2012 Farallones

The anticipation built throughout the week with an approaching storm and a changing and deteriorating forecast.  The race to the Farallones is no joke, its a 50 mile roundtrip in a not always friendly piece of ocean and with an approaching storm things could get ugly quickly.  Everybody was paying close attention to the forecast and talking amongst skippers before the race was of high volume.

Rob was racing with me for this one and was ready for battle.  I decided to give it a go.  Well, at least get up early in the morning (4:30), get to the start line and have a look at Pt. Bonita.  Well, at least that was the plan.  Things didn't quite worked out that way.

We should have known, we had a couple of omens along the way.  First our traditional fueling station wasn't open in time for us to have our pre-race breakfast.  Then, our trusted friend and fellow competitor onboard Outsider decided to haul out and keep himself and crew dry for the day.  Well, we had done too much and thought too much about it not to at least check it out.   So we set out towards the starting line.  It is a hour and a half delivery and we were already feeling the early tentacles on the storm in the Estuary.   With the Southerly breeze we were motorsailing with the jib up the Estuary to the start at GGYC.

Towards the end of the Estuary we started getting some strong gusts coming through.  Once we got to the mouth of the Estuary we could see the bay was lit up.  The fetch from SJ all the way to Oakland had picked up a huge chop and all the tops were whiting out.  It was possibly blowing close to 30 knots.  I decided to call it a day right then and there.  We went to furl the jib to turn around and this is when things went wrong.  In the strong breeze we didn't get a good furl and the top of the jib got unfurled.   We tried to unfurl the rest of the sail to try again but ended up with a twist on the jib.  These are fairly easy to undo (especially with our small jib) but it requires heading downwind to release the pressure on the sail.  Only problem was that just downwind of us was the breakwater.   We had no searoom to do that manouver.   Our only option was to try to power across the bay with the twisted jib until we could clear the Northern container ship terminal.  Our little Johnson did the trick, but in the process we shredded the unfurled top of the jib.  By now we were well in the bay in 6 foot chop and 25 - 30 knots.  Rob went up to the bow to try to untwist the jib, but it was only when we finally were able to turn downwind that we were able to get the twist off.    We furled what was left of the sail and turn to head back to calmness of the Estuary.    But with the ebb, 30 knots in the nose, and the huge chop we weren't making any headway and having a hard time keeping the propeller in the water.  

Plan B, we unfurled what was left of the jib and motor sailed across the Bay to the San Francisco side to find relief from the Southwesterly winds.   By now the rain was coming down in sheets.  We were aiming to the public dock just north of the Ferry Building.  We could regather ourselves and make a plan.    Once we got to the city side the seas calmed a bit and we got a lull on the breeze so we changed plans and started heading towards South Beach Harbor.  Just as we were about to go under the Bay Bridge the little engine just died.  Back out comes our tattered jib and Rob starts sailing us back towards the public dock as I work on the engine.  A few minutes later I get the engine running again.   We get to the public dock but the surge inside is huge.  The boat would get a thrashing if we tied up there in those conditions.  Since we had the engine working again we decided to give South Beach another go.

Needless to say it was a bit stressful.  Having lost some confidence on the outboard and still battling a building ebb, 20+ knots on the nose and a huge chop we were making very slow progress.  At best we were seeing about 3.5 knots over the water which with the ebb it was more like 1.5 knots over ground. But the engine eventually got us there.   We tied up at the guest dock, took our jib down and hit the Java House for some hot coffee, warming up and decide what to do next.

We made some phone calls, checked the local weather and could see a new band of rain coming into the area.  We were done being wet.  We waited a few hours for the rain to stop.  The winds calmed down and we motored back to Alameda around noon time under much better sea state.

Another wet and cold day with not much to show for other than a torn jib.  But it could have really gotten ugly for us earlier in the day at the mouth of the Estuary had we not being able to motor sail away from the lee shore.   Even though we didn't get tested going around the Farallones, we got a good test just getting out to the starting line.

2012 Double Handed Lightship

After a bit of a hiatus on the JS we are back to some racing.  Just gotten back from a great race from San Diego to Puerto Vallarta on the good ship Ocelot.  But I had missed sailing on the JS, she had been sitting on the dry for too long.

The Lightship is a buoy marking the center of the approach lanes into the San Francisco Bay.   It extends another 9 miles past lands end in the middle of the Gulf of the Farallones.   With the start at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, it made for a 25 mile race.   Traditionally, we can have strong NW winds, that make for some upwind work out to the mark, rewarded by a screaming run back to the gate.

This is the doublehanded version of the race and Andrew had agreed to come out and play.   We had been following the weather the whole week since there were a few storm systems approaching.  The forecast continually deteriorated throughout the week from a southerly 15 - 25 knoter on Monday to 10 knots by Friday for our Saturday race.    We missed the good winds by 10 hours.  As they did clock the 25 knots Friday night but quickly diminished as the center of the storm passed us.  We were left with light S-SE winds that clocked to the East throughout the day.  If you have read any of my previous reports you know that 10 knots is not our ideal for the JS, but we had been looking forward to do this race and had all the tools in our inventory to be as competitive as we could.

Friday I spent some time getting the boat ready.  We were modifying one of the halyards so that it would go through the mast exit more freely, but the splice ended up being too big to fit.  So we would go with only one spinnaker halyard.  This will come back to hunt us, as the reason we put the second halyard was for races like this one where we would want to quickly switch back and forth between the spinnakers and the Code0.  Also with the weather in the area the battery hadn't fully charged with the solar panel so we were running a little light on juice.

We got to the start line in overcast and misty conditions.  The rain started before the start and it never stopped, all day, even into the evening when we were putting the boat away.  So needless to say it was a very wet day.  At the start we had a light breeze from the NE.  With the wind forecasted to be SE we opted to hoist our A2 at the start.  With the north component and some of the bigger boats messing with our breeze we weren't doing too hot.   Condor had a flat reaching kite up and Akyla had their Code0 and they both immediately stretched on the fleet.  We switched to our Code0 and started to make some progress.  By the Gate we had Akyla in our sight with only Truth (a modified Open50) and Condor (an Open 40) ahead.  We played the middle on the way out to take advantage of the last of the ebb, hoping to get past lands end before the flood grabbed a hold of us.   From the results, only 5 finishers out of 29 starters, it looks like only Condor, Truth, Akyla, Rufless (an 11 meter) and us were the only boats to escape before the flood.  We worked the south side of the course.  Truth had stretched ahead of us on the same line with Condor also ahead on a more northern track.    That left Akyla, Rufless and us (the thirty somethings footer) sprinting to the mark.   We were pretty much even the whole way with Rufless in the most northern track flying their kite, Akyla playing the middle and us on the Southern track, both of us flying our Code0s.

Did I say that it didn't stop raining?  With the rain, cold and confused seas just outside the gate in the light air, I lost my crew to sea sickness around the channel makers.  The right kind of foul weather gear is critical when it is expected to rain.  Once you are wet and cold there is no return even on a relatively short race like this one.  Based on our angle to the mark I should have switched over to one of the kites, but with the autopilot out of reach, I decided not to risk a mishap and carried on with the Code0.  On the puffs I could sail down to the mark but on the mostly light stuff I had to keep on heating up to keep the boat moving.  We ended up having to make a short gybe to get around mark.   Out of our group of 3, Rufless rounded first and Akyla followed just a few boatlengths ahead of us.

It was around 12:30 when we rounded.  I rolled up the Code and the jib came back out for our upwind return to the finish.  The wind was still light and now from the SE, and we were still feeling under powered.  There was a strong South to North current showing on the Lightship when we rounded.   Now the race was to get back under the gate before the ebb was set to start around 3.

Speaking about foul weather gear (you thought I was done with that?), when going on the ocean must wear the ocean gear with zippers and shit.  The inshore gear I took for the race is dry and warm enough, and it is much lighter which makes it much more comfortable to wear (and the reason I took it).  The problem you ask, is that it makes some things not very accessible.  If you need to fully undress to reach the critical bits, I have now learned, you just don't wear it when you are short handed on the ocean.  I found myself having to pull a 'surfer move' when singlehanding the boat back after the turn.  Not enough time to find and rig the autopilot, take the harness off, jacket off (and get wet in the rain), top of salopette off, etc.

Anyways back to sailing.  The angle back had us pointing North of the entrance to the Bay but still was the favorable tack.  Every once in a while we could point to Bonita, but the average angle was North of Bonita and with the forecast calling for the wind to clock to the East, it would get worse.  We were on the heels of Akyla for the next few miles and could see Rufless ahead and to leeward about 1.5 miles ahead.  We saw Rufless tacking ahead of the and Akyla quickly followed.  We stayed on our course as we hadn't gotten a significant header yet and the wind seemed to be improving the closer we got to shore.  We didn't go in as far as Rufless and when we got the header the port tack had us pointing straight to Seal Rocks on the Southern edge of the entrance to the Bay.  This course had us on the shoals, but the conditions were pretty benign in the light offshore conditions (no whitecaps).

A few miles from Pt. Bonita I could see other boats still with their spinnakers up trying to sail out.  We were already done with 3/4 of the race and some of these folks were still fighting to get through the first 1/4.  Sure the flood locked them in.  I think 10 to 15 minutes made the difference between being able to get out before the thick of the flood and not getting out at all.

There wasn't any significant change in the wind, other than it slowly continuing clocking to the East as predicted.  The only variable now was the current.  We were approaching the gate during the change in currents so it was going to get a little tricky to try to find the advantages.   We hedged towards the south side and seem to have gained some on Akyla.  I couldn't find Rufless, they gotten us, so we were now focusing on trying to make our time on Akyla.  The entrance to the Bay greeted us with nice flat water, and it is not often that we have to beat into the wind on our way back into the Bay.  It would have been enjoyable had it not been for the relentless rain and cold.  

We were able to crack off a little from the Gate back to the finish line.  I miscalculated a bit the current and was forced to take a short tack just before the finish line.  We finished at 3:35 for and elapsed time of 6:25 minutes.

Sail #

Boat Name

Place

Skipper

Rating

Finish Time

Elpased Time

Corrected Time

Club

Make

Comments

246

RUFLESS

1

Rufus Sjoberg

69

14:54:59

05:54:59

05:26:14

ryc

11 Meter

101

TRUTH

2

Alex Mehran Jr

-123

13:51:54

04:51:54

05:43:09

cca

Open 50

9045

JETSTREAM

3

Daniel Alvarez

63

15:25:31

06:25:31

05:59:16

sss

Js 9000

163

AKYLA

4

Zhenya Kirueshkin-stepano

81

15:46:50

06:46:50

06:13:05

santa cr

Hobie 33

The boat is signed up to do next Saturday's DH Farallones.  This is the big brother of the DH Lightship at around 55 miles roundtrip.  We'll see what the weather brings before we make a call on that one.  And yes, the battery will be fully charged, the autopilot at hand, the halyards fixed, and most importantly, I will be wearing my Ocean foulies.

Kitesurfing 101 in Puerto Rico

So all my friends I grew up windsurfing with back in Puerto Rico have gone to kiting, so with a week to spend in Puerto Rico with the family I figure I should give it a try.  So I booked some lessons with the folks from kitesurfpr.com in my old stumping grounds in Punta las Marias in Ocean Park.  I had flown a the kite before so knew some of the basics, so I spent the first day doing a quick refresher and doing some dragging on the water.  Things went real well without the board so I was feeling pretty confident and ready to tackle the kite/board combination the next time out.

A few days later I took my next lesson, and should have listened more closely to my instructor Bart, 'you windsurfing guys have some bad habits, don't hang on to the bar, if you need more power move the kite don't pull on it.'  I think it also would have helped if he said 'treat it like wake-boarding, if you are losing control let go of the bar'.  Well some habits are hard to break and it helps to be a few hundred yards from shore and playing in a semi-soft medium.    This day we had breeze in the mid teens and it took about a dozen times to figure out how hard to drive the kite for the conditions to the enough lift to get out of the water, how much to lean, where to initially point the board.  I would get up but immediately focus on the board, WRONG, loose sight of the kite, loose power, begin to fall and pull on... wait, do what, no, no, don't do it, pull on and hang on the bar.... oh shit lift-off....  My head is telling me to push on the bar, but my windsurfing instincts make pull on the damned bar.   Needless to say the instructor had a good laugh as it was quite a spectacle.   The second time I made that mistake that day was the end of the lesson for the day.  Similar problem, got up, went looking for more power driving the kite up, started to fall and stopped looking at the kite WRONG, and at the same time over corrected and pull hard on the bar WRONG, WRONG.  Needless to say I learned how to jump without any waves.  This time I was told I pulled myself out of the water over 15 feet, flew downwind much more than that, tucked my legs under, never releasing the bar REALLY WRONG, crashing the kite on the water with such force that it exploded on impact.  End of lesson.  Good thing this excellent outfit has a dingy following the students around.  We picked up the pieces and went back to shore for some wound-licking beers.  Would come back the next day to see if I learned anything from today's experience.

Had a moment of hesitation to see if the school would take me back after the day's carnage.  They did.  I spent that night telling myself to push, not pull, the bar.  The day started out beautifully with the fan turning on at 10am with a nice mid-teen breeze.  The kite ready we took the dinghy up about 1/4 mile upwind to start the day's lesson.  The first run was much better, I didn't get a consistent ride but I had good control of the kite and the board.  I would get up focus on the kite and sit back down, having good overall control.  A couple small launches as I played with my positioning on the board, but always pushing on the bar (well, almost always) when starting to loose control.  Was feeling really good and felt I was at the cusp. 

For the second run (after riding the dingy back up) the wind dropped as some clouds started building up.  So I had to re-adjust everything.  Needed to be more aggressive with the kite, etc, so I couldn't really build up from the previous run.  Then the squall approached....  The winds started to build and started feeling a bit overpowered by the kite.  We didn't really go through this scenario on land.  So my first instinct was to crash the kite, and have the instructor jump in and take it over.  But the kite wouldn't stay down.  With the building breeze the kite would just lay on the water pulling me.  I could keep my head above water, but I wasn't in control.   So I pulled the first emergency release for the chicken loop.  This de-powered the kite some, but it was now dragging me backwards.  I signaled to the instructor and he jumped in and started to swap the kite to him.  All this time I had my hand on the kite release ready to pull if necessary.  After destroying a kite the day before, I wasn't to keen on disconnecting this kite.  The instructor was able to swap the kite and sail it back to the beach.

Back at the beach we discovered that a line stopper on the kite de-powering line had jammed not allowing the kite to properly depower, so I'm glad I did what I did.  Afterward we talked about the incident and discussed options for this type of events.

Anyways after about an hour of waiting for the squalls to pass, we were able to jump back in the water for the last run.  This time the conditions were back to perfect and I was committed to get up and go.   In this last run I had 4 or 5 good rides.  Focusing on the kite I was surprise my legs did the right thing.  But even then, whenever I stopped paying attention to the kite, I would let it ride to high and that would end the right.

I think I'm past one of many humps, but one that I think will allow me to progress.    Now the question is will I have time (or take time from sailing) to kite....

Winter Break

We collected a string of first place banner for the YRA 2011 season.  Skipper and crew (Andrew and Rob) looking pretty happy in the picture.  For the winter we are taking it a bit easier.  We are entered for the Encinal Jack Frost series and taking some time to do some maintenance and small upgrades.  

The mast is currently down awaiting some work to install a new halyard for the code 0.  Will also look into adding a halyard lock for the main.  The latter should help reduce the sag we get from slippage on the clutch and should also help reduce the mast compression forces.

After doing some maintenance we found some cracks on the aluminum tube supporting the traveler track, so that is getting replaced and I'm installing an improved traveler with upgraded car, improved purchase and a center ratchet for the main sheet.

We also installed some nice shelving under the coamings.  These turned out pretty guccy, with Andrew and Rob putting their sewing skills to good use.  Very nice.  Now we can keep our sails and bags nice and dry and away from the bilge.

Our Swedish sistership

A nice interview, report and video from Sweden.  Introducing Airbender

Yankee Cup

The Yankee Cup is the culmination of the HDA series.  It's an invitational race for the top places of the various divisions raced throughout the year in the hopes to declaring an overall champion for the season.  As such, the boats lining up for the start is a very eclectic combination.  This year the roster included a 1D48 at the top of the fleet with a C&C 29 marking the other end of the spectrum.   The rating spread was 186 between the two afore mentioned boats, with the 1D48 at -12 and the C&C at 174.  On JetStream we rate 63, putting us as one of the fastest rated boat for the race, though nowhere near the 1D48.

Copyright Pressure-Drop

Since this race was late in the season, the weather is not as predictable as in the summer.  With Rob having more important things to do this weekend, Andrew and I decided to go out doublehanded as the forecast was for winds on the lighter side.  We were pleasantly surprised when we got under the Bay Bridge at 9 am and there was already a nice breeze filling in the Bay.  We would be racing in the central bay, between the Berkley Circle and Harding Buoy.   There will be some transitions in the tides during the race, going for a full flood at the start going to slack later in the day.  Particularly in the area we were racing, understanding the currents for the day would be critical.  I recently got a 6 month subscription to Tidetech as part of the Big Boat Series contest from Pressure Drop and would put their current models to good use.

The Yankee Cup would be a 3 race regatta.  The first race was a short 4 mile race to Mark 21 and back.  Had it not being for the flood it would have been an upwind fetch to the mark.  We had an ok start and got caught in some traffic.  We wanted to avoid tangling up with the bigger boats, but still were forced to take a clearing tack soon after the start.  There weren't many tactical options on this race and the extra tacks cost us a bit.  Upwind we do suffer, as we see equally or slower rated boats sail past and away from us.  But luckily there was enough breeze on the day for us to be able to make up our rating on the downwind legs.  It was a fetch back from the windward mark back to the finish.    We were able to catch up to Jeannette on the downwind leg and pass them just before the finish line to finish 2nd in the first race behind Bodacious.

To compete with Bodacious the rest of the days we would need to have clean starts, maintain clear lanes and avoid tangling up with other boats, as any boat on boat racing would mean time given to Bodacious as they were sailing pretty much on their own.

The second and third races had us sailing to Harding and back.  A longer race with more opportunities for strategic racing.  For the second race in a full flood our plan was to head to the East side of Angel Island and hug the South-East corner to avoid the worst of the flood.  The only question was when to tack over to Angel Island.  Ideally I wanted to arrive at Angel Island on the a 3rd of the way up on East shore to ensure we got good pressure close to land.  You have to time the tack and try to account from the drift of the current.  Once  you make the tack you are committed as taking an intermediate tack in the middle of the current would be disastrous.   I went a little too early and ended up father North on the Eastern shore that I would have liked too.  This might have been the difference between 2nd and the 4th place we finished on.  On this race we had a great upwind battle with Shameless (a Custom Schumacher 30).  They were just ahead of us when we got to Angel Island and we would be attached by a string all the way to Harding.  We traded a few tacks, we both misjudged the layline to Harding in the strong flood, and when we rounded Harding they were still just ahead of us.  The winds had lighten up a bit when we rounded and we couldn't get the boat into full plane mode.  So it took us some time to catch up to Shameless and even though we closed the gap with Jeannette we finished 4th.

Copyright Pressure-Drop

The last race would be a repeat of the second.  Except that by now our current models were showing slack water towards the South Bay.  So instead of the Angel Island route we took on the second race, we would stay on starboard tack until we were even with Alcatraz.  This will have us splitting with the fleet, as the rest took the Angel Island route again.  I often don't like to split with the fleet, but the only chance we had of beating Bodacious would be sailing to the best data we had as opposed to just covering the fleet.  Bodacious was forced out at the boat end of the line, while we had a perfect clean start towards the pin end with Jeannette to leeward of us.  It felt a little lonely heading to the left all by ourselves, but sometime later we could see Golden Moon coming in the same direction.  They were on a different start five minutes behind us, but it helped our confidence to see Kame coming in our direction.  The move paid off, by the time we reached the layline for Harding both Bodacious and Jeannette were within striking distance ahead of us with the rest of the fleet behind us.   By now the wind had increased to around 20 and we had a blast of a downwind leg, holding some 16 knots and topping off at 19.  We would go on to correct to first place in the last race, with the top 3 boats all within a minute of each other.

I wish we could have joined the festivities back at the club and congratulate the winners in person, but other commitments had us rushing back to Alameda to put the boat away.  But it was a hard, fun day in the water.   Andrew did the job of two fantastically

Bodacious won the regatta with a 1, 1, 3, we came in second 2 points behind with a 2, 4, 1 and Jeannette 3rd just 1 point behind us with a 3, 3, 2.  Full results available on the YRA site.

HDA Summer 3

The last race of the HDA series.  The course had us starting on the SW corner of Angel Island, we would head out to Pt. Bonita, across the central bay to YRA buoy 8 and back to the start/finish line.

Conditions started on the light to moderate range but strong enough to power us upwind against the current towards the Golden Gate bridge.  We only had two other boats in our division, the 1D35 Jazzy and the GP26 Peanuts.  With the small fleet we opted for a port start at the pin as we wanted to head towards the Sausalito shore for current relief.  We took the stern of the starboard tack 1D35 as we couldn't cross them.  It was a close upwind leg with the 1D35 ahead of us and doing a loose cover on us.  We played the shifts as we short tacked our way up to the North tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.

We continued our short tacking out the channel on our way to Point Bonita.  The winds got a little light and it paid for us not going all the way into Pt. Bonita Cove and as we got to round the point we were just ahead of the 1D35.  Here we made a small tactical mistake.  We were the starboard boat and we had the opportunity to force them to tack out into the current.  Instead, I chose to try to lee bow them (tack ahead and under them), but with their better upwind speed they were able to sail above us.  To make things worse, we were forced to tack out in search for clear air on the lightening conditions and into bad current.   They were able to gain about 100 yards on us, just on this move.  The wind continued to lighten around Pt Bonita and with the strong flood it was a struggle to get around the mark.

Jetstream Racing - HDA to Bonita (HD) from rob blackmore on Vimeo.

By this point, the Henderson who had started five minutes behind us was ahead of us as well, so the chase was on for both the 1D35 and the Henderson as we turned downwind.  A large tanker coming down the channel split the fleet, with the 1D35 and the Henderson on the South side of the channel while we were locked on the North side.  We also wanted the South, but we didn't seem to loose much by staying North.  Both the Henderson and 1D35 crossed the Gate ahead of us.  It had been sub-planning conditions from Pt. Bonita to the Gate.  But we got the welcome to the bay that we like, with the winds building as we approached the South Tower and we got the boat on its planning grove.  By the time we reached Alcatraz we had passed the 1D35 who had stayed on the city front side, and we were even with the Henderson who had gone North.  It was now a sprint to the leeward mark.  We had better speed than the Henderson on the freshening conditions and we were seeing boatspeed on the 15knot range.  We slightly overstood the approach to the leeward mark which caused us a short broach (doesn't happen often but it does happen).

We rounded the leeward mark first and now were on the last leg back up to the finish line.   It would be a drag race to the finish as we could make the line of a single tack.  The 1D35 closed the gap on the upwind leg but we were able to hold the off for the gun.   A great come from behind race for JetStream with Rob and Andrew doing excellent crew work yet again.

After our finish we could see the fleet from the SSS race coming through Racoon Straits on their way to Little Harding with our friend Greg on Outsider sailing singlehanded leading the way.

The wind was now in the 15 to 20 range so we decided to race back up to the Gate again for another downwind scream.  We had a great bridge to bridge run on our way back home to Alameda to cap off the day.