leaders. But the winds continued to lighten and we encountered the main current. For the first time in JetStream we were forced to drop anchor just to hold our position and wait for the wind. We had a little food and drink. The wind made an attempt to come up and everyone started the beat against the current to get into San Pablo Bay. No one seem to be able to make it against the current between The Brothers and San Pablo Point, so most of the fleet worked their way down current of The Brothers to try to get some relief and get around from the West side of The Brothers. Greg on Outsider was the first to break free and he was gone... This was leg two and we weren't doing that hot. It would take us quite a while to get around The Brothers and even when we did, we just started sliding West as we couldn't gain any leverage against the current in the light air. At this point it was past 4 PM. We had expected to be tied up in Vallejo and enjoying some cold beers by this time. The large majority of the fleet, about 200 out of the 250 starters began to drop off. We almost called it of ourselves. Luckily for us, I didn't bring enough fuel to either motor home nor Vallejo from where we were. An even luckier, we didn't have any competitors motor past us and tempt us with throwing them a line for a tow.

Leg 2 - Red Rock to San Pablo

Out of nowhere at around 4:30, the sea breeze came in strong from the West. We put the big spinnaker up and started to make progress East towards Vallejo. The breeze continue to freshen and we were now screaming on a tight reach. Half way to Point Pinole we could no longer hold the big kite and dropped down to white sails to clear the point. Soon after we put up the smaller kite and we were off. We started picking up boats, the ones still racing and the others motor-sailing after dropping out. We could see two boats we normally race against in front of us. Outsider was closer and sailing with white sails, which made them a quick target. Then in front we could see the red kite of Head Rush, not in our fleet but a boat we have raced often against. They kept getting bigger and bigger, and soon we were side by side flying at 16 knots towards Vallejo. We played the south side of the bay to stay out of the deep water and the stronger ebb (with a sharp eye on depth, no need to repeat our encounter with the mud on last years Jazz Cup). We pulled a few fast gybes near the fueling docks before crossing over to the Mare Island side. A few more gybes and we entered the Napa River. We held the spinnaker a little longer but soon had to drop to white sails and beat up the river towards the finish line. We finished a couple of minutes behind the J90 Ragtime, but were able to correct out at the end to win the fleet.

Saturday Results

This trip across San Pablo was one of the most fun we've had, and well worth the wait and light airs for the first 4 hours of light airs.

Evening in the Estuary

This last week has had good wind in the bay. Though not all of it gets down to the Alameda Estuary there was still enough to warrant putting the boat in the water for a 2 hr sail. Here is a clip of JetStream with the Doyle crew getting the boat moving.

Its a bit frustrating in the Estuary, since as soon as you get the boat to speed it is time to jibe. But any time to see the spray fly straight up from the bow we are having fun.

I do need to find a better mount for the camera as this angle is too low. In this clip it is mounted on the tiller.

We will keep an eye on those 'Small Craft Advisories' and see if we can get better footage.

Enjoy!

2011 SSS Corinthian Race

A frustrating and sometimes even irritating day, with a decent ending.

@ Erik Simonson

Though light air sailing is not my favorite, nor my boat strength, its part of the sailors diet and you do the best with what you have.  Today, however, was a bit of a special day.  There was a gale blowing outside the gate, but inside the bay someone shut the switch.  How that can physically happen I still can't understand, but it was as if someone dropped a dome over the bay to shield it from the ferocious winds just outside.  My disappointment on the conditions was partly my own fault as I allowed myself to believe the forecast from the National Weather Service.  Last night calling for 15 to 30 knots, and this morning still calling for 10 to 20 with a Small Craft Warning for the bay.  None of which materialized.



But on to the racing.  Tom (aka Luchador Perro de Guerra) would complete the crew for today as we were sailing doublehanded.  We got to the club a bit early so had time to tie up and go to the upper deck to scout the conditions for the start.  LIGHT, with a decent flood near Angel Island.  We had chosen to do a pin start on port tack.  We were decently positioned with only one other boat to contend, a yellow Moore 24, also planning the same start.  He was a bit better positioned than us clear ahead and to leeward at the gun.  He was sailing singlehanded, so effectively we are not racing each other.  There was an opportunity for both boats to have a great start, but then he shut the door on us.  Now, I'm the first one to shut the door on bargers, but not at the cost of my own start.  The Moore had to pretty much luff head to wind to shut the door, which he effectively did.  I wasn't thrilled about that choice and probably had a few unfortunate words to share with the other skipper.  I just didn't see the point.  But we did a bailing tack in time to avoid a bad situation and got on with our start.

The leg to Little Harding was the traditional upwind to Point Belvedere, and staying North away from the worse of the current.  At this point the winds must have been around 8 - 10 knots from the Southwest, so the layline was more Alcatraz than Little Harding itself.   We recovered a bit from our late start, but still had some boats from our fleet ahead of us, both the Tiger and the ID35 were clear ahead by quite a bit.  We followed the procession towards Alcatraz on the way to Blossom Rock.  At the level of Alcatraz we set the kite.  Well, we had a bit of a problem with our first attempt, but got things sorted and got the kite up and pulling a couple minutes later.  We now started picking up boats, trying to get clean lanes through the fleet of boats in front of us.

We had  a clean rounding around Blossom and started headed towards Blackaller buoy.  Most of the boats ahead were headed towards the city front, but we found good pressure and current in the middle.  We picked a few more boats on the upwind leg, there was a bit more pressure on the southern edge of they bay.  We were know within striking distance of the leading boats.  We had a flawless set and started our run towards Point Blunt.  I allowed ourselves to get a bit tangled up with a couple of J boats and the Tiger, pinning us on port tack for longer than we wanted.  Eventually we were able to gybe away to better pressure and a better angle.   We were feeling pretty good now, we were with the leading boats with only Arcadia and Roshambo ahead of us.   We got to Arcadia just before Alcatraz.   The winds were now lightening up as we started sailing towards the northern edge of the bay.  We had to keep having to gybe onto starboard to avoid getting sucked into the hole in the lee of Angel Island.  These were painful gybes with negative VMG, but the alternative was to sit on a hole.  Sit on a hole we eventually did as the wind died a few hundred yards from South Hampton Shoals.  Any time we gybe towards the mark we will run out of wind.  Even giving the mark a wide berth did help us much.  Eventually the rest of the fleet caught up to us at the SHS restart.  This is the infuriating part.  At this point we are about 2/3rds of the way into the race, and having to make up your handicap in the last 1/3rd of the race would be a challenge.

Race wasn't over yet.  With these light conditions another big decision still had to be made.  Do we try Racoons Straits to sail around the South side of Angel Island.  By now the wind had filled from the South East.  Yes, the South East, it is not a typo.  So we gybed around SHS and aimed for the North end of the entrance to the Straits.   The choice wasn't easy, as there wasn't much sign of wind inside the Straits and the majority of the fleet had chosen the other way.  Surprisingly the wind held, and we were able to carry the spinnaker halfway down the Straits.   A new one for me, going West through Racoon's Straits with the kite up.....  Halfway down the Straits we met the Westerly, dropped the kite, and got on the ebb conveyor belt all the way to Little Harding. With this bit of luck, we had a huge gain over the folks that sailed around Angel Island.

One last set around Little Harding an on to the finish.  At this point we were the second boat in the fleet behind Roshambo and the first Monohull.   We finished in this order and got the gun for our class.   A nice reward for a very challenging day.

The results are already up, and though not bad, not as good as I had expected.  We finished 2nd in our DoubleHanded Sportsboat division just 5 seconds out of first.  We finished 5th Overall

Saturday at Big Daddy

Not in the original schedule, but Andrew and I decided to go out for the Saturday race day of the Big Daddy regatta sponsored by the Richmond YC.  They had scheduled 3 windward/leeward races so we would have our work cut out.  The forecast was for light winds 5 - 15 knots, so we decided to just go double handed.

We were the smaller boat (at 30 feet) on the PHRF D fleet, with the rest of the boats in the 33 to 40 foot range. With the light winds it would proof to be a tough day sailing in 'displacement' mode against the boats with longer waterlines.

The first race was called for twice around the buoys.  Soon after the start we tacked right while the rest of the fleet went left and that was the end of the race for us.  We went the wrong way and by the time we got to the windward mark we were just a boatlength away from being DFL.  A horrible set, the new kites are big and with the ultra narrow boat they tend to find the water very easy.  At least we got all the bad juju on the first race, and managed not to finish last.

The second and third races call for 3 times around the course.  We had good starts on both races and played it more conservatively with the rest of the fleet.  The upwind legs were a bit frustrating trying to keep up with the bigger boats in the light-med conditions.  The wind hovered between 10 and 15 knots and all the bigger boats were powered up with better speed and point that us.   We would make some gains back on the downwind legs but hardly enough to make up the loses on the upwind legs.  A few times on the runs we got close to breaking loose but still needed a few more knots of wind, adding to the frustration.

On the last race we rounded the leeward mark in second place, our best showing of the day.  We tried covering  Quiver and Encore to the upwind mark.  I tried too tight a cover on Quiver that was a mistake as they were able to poke their nose to leeward.  We were both on port tack when I see a starboard sail poke over the top of my mast (good thing we have a short rig).  It was Encore crossing us on starboard, F>>>!!! crash tacked and all was well, other than loosing two positions.    It was a surprise to see Encore that close.   We weren't paying as much attention to starboard tackers since we thought that Quiver would be our cover and signal if anyone was coming.   But the separation was enough that Quiver just took their stern leaving us with a big surprise.  To our surprise we never heard a hail, but it is very likely that we were completely hidden behind Quiver's sails.  Disaster avoided.

We weren't feeling too good after the race, boat for boat we were finished in 4th place on both races, but ended up correcting to 3rd, finishing the regatta in 3rd place.  We never got close to the J120 in these conditions.  Would have needed to be 'blasting' mode downwind to have any chance of closing the gap.    But it was a good day and great practice for the busy summer season.

Next, Cabo!