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
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Spring Sailing
We finished up our spring sailing series with a bit of a whimper, but we did enough to win the series, so I guess I should be happy:)
The highlight though was Round Saltspring Island race, held every May long weekend.
This years event was especially enticing as we expected to have a fabulous dual with boats like 4 115's, 2 J 35's, 2 Express 37's, 2 J 36's, 2 beneteau 36.7's, along with other similar rated boats. Well as it turns out they put us in a different division than all of the regular boats we would normally do battle with. I wasn't happy so went up to the Race Officer and plead my case, and in the end took a 6 second penatly to move up to at least start with the j 35's and C&C 115's.........
Well the race went as expected and was a lovely day. The highlights were being the 8th boat physically out of Samson Narrows, the half way point of the race and only trailing one of the above mentioned boats.
We knew, based on the weather pattern that the day would be light but it was steady which was nice. We were on schedule to be done by 9:00pm which is just about when the sun sets and the wind shuts off! However the Southy Point Parking lot not only put a damper on those plans but it also let about 50 boats sail right up next to us. The crew worked really hard and we managed to escape with only 3 boats ahead of us in this now 50 boat pack.
We beat down the back side of Saltspring Island enjoying a nice 7-8 knot breeze and some amazing sailors soup ( thanks Lin ) and just as we entered Captains Passage, right at 9:30 with just 3-4 miles to go, the wind shut down:(
We drifted for a bit, then got a puff and up went the kite and we raced to the sisters , still ahead of all of our competitors when the breeze died completely @ 10:00 pm and the lights completely shut off.
Well we tried everything, but nothing was going to work. To make matters worse we lost track of the others - there were lights everywhere.
Well as it turns out we drift pretty well because as we approached the finish line we tacked over and rolled a boat - RAGS - a C&C 115 that came out of no where to pass in the last mile of the race and us not even know about it. It was 1:23 AM and we were done......we crossed the line, motored out of the way and packed up the boat and got to the dock. To our amazement we were first boat out of all those similar to us to be done, regardless of the ratings:):) We were the 3rd boat to actually finish since the wind shut off @ 10:00.
A huge thank you to my stellar crew, Andy - Ivan - Ian - Lin - Tim. Never an issue and nothing but positive stuff all race long.
We finished 15th overall out of 120 + boats that started and if we had our proper rating would have been 13th. And to finish with the woulda coulda's had we finished around 10:30 or so could have been close to top 5! Oh well, there is always next year.
CdM
The highlight though was Round Saltspring Island race, held every May long weekend.
This years event was especially enticing as we expected to have a fabulous dual with boats like 4 115's, 2 J 35's, 2 Express 37's, 2 J 36's, 2 beneteau 36.7's, along with other similar rated boats. Well as it turns out they put us in a different division than all of the regular boats we would normally do battle with. I wasn't happy so went up to the Race Officer and plead my case, and in the end took a 6 second penatly to move up to at least start with the j 35's and C&C 115's.........
We knew, based on the weather pattern that the day would be light but it was steady which was nice. We were on schedule to be done by 9:00pm which is just about when the sun sets and the wind shuts off! However the Southy Point Parking lot not only put a damper on those plans but it also let about 50 boats sail right up next to us. The crew worked really hard and we managed to escape with only 3 boats ahead of us in this now 50 boat pack.
We beat down the back side of Saltspring Island enjoying a nice 7-8 knot breeze and some amazing sailors soup ( thanks Lin ) and just as we entered Captains Passage, right at 9:30 with just 3-4 miles to go, the wind shut down:(
We drifted for a bit, then got a puff and up went the kite and we raced to the sisters , still ahead of all of our competitors when the breeze died completely @ 10:00 pm and the lights completely shut off.
Well as it turns out we drift pretty well because as we approached the finish line we tacked over and rolled a boat - RAGS - a C&C 115 that came out of no where to pass in the last mile of the race and us not even know about it. It was 1:23 AM and we were done......we crossed the line, motored out of the way and packed up the boat and got to the dock. To our amazement we were first boat out of all those similar to us to be done, regardless of the ratings:):) We were the 3rd boat to actually finish since the wind shut off @ 10:00.
A huge thank you to my stellar crew, Andy - Ivan - Ian - Lin - Tim. Never an issue and nothing but positive stuff all race long.
We finished 15th overall out of 120 + boats that started and if we had our proper rating would have been 13th. And to finish with the woulda coulda's had we finished around 10:30 or so could have been close to top 5! Oh well, there is always next year.
CdM
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