Weekend Sailing

JetStream had a busy past weekend. We started with a win on the Friday night Encinal race, with Mike crewing. That was followed with a great performance on Saturday's YRA long distance race for the Second Half Opener. Mark came out with me for the Saturday race. This race takes us from Berkeley Circle out the Golden Gate to Point Bonita (where the lighthouse for the entrance to the bay is) all the way back to the Encinal Yacht Club on the Oakland Estuary. This time it was going to be more challenging than usual as we had to fight our way out on a 4+ knots flooding current.

We had a good breeze at the start and it build during the day. The JS likes a stiff breeze. We had a decent start and where hanging in there on the top half of the fleet for the upwind leg out to Pt. Bonita. The whole fleet pretty much followed the same strategy of going north (the right hand side of the course) and it was pretty much a sprint to the GG bridge. Here is when things got interesting as the current was really ripping right under the gate. At this point we are exchanging tacks with the Antrim 27 'Head Rush'. We are pretty evenly match and we've had some close contests on our previous races. We really enjoy the tight competition. In addition to the current, it was very gusty and shifty just before the bridge. We managed to play a couple of shifts correctly and got some current relief near shore in our approach to the bridge. At this point we had started catching up boats that had started over 15 minutes ahead of us, but that had gotten into the raging current and lost significant ground. This is were the race was going to be won or lost.

We had spotted my friend Bill from the Doyle loft on the Bene 10R. We had lost sight of them on the upwind leg as they stretched on us, but here they were again, we had a new target. Our first attempt at getting under the bridge failed. We try to stay close to the north tower, but the current rip right at the tower didn't allow us to make any forward progress. It is quite amusing to be going full speed at around 6knots over the water and not be able to make any progress over the ground. The current pushed us back to were we started. So this time we took a different approach and went out about 50 yds south of the North tower to get some current relief. It worked! As soon as we went under the bridge on starboard tack, we tacked over to go back to the north shore and hug the cliff line for more current relief. I think we passed over a dozen boats in this move. We kept short tacking up the shore on a dying breeze, but further extending our lead over the boats behind us.

By the time we got to Pt. Bonita, we were the second boat in our fleet, with only the Sabre 38 in front of us. We had a good rounding, set the kite and we were off. It wasn't very windy between Pt. Bonita and the GG, but we played a few shifts and tried to stay on the strongest current (the current was now helping us). By the time we reached the GG, we had passed the Sabre, we were now leading our class. As soon as we crossed the gate the wind started to pick to into the 20s and we really started to have some fun. The boat was screaming downwind and we quickly started picking up boats. We didn't have our GPS on board for this race, but we must have been doing between mid to high teens on our way down the central bay.

By the time we reach the Bay Bridge the wind had moderated and it was time again to play some tactics to stay in the stronger pressure. After the bridge we took a jibe north to stay in the stronger wind and got past the J105 ahead of us. As soon as we entered the Estuary, it got light and warm, so we patiently jibed back and forth until we finished with the 'gun' in front of Encinal. A great day out in the water with Mark.

For Sunday we had a single bay race. Both Mark and Mike came out. The conditions were perfect for us as a later start ensured that the breeze was fully set in for our race. Needless to say things didn't go as planned. We sailed the wrong course. We picked up the wrong course number at the start, we did 5 instead of 6, and even within the course we sailed we went to the wrong mark. A bit of a frustrating race but we took advantage of it and got a good practice day from it, with great crew work and a fun spinnaker run. But this is it.... no excuse for getting the race course wrong again... We finished the day with a 'Dark&Stormy' on the nice pool at the Encinal Yacht Club, with a mostly successful weekend to celebrate.

A first in class on the 2009 Vallejo

We had a good day today. Great crew work form Mark and Nima. Got the top spot on our fleet.

YRA-2009 Preliminary as of 5/2/09
Sponsored by Vallejo YC
Sail No YC Boat type Finish Actual Corrected Pts. Notes
START-11:45 05/02/09 Distance=21.5 nm
Party Circuit H (75-102)
Time on Time: TCF=650 / (550 + PHRF)

9045 Daniel Alvarez Jet Stream SBYC Custom JS 90 78 16:07:03 4:22:03 4:31:14 1
18441 Gerry Brown Mintaka 4 BYC Farr 38 84 16:11:32 4:26:32 4:33:16 2
21 Charlie Watt Head Rush SEQY Antrim 27 CM 75 16:08:38 4:23:38 4:34:11 3
USA3 Bryce Griffith Arch Angel RYC Antrim 27 CM 75 16:12:46 4:27:46 4:38:29 4
28234 Chris/Greg Express 34 5
Longaker/Wright Two Scoops RYC 99 16:23:05 4:38:05 4:38:31
28978 Chris Kim Vuja De RYC Ultimate 24 O 99 16:23:40 4:38:40 4:39:06 6
28469 Peter Cook For Pete's Sake SSS Ultimate 24 O 99 16:28:15 4:43:15 4:43:41 7

2009 Rites of Spring Race Report

Rites of Springs is the annual shorthanded race put together by the Oakland YC. I had done it single handed in Travieso for the last few years, but this year I would go doublehanded with Mike Tyng on Jetstream. We were pretty excited about the race, we had some good competition and friends also coming out to race. The forecast all week had been for rising temperatures and lighter winds so as we motored out to the race course we setup for that with the spinnaker light air sheets (more on that later...).

We made it to the starting area with a little time to spare so we go about doing a few tuning runs. The breeze was beginning to fill nicely from the west to about 12 knots. We had a great setup for the start, starting leeward of the fleet, but still pretty close to the pin. The boat is moving well, a little lower than the fleet but plenty fast. Outsider is windward of us going a little higher and fast as well. We have a bit of a long way to the upwind mark from the Berkeley Circle to Little Harding. We chose the right hand of the course and that was somewhat reinforced by the majority of the fleet also coming this way. We didn't quite clear Point Blunt so we took a short tack to clear the buoy and quickly went back to port tack to get more westing. The fog was rolling in through the center of the bay which made finding the marks a bit difficult. But we soon got close enough to Little Harding to spot it. At this point the wind was blowing closer to 18 to 20 and the boat was really in its groove. Nearing the mark we saw two boats approaching from the central bay, clearly staying closer to the middle had paid off, lesson learned. We rounded third behind a J105 and the Ben40.7 on our way to Alcatraz, our next mark. Talk about power reaching. We were reaching with our white sails in 20+ knots, we were screaming now with sustained speeds on the low teens. We were hoping up and down some reasonable shop taking a few nose dives. I don't often experience getting green-water inside the bay, but we stuffed it good behind the back of a wave, bringing a bit of water back into the cockpit. Have to remember to keep the companionway cover on in over 20 knots. We passed the Ben40.7 before reaching Alcatraz and now had the J105 in our sights.

We rounded Alcatraz and got ready for our spinnaker run back to the Berkeley Circle. Kite went up without a problem and we slingshot out. The boat behaves quite well in the heavy stuff. We jibed right behind the 105 and start our quest of find the the leeward mark. The leeward mark is one of the Berkeley Circle permanent marks. Little yellow marks that maybe stick up two feet from the water. With the wind and chop they are impossible to see unless you are 50 yds from it. I don't know how many times I asked Mike 'where is the effing mark'. His glasses were covered with dried salt water so he could see less than I could. We eventually spot it, we needed to do two more jibes to get around it. The jibes go very smooth and we get set for the douse. Here is were the light air spinnaker sheets come back into play. JetStream is so narrow that the safest way to douse the kite is with a windward douse. We've done dozens of them, no problem. Release the sheet, pull on the lazy sheet, bring the kite around the headsail and drop right on the deck. Except this time the kite didn't come around the headsail. Initially I thought that with the heavier conditions Mike just couldn't pull the sail around, so after a few, 'pull harder' coming from the guy holding the tiller, I notice that the sheet is fully tensioned and a huge knot (commonly known as 'assholes' to the sailors) is stuck in the block. Out comes the knife and problem solved. Good thing Mike had his knife handy as mine was safely stored down below and out of reach. This light air sheets are the only thing that have given us problems on the boat, so they are going out. Need to find more slippery lines.

We probably went about 50 yds past the mark before we got everything sorted out. We climbed our way around the end of the Berkeley Pier, luckily still in front of the J105. We have another nice reach down to the finish mark, which we have to round before going to the finish line. The boat is feeling a bit sluggish (comparatively) at this point, we figure we've collected a few gallons of water down below. We have a great short upwind leg to the finish and are the first boat to finish from our start. At this point we see our friends on Stink Eye taking some pictures of us, maybe they'll put us in the cover of their website norcalsailing.com again....

Time for a cold beer. After bailing 8 or so gallons of saltwater from the boat it is nice and light again and we have a mellow sail down the Estuary. We put our kite back up and notice a 4x4 in hole in it on one of the bottom panels, but we keep it up to dry it off. A trip to see Rui on Monday to get that fixed for next weekend.

We later joined the dock party at the OYC. Smiles all around, no serious breakage, another good day!

2009 SSS Corinthian Race Report

We motored to Corinthian from Alameda along side 'Sirius' on Friday evening. My crew lives in Sausalito so I figure I cut him a break this time and pick him up. We were joined later that night by 'Outsider'. Corinthian was having the first of its Friday night so we enjoyed some live Reggae music and a nice BBQ on the deck. That should have been enough entertainment for the night, but instead we decided to see what was going on at Sam's. Not a good move. Needless to say the early sun wasn't welcomed the next morning. But after a little breakfast in town we got to the business of getting our boats ready for the race.

My crew showed up with some great sandwiches and we sailed out to the course. As the second to last start it was clear what the desired strategy was for the start, be first on the pin with clear air without barging in and getting forced out. By the time of our start the current was pushing in quite a bit and we had a mediocre start, close enough to the pin but with quite a few boats windward of us affecting our wind. Had to foot out a bit to get out of the lee of the 1D35. We did ok in the lighter conditions. Initially we were laying the mark with the Flying Tiger slightly ahead and leeward of us. For a while we started wondering if the fleet in front of us knew what the course was, as everyone seemed to be headed out towards the gate. But we quickly found out when the shift hit us and we entered the 'real' current.
We crossed back to the lighter current and started headed towards yellow bluff waiting for the wind to fill from the west to help us make our way across the bay. We didn't come anywhere near close to Little Harding, we were at least a half mile west of it. We started reaching across the bay, and after seeing 'Stink Eye' hold his kite, we raised ours towards Blossom.

We had a nice run to Blossom, We were in the front end of the fleet but we did loose some time by taking our expedition to the gate. We rounded behind Uno and could see a few boats ahead of us, Outsider and Twist being some of them. The upwind leg had the perfect conditions for my new boat, we were screaming upwind. Had a few issues with my main halyard slipping in the clutch (we jury rigged it to a cam cleat and had that fixed). Other than that we did the traditional short tacking off the city front to stay out of the worse of the flood. We picked a few boats along the way and as we rounded Blackaller we could see to front of the fleet, with Timberwolf, Twist and the J90 leading the monohull fleet. We quickly set the kite and took off.

Timberwolf was in front of us and we started to shorten the gap. We had to continuously jibe to startboard tack as the wind on the north side was getting light. We gave Pt. Blunt a wide berth and started heading to SH on a lightening breeze. We could see the big catamaran and a tri struggling to get around the shoals. To our surprise the three boats ahead of us tacked around SW to go around the south side to AI. My crew and I had discussed our strategy and we were 90% committed to going through Raccoon. A quick look at the heading of the boats that turned south reaffirmed that decision, even though it was looking mighty light towards Tiburon. We managed to have enough breeze to ghost to the entrance of the straits, but then we stopped. A couple of times we started drifting backwards, and we even set the kite momentarily going west on the straits. The fight paid off and we were back on the westerly. A quick look back and to our surprise Outsider was 100 yds behind us. We hadn't seen any other boats other than Twist make the rounding. Now we had another boat to race. We had a screaming reach to Little Harding, followed by another screaming reach back to the finish. Just before rounding LH we saw the big cat rounding from the east. So it looked like out of the leading boats that went around the south side of AI only the cat was ahead of us. A couple of stressful moments dealing with the hole and shifts around the finish and we soon crossed the line. The gun had a misfire so we didn't get a gun, but we did get a nice apology from the RC. Good day for JetStream.

We stopped by the club in time to see the main fleet finish from the race deck. I tell you, it looked worse than a TBF finish with multiple boats on top of each other finishing seconds apart. We left the race deck to not get in the way and enjoyed a cold beer. Thanks to the Race Committee for a hard days work.

I waited for Sirius to finish and headed back to Alameda....