With just a few days left before we head out on the greatest sailboat race in the world, it looks like we are all set to go!
Boat is prepped, shopping looks to be done, delivery is scheduled - just need to get to Friday and to Nanaimo.
I hope to update things along the way with pictures and a quick recap each day - so check back and follows us around the Rock!
CdM
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Monday, April 1, 2013
Southern Straits 2013
So the 2013 season has started out well for us. As many of you know, we are entered into the VAN ISLE 360 for the 2nd time, with the sole purpose of bringing home the hardware.
So the boat is really getting pampered with love before we head into battle. So far the results look good as we have pretty much locked up the PRYC Winter series.
On March 29th we entered Southern Straits race, out of WVYC. This is a real test, as it is 91 miles long, with great competition, much of which we will see lots of in the VAN ISLE race later in June.
With the weather looking very light we certainly weren't expecting a quick race. Well what we got was a fabulous race, with unseasonable warm temperatures and breeze, enough to get us done in 24 hours.
A recap of all that happened would take forever to recount, but needless to say, we won our division and came 4th overall ( 29 boats started ). We were the 6th boat to finish overall too, with many faster boats behind us.
The crew were excellent. Actually that is an understatement! From provisioning, to boat deliveries, to tactics, boat reapairs the night before, oh and yes sail trim, they were are as good as it gets.
Now back to some local races before we get a few more distance races under our belts and then the big one in June.
Stay tuned here as we update things as we go along this year!
Cheers,
CdM
So the boat is really getting pampered with love before we head into battle. So far the results look good as we have pretty much locked up the PRYC Winter series.
On March 29th we entered Southern Straits race, out of WVYC. This is a real test, as it is 91 miles long, with great competition, much of which we will see lots of in the VAN ISLE race later in June.
With the weather looking very light we certainly weren't expecting a quick race. Well what we got was a fabulous race, with unseasonable warm temperatures and breeze, enough to get us done in 24 hours.
A recap of all that happened would take forever to recount, but needless to say, we won our division and came 4th overall ( 29 boats started ). We were the 6th boat to finish overall too, with many faster boats behind us.
The crew were excellent. Actually that is an understatement! From provisioning, to boat deliveries, to tactics, boat reapairs the night before, oh and yes sail trim, they were are as good as it gets.
Now back to some local races before we get a few more distance races under our belts and then the big one in June.
Stay tuned here as we update things as we go along this year!
Cheers,
CdM
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
N 100 - 2012
This year’s race featured 42 boats registering but I believe
only 38 started in picturesque Fidalgo Bay in Anacortes Washington. A
quick bit of background, this race starts in Anacortes on Friday night at 19:30
hours for all Double Handed entries, followed 10 minutes later by the crew
boats @ 19:40. This year’s race had an equal amount of entries in both
crewed and double handed divisions. Anacortes Yacht Club put on a hot
meal and weather briefing @ 17:00 and present awards to last year’s winners as
well giving out any last minute changes to the sailing instructions. The
club also provides each both with a SPOT tracking device’s allowing family,
friends and racers to see where everyone is live on the course……….this can be
both good and bad as I will explain later! Oh and did I mention that this
is a 100 mile race.
Point Roberts Yacht Club had three boats entered in the race
this year, Cinco de Mayo and Vampire in the fast Double Handed division, while
Plus Ten was in the slower Double Handed Division, so this meant we all started
together.
On Cinco de Mayo we had an excellent start, getting off the
line quickly and at the favored end and found ourselves out in front of the
fleet, a spot they would not relinquish till the lights went out and they were
more than halfway up Lummi Island. Sailing at night can be challenging as
its difficult to see pressure on the water and which way you should go to not
run out of wind, a common problem at this time of the year in the gulf
islands. We managed to find puffs and only came to a dead stop once, just
east of Alden Bank and proceeded to float back at 1 knot for an hour. The
good news was that only one boat was ahead of us at this point so we felt we
had done pretty well so far, it was about 00:30 Saturday morning now.
We managed to round the first mark – the Point Roberts Bell
Buoy around 05:30 am Saturday morning and hoisted the kite and started to make
our way to East point. We made decent ground getting across the straits
in about 2.5 hours and were 15 miles ahead of our closest competitor in our
division……….but we missed the tail end of the ebb and the flood was fully
developed and without more wind we were stuck. It took us till noon to
make a mile and get around the corner and our lead had been cut down to 3-4
miles.
The rest of the trip to Hein Bank was similar to the past 4
hours, light to no wind and time waiting to past tide gates. Meanwhile
the boys in the back of the pack were enjoying a nice breeze in the Georgia
Straits and were making up miles on us fast.
We drifted past Turn Point and were headed up Haro Strait –
at a whopping 0.5 of a knot ( yes we were just drifting ). It was
actually about 19:00 on Saturday night and we had gone 3 miles in 5 hours when
we started to think about quitting. The realization that all our hard work
the night before had gone to waste was starting to where on us. So we
decided to have a hot meal, turn on some music and give it another couple of
hours. While we were waiting another big freighter came by and I thought
to myself ( we are allowed to run our engine to get ourselves out of the way of
commercial traffic as long as it doesn’t better our position ) lets motor into
Roche and relax and just wait for the breeze and motor back out to our previous
spotJ but alas, we waited.
At 21:00 a light breeze developed as the sun set so we were
off to Hein Bank again. We made it there around 00:30 Sunday morning but
we were not alone anymore. We rounded and started our way home. The
problem was that there was a big ebb @ 3.5 knots that was going to start in an
hour thus, getting around into Rosario strait was going to be impossible till
09:00 am and by then all of the boats behind will be with us and being at the
top end of the rating band in our class, that meant we had less than 8 miles to
put over 1.5 hours on our competitors. But winning wasn’t our objective
anymore, finishing was!
The forcast for the entire weekend was spot on. Today
the Westerly was going to start to develop around 10:00 am and right on time it
did. Obviously being in front of the boats and heading East meant that
the boats behind would get that new breeze first but at least we could see the
light at the end of the journey now, the finish line was just over there!
We set the kite one last time ( I think it went up 12 times
in total ) and had our best run of the trip, hitting 7 knots of boat speed in
the water in about 11 knots of breeze.
We finished @ 12:04:17 Sunday afternoon. We were the 3rd
boat to finish the race and first to finish in our division, that’s the
positive. The bad news for us was that the other 10 boats were about to
finish starting just 3 minutes later.
Congrats to Velli and Andy on Plus Ten, they finished 6th
overall and 4th in their division. Cinco de Mayo with myself
and Ivan, were 10th overall and 4th in her division.
Vampire, with Don Mille and Mark Hansen, finished 7th overall and 1st
in her division!!!
Only 14 boats finished the race out of the 38 that
started. This is a race of skill and perseverance. At times you
want to jump off the boat and just swim ashore, while other times you are
having the time of your life.
As I mentioned the Anacortes Yacht Club give each boat Race
Trackers. While racing family and friends can follow your every move, my
wife and kids kept calling and texting me saying look out, so and so is about
to pass you. Now back at home you can review the tracks you and your
competitors took in live time. So check out the link below and click on a
boat or multiple boats and watch the routes they all took.
That’s it for now, see you all on the water.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Got the DH title
On August 21st we had the final race of the 3 Double Handed races in our new Summer Series. The crew for today was just Ivan and I as my wife and kids were away at our place in Parksville.
The course turned out to be the same as the previous races but today we had a steady 8-10 knot breeze that built to 14 at the finish line.
We set the course at just under 2.5 miles but decided to go with start time #4 which would hopefully get the slower and less experienced sailors a bigger head start but the big boys came charging on........and it worked!
All of the boats got off the start line promptly and made there way down the course on starboard going nicely upwind. We were chasing Mad Dash and they were trying thier best to cover us. The two of us were going into the beach, closer than I normally like to go but they were inside of us and took some comfort knowing they were closer to the shore than we were.
Finally we were able to roll them and then tack out to some deeper water..........what we found was that our obsession to play with MAD DASH had taken us back a bit in the fleet, fortunately not too much but we did lose some ground.
We go to the mark and were the 5th boat to round and right behind was balance of the fleet - to say it was a busy mark rounding would be a big understatement.
We went with a jibe set and Ivan did a nice job of getting things down smoothly. We managed to pass Diversion and Toucan but EX and Plus Ten put too much ground between us and we never got close enough to scare either one of them.
We finished 3rd for the day which was good enough to win the series, so my family is very happy:)
The course turned out to be the same as the previous races but today we had a steady 8-10 knot breeze that built to 14 at the finish line.
We set the course at just under 2.5 miles but decided to go with start time #4 which would hopefully get the slower and less experienced sailors a bigger head start but the big boys came charging on........and it worked!
All of the boats got off the start line promptly and made there way down the course on starboard going nicely upwind. We were chasing Mad Dash and they were trying thier best to cover us. The two of us were going into the beach, closer than I normally like to go but they were inside of us and took some comfort knowing they were closer to the shore than we were.
Finally we were able to roll them and then tack out to some deeper water..........what we found was that our obsession to play with MAD DASH had taken us back a bit in the fleet, fortunately not too much but we did lose some ground.
We go to the mark and were the 5th boat to round and right behind was balance of the fleet - to say it was a busy mark rounding would be a big understatement.
We went with a jibe set and Ivan did a nice job of getting things down smoothly. We managed to pass Diversion and Toucan but EX and Plus Ten put too much ground between us and we never got close enough to scare either one of them.
We finished 3rd for the day which was good enough to win the series, so my family is very happy:)
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Another Race......another photo finish:)
July 31'st marked the second of the three race summer series for us. This week my oldest daughter Alyssa was able to make it out, adding to Reeeeboook, Andrea, Matthew and myself as the crew for the race tonight.
The race was a carbon copy of the first race in terms of condition - a nice all be it light northerly that meant we were sailing the same course as race #1.
This series is pursuit style racing, with the slower boats leaving first, and everyone having a a fixed time to start racing at. This week we used start time #3.
We got off on time and at the favoured end, following EX out near the pin. We were able to clear the breakwater on the first tack and even though the current was running with us meaning we should be heading out we choose the lift up the beach and to minimize tacking ( mostly because as we are in cruise mode - tiny jib only - we do not excellarate well enough to tack effectively.)
We managed to pass everyone but EX as we neared the turning mark and only Avalanche was threatening to squeeze by us and they did just as tacked and approached the mark - solidly in third place.
We did a jibe set and got the big red A2 up but didn't seem to be making up as much ground as we had hoped to. Plus 10 and Marquis headed in after rounding and seemed to be doing better. We knew we needed to get to the shore to get out of this bad tide so we jibed over....only to struggle badly with pressure! We looked back at EX and Avalanche and they seemed to be getting away so we bailed on our plan and went back to chase after them.
We made up ground fast but as we approached the break water we knew we were "treading water". We had caught right up to EX but Avalanched had squirted away. We knew weren't going to catch them if we just followed so we tried again to get to the shore........and this time after 2-3 minutes it worked. We stopped drifting sideways and managed to get pressure in the sail. We hit our lay line and jibed over, now in some real nice pressure.
Matthew took over driving from Alyssa, who helped Ivan and I jibe the boat and when we finished the jibe we just took off, eventually doing 6.2 knots over the water - while everyone else just floated along. We were very close to the finish line and managed to pop out on top by about 30 seconds ahead of Avalanche.
Back at the dock - talk was that we must have turned the motor on to get that much speed at the end, while we told them it was all skill, when in truth it was as lucky as it was skillful:) but you have to be good to be lucky and we will take the Win.
Happiest moment for me was that my daughter, who was out for her first ever race, got her first win, just like Matthew did in her first race......
Thanks to Andrea we were well fed and enjoyed cold drinks........the full moon was an added bonus not to mention the amazing sunset. A perfect night!
CdM
The race was a carbon copy of the first race in terms of condition - a nice all be it light northerly that meant we were sailing the same course as race #1.
This series is pursuit style racing, with the slower boats leaving first, and everyone having a a fixed time to start racing at. This week we used start time #3.
We got off on time and at the favoured end, following EX out near the pin. We were able to clear the breakwater on the first tack and even though the current was running with us meaning we should be heading out we choose the lift up the beach and to minimize tacking ( mostly because as we are in cruise mode - tiny jib only - we do not excellarate well enough to tack effectively.)
We managed to pass everyone but EX as we neared the turning mark and only Avalanche was threatening to squeeze by us and they did just as tacked and approached the mark - solidly in third place.
We did a jibe set and got the big red A2 up but didn't seem to be making up as much ground as we had hoped to. Plus 10 and Marquis headed in after rounding and seemed to be doing better. We knew we needed to get to the shore to get out of this bad tide so we jibed over....only to struggle badly with pressure! We looked back at EX and Avalanche and they seemed to be getting away so we bailed on our plan and went back to chase after them.
We made up ground fast but as we approached the break water we knew we were "treading water". We had caught right up to EX but Avalanched had squirted away. We knew weren't going to catch them if we just followed so we tried again to get to the shore........and this time after 2-3 minutes it worked. We stopped drifting sideways and managed to get pressure in the sail. We hit our lay line and jibed over, now in some real nice pressure.
Matthew took over driving from Alyssa, who helped Ivan and I jibe the boat and when we finished the jibe we just took off, eventually doing 6.2 knots over the water - while everyone else just floated along. We were very close to the finish line and managed to pop out on top by about 30 seconds ahead of Avalanche.
Back at the dock - talk was that we must have turned the motor on to get that much speed at the end, while we told them it was all skill, when in truth it was as lucky as it was skillful:) but you have to be good to be lucky and we will take the Win.
Happiest moment for me was that my daughter, who was out for her first ever race, got her first win, just like Matthew did in her first race......
Thanks to Andrea we were well fed and enjoyed cold drinks........the full moon was an added bonus not to mention the amazing sunset. A perfect night!
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Summer Has Arrived
This year our club is doing a Summer Series and we had our first race last night! Now I love a race, but what made this one special was my wife and son were able to come out and race for the first time:)
The race is actually a DH event but you can have other people on board but only 2 people are able to operate the boat. That said, kids 13 and younger are free to do whatever they can. So my wife being the trooper that she is, volunteered to do snacktician duties and thus Ivan could get a ride.
For my son, Matthew, this was going to be his first ever sailing experience. He had been on the boat before but never had we actually been able to sail.
We had 15 boats out for the race and it was a reverse start. The course was 2 miles long in a light 5 knot northerly breeze. It was actually a very square windward leeward course.
We have the cruising main on and the 100% jib and were truely in cruise mode, but when it came time to race, race we did.
We were about a minute late for our start, due mainy to the 1.5 knot adverse current. The good part was everyone else was late too so really, it wasn't an issue.
Quickly we passed boats, and we knew we had to hit the beach hard to get out of this current. We did and by the time we cleared the breakwater we were only trailing Mad Dash but had Avalanche hot on our tails.
We managed to close the gap on the dash 34 but Avalanche snuck in front of us but we were less than a minute behind both at the turning mark, we were ready to pounce. We launched the A2 jibed and started to make up ground fast. Halfway down the leg we passed Avalanche who had there cruising kite tacked to the bow but were moving nicely. Mad Dash had squirted ahead some but we were now in sync with them and were gaining fast........but was it too late.
We split off a bit from them, they took the direct line to the finishing pin while we heated up for some boat speed and one last jibe. With Matthew at the helm - doing a fantastic job - we had a final jibe come off perfectly and it was a photo finish..........and the winner is, YES we beat them by half a boat length! My son was thrilled while my wife and I were proud parents. Whenever your child asks if we can do this again next week you know the night was a success, winning the race was secondary for me.
A big thanks to Ivan for coming out and to the other 14 boats lining up and making it a night to remember.
CdM
The race is actually a DH event but you can have other people on board but only 2 people are able to operate the boat. That said, kids 13 and younger are free to do whatever they can. So my wife being the trooper that she is, volunteered to do snacktician duties and thus Ivan could get a ride.
For my son, Matthew, this was going to be his first ever sailing experience. He had been on the boat before but never had we actually been able to sail.
We had 15 boats out for the race and it was a reverse start. The course was 2 miles long in a light 5 knot northerly breeze. It was actually a very square windward leeward course.
We have the cruising main on and the 100% jib and were truely in cruise mode, but when it came time to race, race we did.
We were about a minute late for our start, due mainy to the 1.5 knot adverse current. The good part was everyone else was late too so really, it wasn't an issue.
Quickly we passed boats, and we knew we had to hit the beach hard to get out of this current. We did and by the time we cleared the breakwater we were only trailing Mad Dash but had Avalanche hot on our tails.
We managed to close the gap on the dash 34 but Avalanche snuck in front of us but we were less than a minute behind both at the turning mark, we were ready to pounce. We launched the A2 jibed and started to make up ground fast. Halfway down the leg we passed Avalanche who had there cruising kite tacked to the bow but were moving nicely. Mad Dash had squirted ahead some but we were now in sync with them and were gaining fast........but was it too late.
We split off a bit from them, they took the direct line to the finishing pin while we heated up for some boat speed and one last jibe. With Matthew at the helm - doing a fantastic job - we had a final jibe come off perfectly and it was a photo finish..........and the winner is, YES we beat them by half a boat length! My son was thrilled while my wife and I were proud parents. Whenever your child asks if we can do this again next week you know the night was a success, winning the race was secondary for me.
A big thanks to Ivan for coming out and to the other 14 boats lining up and making it a night to remember.
CdM
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