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
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
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Last Winter Race
Well I am finally getting around to adding a new report, and after last weekend's 2 races in Point Roberts, I think finally, Spring has arrived.
We sailed 2 short W-L races. Though we are no threat to the winter series, we did hope to do well after a few tweaks in the off season.
We shook off the rust with nailing the start on race 1 - forcing Danu - the Bene 36.7 to bail out on barging the pin end. Unfortunately we weren't able to hold our lane and let Jabiru - the J 35 to get a above us and take control of the first beat.
Today was all about finding clear air and favourable tide. If you had to choose one over the other, tide won, and we lost out to Danu at the weather mark and he snuck in just ahead. But we set quickly "big red" and jibed sooner and just took off. We quickly passed Danu and were reeling in Jabiru fast. However we were flirting with that tide line and lost out to the symetrical boat as we just couldn't sail low enough and were forced to jibe and it was game set and match!
We got 2nd overline and with being rated slowest of the other contending boats, including an Express 37, we knew we had 2nd for the race locked up.
The second race was a carbon copy of the first ony with an extra lap added.
We again won the start and with the freshening breeze had switched wisely to the #2. The boat was pretty dialed in but we only had 5 on board and struggled in the puffs a bit.
We got the windward mark just behind the leaders and the skip called for a late jibe set. Andy and got things switched quickly and we launched before 2 boats just ahead us and were going in the right direction when we noticed a problem........no one tailed the kite halyard and Sean was in big trouble as the kite filled. Before we knew it, the kite was in the water, filled with shrimp and the boat was not moving anywhere.
The guys did well, though it did take 2 - 3 minutes, to sort things out and we managed to get the kite out and launched again. We looked around and discovered that we were back of the pack but not by too much.
We had a smooth rounding, hit the beach hard on the upwind leg and made up about half the distance on the leaders. We rounded and got big red up one last time for the day, and boy did she pull on this leg. We just flew and as the breeze picked up we were doing 7.8 knots of boat speed in 12 knots of breeze! We passed Danu, and were catching Avalanche now too ( Jabiru was too far gone ).
We managed to squeeze out Avalanche at the bottom mark and the guys did a fabulous job with the douse and we put 30 seconds in the bank too to finish a strong 2nd again.
Great day out on the water, with great crew and excellent competition!
CdM
We sailed 2 short W-L races. Though we are no threat to the winter series, we did hope to do well after a few tweaks in the off season.
We shook off the rust with nailing the start on race 1 - forcing Danu - the Bene 36.7 to bail out on barging the pin end. Unfortunately we weren't able to hold our lane and let Jabiru - the J 35 to get a above us and take control of the first beat.
Today was all about finding clear air and favourable tide. If you had to choose one over the other, tide won, and we lost out to Danu at the weather mark and he snuck in just ahead. But we set quickly "big red" and jibed sooner and just took off. We quickly passed Danu and were reeling in Jabiru fast. However we were flirting with that tide line and lost out to the symetrical boat as we just couldn't sail low enough and were forced to jibe and it was game set and match!
We got 2nd overline and with being rated slowest of the other contending boats, including an Express 37, we knew we had 2nd for the race locked up.
The second race was a carbon copy of the first ony with an extra lap added.
We again won the start and with the freshening breeze had switched wisely to the #2. The boat was pretty dialed in but we only had 5 on board and struggled in the puffs a bit.
We got the windward mark just behind the leaders and the skip called for a late jibe set. Andy and got things switched quickly and we launched before 2 boats just ahead us and were going in the right direction when we noticed a problem........no one tailed the kite halyard and Sean was in big trouble as the kite filled. Before we knew it, the kite was in the water, filled with shrimp and the boat was not moving anywhere.
The guys did well, though it did take 2 - 3 minutes, to sort things out and we managed to get the kite out and launched again. We looked around and discovered that we were back of the pack but not by too much.
We had a smooth rounding, hit the beach hard on the upwind leg and made up about half the distance on the leaders. We rounded and got big red up one last time for the day, and boy did she pull on this leg. We just flew and as the breeze picked up we were doing 7.8 knots of boat speed in 12 knots of breeze! We passed Danu, and were catching Avalanche now too ( Jabiru was too far gone ).
We managed to squeeze out Avalanche at the bottom mark and the guys did a fabulous job with the douse and we put 30 seconds in the bank too to finish a strong 2nd again.
Great day out on the water, with great crew and excellent competition!
CdM
Thursday, February 2, 2012
2012 Underway
Well the first race of 2012 is set for this Saturday.......we get to be RC for the day so I guess that means maintenance and picture time:)
We will get some video and pictures of the fleet and post them later on next week.
CdM
We will get some video and pictures of the fleet and post them later on next week.
CdM
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
2011 in the books
What an amazing year! To do all the sailing we did and to cap it off, The Van Isle 360!
Learnt alot about the boat and myself in the process. Also that sailing is truly a team sport and you are only as good as your team, so thank you to everyone who I got to sail with this year.
We finished off the season last weekend with 2 light air races in Pt Roberts. We scored two 2nds on the day and managed a 2nd in the series, and that after we missed a race and had to keep the DNF in our scoring.
Enjoy the holidays everyone and I look forward to seeing everyone out on the water in the new year.
CdM
Learnt alot about the boat and myself in the process. Also that sailing is truly a team sport and you are only as good as your team, so thank you to everyone who I got to sail with this year.
We finished off the season last weekend with 2 light air races in Pt Roberts. We scored two 2nds on the day and managed a 2nd in the series, and that after we missed a race and had to keep the DNF in our scoring.
Enjoy the holidays everyone and I look forward to seeing everyone out on the water in the new year.
CdM
Monday, November 14, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Day 9 Ucuelet to Victoria
After a great lay day where we got the boat back together and ready to race again, day broke with an absolute perfect forcast - sunny skies and 20 knot Westerly!
A peaceful parade out from the dock took us out to the awaiting 8-10 foot swells. This is what the West Coast is all about!
We ran the line and got our bearings early. Remembering that dip starts were all right we knew this start was going to be hairy, though which one hasn't been I guess.
We could start down at the shore and run the line on starboard on a broad reach but would be run over by the faster boats and pushed up into a real mess. We decided to hang around the heavily favoured pin end and try and find a lane over it. We were on time but as predicted the big boys were coming fast from below and behind and we had no option other than to peel away - do a 360 and take second row - which as it turned out was a good place to be.
Just after we started Havoc took a competitor up and nearly forced them into the bell buoy only to have the Sjora brush against them.
So we were off, surfing along at 7-8 knots with jib and main up, weaving between traffic. We were a little slow to get the kite set as we didn't want to push our new sprit too much.
Once we did get things set we took off doing 9-12 knots of boat speed for what seemed like hours, actually it was hours. We were with all of our competition but again, we were not going to win this waterline race. The pole boats could go slightly deeper so we decided to take a bit of a flyer.
We jibed over to set up closer to the Canadian side at the entrance to the Juan de Fuca Straits. This was going to be Night Runners day as she just poled back and went deeper and faster than anyone. We were all playing for 2nd. We could see others and for a while it looked like we were good but as it turned out we were about 15-20 minutes behind them when the lights went out and we started our approach to Race Rocks.
We had switched to the A2 in the late afternoon as the breeze went a little light near dinner time. We also found reception to listen to game 7 of the Canucks vs Bruins game, though as you all know, that wasn't much fun.
This was a glorious sail, I can't say I have ever enjoyed sailing more than this leg. We were moving along at 8-9 knots in 15 knots of breeze effortlessly. Guys were lounging on deck eating and talking, we were in heaven.
Now back to the race, as we approached Race Rocks the tide had turned and we made the mistake of getting too close to shore too soon - roughly 7 miles from Race Passage. We were passed by a couple of boats. And our weather reports were for 25-30 knots coming up in Race Passage. We continued on in low to mid teens of breeze now completely in the dark.
Shortly there after the kite started to flutter telling us the breeze was up, and sure enough we had 20 knots TWS. We called to peel the kite and put the jib up. We jibed out to get a good angle to go through the pass and put the A3 up.
We had an excellent line and didn't jibe again. The wind topped out at 26 knots and we blasted through with no problems.
We had a full moon out, very little sea and slight current against us. We were reaching now @ 9-10 knots of boat speed in 15 - 18 knot of TWS..... the boat was just perfectly balanced. We went from Race Rocks to the finish line and it took us 55 minutes, a distance of roughly 10 nautical miles.......again, the best sail of my life!
Pierre met us at the dock, we tied up across from the Empress and had warm pizza and beer. The perfect end to a perfect days sail.
We finished 8th in this leg and after all we went through, it was a great 8!
A peaceful parade out from the dock took us out to the awaiting 8-10 foot swells. This is what the West Coast is all about!
We ran the line and got our bearings early. Remembering that dip starts were all right we knew this start was going to be hairy, though which one hasn't been I guess.
We could start down at the shore and run the line on starboard on a broad reach but would be run over by the faster boats and pushed up into a real mess. We decided to hang around the heavily favoured pin end and try and find a lane over it. We were on time but as predicted the big boys were coming fast from below and behind and we had no option other than to peel away - do a 360 and take second row - which as it turned out was a good place to be.
Just after we started Havoc took a competitor up and nearly forced them into the bell buoy only to have the Sjora brush against them.
So we were off, surfing along at 7-8 knots with jib and main up, weaving between traffic. We were a little slow to get the kite set as we didn't want to push our new sprit too much.
Once we did get things set we took off doing 9-12 knots of boat speed for what seemed like hours, actually it was hours. We were with all of our competition but again, we were not going to win this waterline race. The pole boats could go slightly deeper so we decided to take a bit of a flyer.
We jibed over to set up closer to the Canadian side at the entrance to the Juan de Fuca Straits. This was going to be Night Runners day as she just poled back and went deeper and faster than anyone. We were all playing for 2nd. We could see others and for a while it looked like we were good but as it turned out we were about 15-20 minutes behind them when the lights went out and we started our approach to Race Rocks.
We had switched to the A2 in the late afternoon as the breeze went a little light near dinner time. We also found reception to listen to game 7 of the Canucks vs Bruins game, though as you all know, that wasn't much fun.
This was a glorious sail, I can't say I have ever enjoyed sailing more than this leg. We were moving along at 8-9 knots in 15 knots of breeze effortlessly. Guys were lounging on deck eating and talking, we were in heaven.
Now back to the race, as we approached Race Rocks the tide had turned and we made the mistake of getting too close to shore too soon - roughly 7 miles from Race Passage. We were passed by a couple of boats. And our weather reports were for 25-30 knots coming up in Race Passage. We continued on in low to mid teens of breeze now completely in the dark.
Shortly there after the kite started to flutter telling us the breeze was up, and sure enough we had 20 knots TWS. We called to peel the kite and put the jib up. We jibed out to get a good angle to go through the pass and put the A3 up.
We had an excellent line and didn't jibe again. The wind topped out at 26 knots and we blasted through with no problems.
We had a full moon out, very little sea and slight current against us. We were reaching now @ 9-10 knots of boat speed in 15 - 18 knot of TWS..... the boat was just perfectly balanced. We went from Race Rocks to the finish line and it took us 55 minutes, a distance of roughly 10 nautical miles.......again, the best sail of my life!
Pierre met us at the dock, we tied up across from the Empress and had warm pizza and beer. The perfect end to a perfect days sail.
We finished 8th in this leg and after all we went through, it was a great 8!
How we fixed the sprit
So as mentioned our sprit broke and as it turned out it was a flaw in the pole itself that caused it to break.......but that didn't matter at the time.
The old addage of when the going gets tough, the tough get going, well this is where the Cinco team won out hands down.
Before we even finished leg 8, guys were putting there heads together to figure out how we can carry on in the race. As soon as cell service ( god bless the i phone again ) was found we started making calls and by the end of the day a fellow PRYC club member and his company had an alluminum tube made and ready to ship DHL that night to Nanaimo.
Now you think, Nanaimo, what good will that do? You are right, and thus Cindy's parents who live near Duncan, went down, picked it up and then drove all the way to deliver the new pole and would barely accept a thank you! Again, what great people!
Don and the boys went to work stripping off all the hardware from the old pole, while Sparky ( nick ) had at the electronics again. After a long afternoon, and to the surprise of many on the dock, we had power, full instruments, and a brand new pole ready to go for the next 2 legs.
For not racing all day, today was one of the most satisfying days of the entire race!
The old addage of when the going gets tough, the tough get going, well this is where the Cinco team won out hands down.
Before we even finished leg 8, guys were putting there heads together to figure out how we can carry on in the race. As soon as cell service ( god bless the i phone again ) was found we started making calls and by the end of the day a fellow PRYC club member and his company had an alluminum tube made and ready to ship DHL that night to Nanaimo.
Now you think, Nanaimo, what good will that do? You are right, and thus Cindy's parents who live near Duncan, went down, picked it up and then drove all the way to deliver the new pole and would barely accept a thank you! Again, what great people!
Don and the boys went to work stripping off all the hardware from the old pole, while Sparky ( nick ) had at the electronics again. After a long afternoon, and to the surprise of many on the dock, we had power, full instruments, and a brand new pole ready to go for the next 2 legs.
For not racing all day, today was one of the most satisfying days of the entire race!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Day 8 - Winter Harbour to Ucluelet
Today got started very early. We needed to leave the dock by 6:00 am to make the start line on time.
The motor out was peaceful, as I said, Winter Harbour is a beautiful bit of rugged country!
The breeze was out of the North East today, light, maybe 7-8 knots shich meant a spinny start. We got a very good mid line start and had the kite up in short order.
As mentioned earlier, the RC and PRO wanted us to get out and around Brooks before the forcasted Gale was to arrive later this morning. Only the very fastest boats were able to sail through the transition zone just a couple miles up from the start. The rest of us were left with very light conditions and even drifting for a good hour.
Finally we managed to get a breath of air and were off, slowly at first but within an hour or 2 it was blowing 20 and out to sea we headed.
We were one of only 4 boats in our division to escape first, with Kiva / Kotuku and that darn Hobbie chasing hard but we had a good head start on the rest of the boats.....actually they were never to be seen again till morning.
We planned to head out to about 30 - 35 miles offshore to get some current help. We were not alone as it seemed everyone else had the same plan. We were pacing Kiva, sailing slightly higher but they had some speed on us, but net result was even. We would be sailing with them all afternoon and into the dark of night.
The breeze continued to build it was a steady 25 maybe gusting to 30 but managable. The bigger issues were the seas. They were quite short and steep, and very confused. They were coming from 2 and sometimes 3 different directions. This made driving very difficult and the boat was left to just slam hard from wave to wave, shuttering every 30 seconds it would seem.
At around 11:00 pm, we were going along when our instruments decided to fail again. So now we have no vision, no numbers, a reef and #3 up in what seems like a building storm. Down below we have very cold crew, some sick, some unable to function. The little voice inside me reminds the boat will always take more than what the crew will so I am quite confident in the ol' girl. She is doing great, and so are we.
We do our midnight check in ( we are required to check in to the Coast Guard every 6 hours with a positional grid system provided to us the by the RC and a status report ) We hear of some boats really struggling with sea sickness, one boat hit a whale and had to return to Winter Harbour, one boat lost power and feared they would lose instruments - we laughed at that one as we already had that issue - many boats taking on water, boats losing wind vanes ect.........but none the less, most were coping.
To sail at night is quite an experience! To do so with no instruments in a gale in large confused seas is another. We keep track of a port bow light of a competitor. By keeping it in the same spot under the main sail we know we are sailing high enough or too high. We can see the luff of the main and keep it with a nice speed bubble or back wind to help understand heel and boat speed.
At around 3:00 am we see a bright light on the horizon. At first we think it is the sun but it is too early for sunrise. We then figure it must be a cruise ship, but we are 40 miles off shore, really a cruise ship out here????? It is getting closer and Don and I can't tell if it is going to cross us or not. We try to slow the boat up but again that is hard to do without crash tacking. Then we hear there horn, is that for us? We are with Cu Na Mara just to leeward of us and are watching them as well. Finally we can tell they are not going to cross us but it was a nervous few moments! A second ship came shortly after but followed the others path and there were no issues.
Finally the lights turned back on around 4:15. We had survived and actually done quite well. At 6:00 am for the roll call we were rewarded with news that we were in the grid closest to the finish for division! Bot bad for a bunch of blind sailors!!
Then it happened, around 6:30 the forcasted switch to a westerly came and we were set up perfect for it. We had 32 miles to go, straight down wind and the breeze was down to a nice 15 knots or so. The bad news was the sea state was both for and against us.
We scrambled to get more hands on deck and get a kite set up. We did so and were off, surfing along doing 10+ knots! Then the unthinkable happened, the sprit broke off after just 15 minutes of down wind fun! It broke roughly a foot in front of the exit point of the boat. We were dejected, that's it, were done I thought. Well I have to say the guys did an amazing job getting the boat back to Uecuelet, under jib and main only! We couldn't surf the boat beyond hull speed to protect against water pouring inside. So we watched painfully as boats sailed up from behind us and either pass us or make up time to correct over us.
We finished the leg in roughly 31 hours, we lost at least an hour as boats that we saw when we first put the kite up finished an hour or more ahead of us.
We still finished 6th for this leg, just 12 seconds back of Night Runner.
But the real story is of how our crew pulled together and came up with a plan to get a new sprit built to allow us to continue on with the race and how our fellow PRYC club members back home made it happen!
The motor out was peaceful, as I said, Winter Harbour is a beautiful bit of rugged country!
The breeze was out of the North East today, light, maybe 7-8 knots shich meant a spinny start. We got a very good mid line start and had the kite up in short order.
As mentioned earlier, the RC and PRO wanted us to get out and around Brooks before the forcasted Gale was to arrive later this morning. Only the very fastest boats were able to sail through the transition zone just a couple miles up from the start. The rest of us were left with very light conditions and even drifting for a good hour.
Finally we managed to get a breath of air and were off, slowly at first but within an hour or 2 it was blowing 20 and out to sea we headed.
We were one of only 4 boats in our division to escape first, with Kiva / Kotuku and that darn Hobbie chasing hard but we had a good head start on the rest of the boats.....actually they were never to be seen again till morning.
We planned to head out to about 30 - 35 miles offshore to get some current help. We were not alone as it seemed everyone else had the same plan. We were pacing Kiva, sailing slightly higher but they had some speed on us, but net result was even. We would be sailing with them all afternoon and into the dark of night.
The breeze continued to build it was a steady 25 maybe gusting to 30 but managable. The bigger issues were the seas. They were quite short and steep, and very confused. They were coming from 2 and sometimes 3 different directions. This made driving very difficult and the boat was left to just slam hard from wave to wave, shuttering every 30 seconds it would seem.
At around 11:00 pm, we were going along when our instruments decided to fail again. So now we have no vision, no numbers, a reef and #3 up in what seems like a building storm. Down below we have very cold crew, some sick, some unable to function. The little voice inside me reminds the boat will always take more than what the crew will so I am quite confident in the ol' girl. She is doing great, and so are we.
We do our midnight check in ( we are required to check in to the Coast Guard every 6 hours with a positional grid system provided to us the by the RC and a status report ) We hear of some boats really struggling with sea sickness, one boat hit a whale and had to return to Winter Harbour, one boat lost power and feared they would lose instruments - we laughed at that one as we already had that issue - many boats taking on water, boats losing wind vanes ect.........but none the less, most were coping.
To sail at night is quite an experience! To do so with no instruments in a gale in large confused seas is another. We keep track of a port bow light of a competitor. By keeping it in the same spot under the main sail we know we are sailing high enough or too high. We can see the luff of the main and keep it with a nice speed bubble or back wind to help understand heel and boat speed.
At around 3:00 am we see a bright light on the horizon. At first we think it is the sun but it is too early for sunrise. We then figure it must be a cruise ship, but we are 40 miles off shore, really a cruise ship out here????? It is getting closer and Don and I can't tell if it is going to cross us or not. We try to slow the boat up but again that is hard to do without crash tacking. Then we hear there horn, is that for us? We are with Cu Na Mara just to leeward of us and are watching them as well. Finally we can tell they are not going to cross us but it was a nervous few moments! A second ship came shortly after but followed the others path and there were no issues.
Finally the lights turned back on around 4:15. We had survived and actually done quite well. At 6:00 am for the roll call we were rewarded with news that we were in the grid closest to the finish for division! Bot bad for a bunch of blind sailors!!
Then it happened, around 6:30 the forcasted switch to a westerly came and we were set up perfect for it. We had 32 miles to go, straight down wind and the breeze was down to a nice 15 knots or so. The bad news was the sea state was both for and against us.
We scrambled to get more hands on deck and get a kite set up. We did so and were off, surfing along doing 10+ knots! Then the unthinkable happened, the sprit broke off after just 15 minutes of down wind fun! It broke roughly a foot in front of the exit point of the boat. We were dejected, that's it, were done I thought. Well I have to say the guys did an amazing job getting the boat back to Uecuelet, under jib and main only! We couldn't surf the boat beyond hull speed to protect against water pouring inside. So we watched painfully as boats sailed up from behind us and either pass us or make up time to correct over us.
We finished the leg in roughly 31 hours, we lost at least an hour as boats that we saw when we first put the kite up finished an hour or more ahead of us.
We still finished 6th for this leg, just 12 seconds back of Night Runner.
But the real story is of how our crew pulled together and came up with a plan to get a new sprit built to allow us to continue on with the race and how our fellow PRYC club members back home made it happen!
Friday, June 24, 2011
Day 7 - Port Hardy to Winter Harbour
Tension is in the air to start today's race. We are now setting out to cross the infamous Nawhitti Bar and rounding Cape Scott. These waters have been known to blow the windows out of boats, proving a piece of water to show a lot of respect for.
The start line today is huge, probably 1 mile long or more. There is tug and log boom that delays the start by 10 minutes followed by yet again another general recall. The port side of the line is heavily favored but you need to cross it on port. Our second start was maybe our worst of the entire race, we are probably the last boat to cross the line.
The breeze builds to a nice 10 knot Westerly and many of the boats hit the shore early. We don't think this is right as the tide is pushing us out so we stick to the middle of the bay, and quickly find ourselves mid fleet. By the time we round the corner and enter Goletas Channel we are in 2nd place, a great recovery.
We have about 15 miles of upwind sailing till the bar. We can see in the distance a dead spot and what we think is a big leftie coming out of it. Well being out front we get to be either hero's or zero's and though we do ok, boats that were well behind us took the right side and came out ahead.
We hunker down and work the shores till we get to the bar. Well once we are there the breeze is at best 5 knots and the seas flat, oh as we turn left, so does the breeze, we are still going up wind! Will this race ever have a different point of sail? Jockingly we re name the race - the UPWIND van isle 360!
The breeze completely dies, we are drifting with about 10 miles to go to Cape Scott. We have caught our fleet with only Rubato and Kiva ahead, but not by much.
The wind does fill in and we enjoy a great dinner and gorgeous sunset rounding Cape Scott. We turn left, find the Coast guard vessel that will escort the fleet down the treacherous West Coast and begin to settle into night sailing. Oh did I mention we are still going up wind.
As night comes we are solidly in 3rd, sailing with Kotuku. We decide to head out to see if we can find more wind.
The night is rather uneventful, the breeze is light, maybe 5-10 at best ( remember we still don't have any instruments, we are navigating by paper charts and an I Phone! Around 2:00 am Kotuku lee bows us so we tack away and that was the last we saw of them.
As day broke we struggled to find boats. We could see a large number behind us but we were missing a few. A few, namely Opus and the Hobbie had taken the shore route and snuck past us. We tacked into shore ASAP and got a nice lift to pass Karina II but the leaders were in and we finished 6th.
We motored into Winter Harbour and found our private dock and the owner's Pat and Phil of Winter Harbour Cottages. The met us, got us power and water and showed us to our cabin.
The weather couldn't have been more peaceful and scenic. A great meal ready to go by Nick had the guys full of food and we began to work on the boats electornics again.
We walked down the boardwalk to the general store ( also the post office and liquor store )that afternoon where the local merchants put on a great bbq for all.
Talk that night was that a gale was forcasted for tomorrow's leg down the graveyard of the pacific past Brooks Pennisula so we were going to start an hour earlier to get around safely.
The start line today is huge, probably 1 mile long or more. There is tug and log boom that delays the start by 10 minutes followed by yet again another general recall. The port side of the line is heavily favored but you need to cross it on port. Our second start was maybe our worst of the entire race, we are probably the last boat to cross the line.
The breeze builds to a nice 10 knot Westerly and many of the boats hit the shore early. We don't think this is right as the tide is pushing us out so we stick to the middle of the bay, and quickly find ourselves mid fleet. By the time we round the corner and enter Goletas Channel we are in 2nd place, a great recovery.
We have about 15 miles of upwind sailing till the bar. We can see in the distance a dead spot and what we think is a big leftie coming out of it. Well being out front we get to be either hero's or zero's and though we do ok, boats that were well behind us took the right side and came out ahead.
We hunker down and work the shores till we get to the bar. Well once we are there the breeze is at best 5 knots and the seas flat, oh as we turn left, so does the breeze, we are still going up wind! Will this race ever have a different point of sail? Jockingly we re name the race - the UPWIND van isle 360!
The breeze completely dies, we are drifting with about 10 miles to go to Cape Scott. We have caught our fleet with only Rubato and Kiva ahead, but not by much.
The wind does fill in and we enjoy a great dinner and gorgeous sunset rounding Cape Scott. We turn left, find the Coast guard vessel that will escort the fleet down the treacherous West Coast and begin to settle into night sailing. Oh did I mention we are still going up wind.
As night comes we are solidly in 3rd, sailing with Kotuku. We decide to head out to see if we can find more wind.
The night is rather uneventful, the breeze is light, maybe 5-10 at best ( remember we still don't have any instruments, we are navigating by paper charts and an I Phone! Around 2:00 am Kotuku lee bows us so we tack away and that was the last we saw of them.
As day broke we struggled to find boats. We could see a large number behind us but we were missing a few. A few, namely Opus and the Hobbie had taken the shore route and snuck past us. We tacked into shore ASAP and got a nice lift to pass Karina II but the leaders were in and we finished 6th.
We motored into Winter Harbour and found our private dock and the owner's Pat and Phil of Winter Harbour Cottages. The met us, got us power and water and showed us to our cabin.
The weather couldn't have been more peaceful and scenic. A great meal ready to go by Nick had the guys full of food and we began to work on the boats electornics again.
We walked down the boardwalk to the general store ( also the post office and liquor store )that afternoon where the local merchants put on a great bbq for all.
Talk that night was that a gale was forcasted for tomorrow's leg down the graveyard of the pacific past Brooks Pennisula so we were going to start an hour earlier to get around safely.
Day 6 - Telegraph cove to Port Hardy
This next leg seems strange for some reason, oh that's right, it is because a weak low pressure system has developed and the sun has gone and so has the 15 knot NW breeze.
We mill about looking for the best place to start today's race. The left side is favored as it closer to where we want to go by about 1/2 a mile, but the right side has some inflow breeze.
We practice putting the kite and decide that a middle start is best and as soon as possible will try the kite.
As predicted the rigth won out and a few of our boats screamed away while others sat going no where. We were in the middle.......After about an hour we finally cross the start line and are starting to get the kite filled. Finally we feel we might be able to make some hay in the race.
After about 3 more hours we have moved up and only one boat is ahead of us but we have only gone 3 miles. This doesn't look good. We slowly start to see and hear boats dropping out. In this race if 50% of the boats that start do not finish the leg will not be scored.
Lunch comes and goes and we are passed by Kiva. Normally this wouldn't surprise us but he did so going backwards! At 1:00 it seemed that like everyone had the same feeling and the iron lungs were tunred on. We had better that 22 miles to go and only 4 hours or so to do it.....racing for today was over.
A few competitors however got themselves in hot water as they broke a safety rule in that you need to carry enough fuel to power yourself to the next port. With today's technology on board, the trackers didn't lie and you couldn't hide the facts. Boats were turning back, going to other ports and even one had fuel delivered to them. Needless to say a few harsh words were spoken that night at the awards ceremony.
Port Hardy see's a lot of new crew arrive, so is the half way point of the race. The so called " easy legs " are done and now we head off shore!
First up - "THE BAR"
We mill about looking for the best place to start today's race. The left side is favored as it closer to where we want to go by about 1/2 a mile, but the right side has some inflow breeze.
We practice putting the kite and decide that a middle start is best and as soon as possible will try the kite.
As predicted the rigth won out and a few of our boats screamed away while others sat going no where. We were in the middle.......After about an hour we finally cross the start line and are starting to get the kite filled. Finally we feel we might be able to make some hay in the race.
After about 3 more hours we have moved up and only one boat is ahead of us but we have only gone 3 miles. This doesn't look good. We slowly start to see and hear boats dropping out. In this race if 50% of the boats that start do not finish the leg will not be scored.
Lunch comes and goes and we are passed by Kiva. Normally this wouldn't surprise us but he did so going backwards! At 1:00 it seemed that like everyone had the same feeling and the iron lungs were tunred on. We had better that 22 miles to go and only 4 hours or so to do it.....racing for today was over.
A few competitors however got themselves in hot water as they broke a safety rule in that you need to carry enough fuel to power yourself to the next port. With today's technology on board, the trackers didn't lie and you couldn't hide the facts. Boats were turning back, going to other ports and even one had fuel delivered to them. Needless to say a few harsh words were spoken that night at the awards ceremony.
Port Hardy see's a lot of new crew arrive, so is the half way point of the race. The so called " easy legs " are done and now we head off shore!
First up - "THE BAR"
Day 5 - Hardwicke Island to Telegraph
The days are starting to all look a like now for sure. Not only because we have settled into a nice routine but because, honestly, every day is a carbon copy of the day before. We leave the fish farm and it is blowing about 10 TWS from the Northwest ( we are guessing as the instruments still aren't working ) and during the pre start the breeze builds to a steady 15!
Today we have a slightly confused start line and with some current behind us, we have 2 general recalls, did I mention the starts are very competitive! Unfortunately our first start was the best but as others got to see what some did getting right to the shore right after the start, it was getting more difficult after each re start to get our lane.
Well we did ok and as was the usual scenerio, after 5 - 10 minutes the fleet spreads out and we get to see where everyone stands. We look pretty good, but there is a big transition zone just ahead. Boats that look terrible to start with get flushed around the corner, others that looked great are stopped and the middle, well it wasn't much better.
We were unlucky here as we ended up with only 1 boat behind us after the restart, others that were just 100 yards ahead or less got away by like a mile, never to be seen again. But we dig in and remind ourselves that there are still 20 miles to go, there must be some passing lanes ahead and to stick with it.
Well the breeze builds to the high 20's and we make some nice gains, but today was just not our day. BUT today we were escorted by schools of dolphins and even a near by sighting of a hump back whale. It was spectacular to see the dolphins playing in our bow wave, litteraly so close we could almost grab them........but back to racing:(
As mentioned today was not a good day for team Cinco. We just couldn't get out of our way. Soon it became apparent that we were running out of time to finish the leg. After all that work today to get scored DNF would be awful. So we pushed and pushed and managed to squeeze in with less than 5 remaining in the time limit. This gets us 9th for the day with 4 boats scoring a DNF.
This stop in Telegraph turns out to be one of my favorites. Nice docks, we have a great cabin right on the wharf and Darcy has made us a roasted chicked dinner.
A tough day on the water is still better than most anything else!
Today we have a slightly confused start line and with some current behind us, we have 2 general recalls, did I mention the starts are very competitive! Unfortunately our first start was the best but as others got to see what some did getting right to the shore right after the start, it was getting more difficult after each re start to get our lane.
Well we did ok and as was the usual scenerio, after 5 - 10 minutes the fleet spreads out and we get to see where everyone stands. We look pretty good, but there is a big transition zone just ahead. Boats that look terrible to start with get flushed around the corner, others that looked great are stopped and the middle, well it wasn't much better.
We were unlucky here as we ended up with only 1 boat behind us after the restart, others that were just 100 yards ahead or less got away by like a mile, never to be seen again. But we dig in and remind ourselves that there are still 20 miles to go, there must be some passing lanes ahead and to stick with it.
Well the breeze builds to the high 20's and we make some nice gains, but today was just not our day. BUT today we were escorted by schools of dolphins and even a near by sighting of a hump back whale. It was spectacular to see the dolphins playing in our bow wave, litteraly so close we could almost grab them........but back to racing:(
As mentioned today was not a good day for team Cinco. We just couldn't get out of our way. Soon it became apparent that we were running out of time to finish the leg. After all that work today to get scored DNF would be awful. So we pushed and pushed and managed to squeeze in with less than 5 remaining in the time limit. This gets us 9th for the day with 4 boats scoring a DNF.
This stop in Telegraph turns out to be one of my favorites. Nice docks, we have a great cabin right on the wharf and Darcy has made us a roasted chicked dinner.
A tough day on the water is still better than most anything else!
Day 4 - Campbell River to Hardwicke Island
Today started out with a quick stop at the fuel dock to splash some fuel for the 10 mile power through Seymour Narrows as well as make sure we can get to Telegraph Cove, the next possible stop for provisions.
This leg takes us up through Johnstone Straits and we get the privilege of staying at a fish farm with a preparred salmon dinner. But first we have to get there.
We powered along and met up with the boats that left too early to get through the Narrows. We hugged the shore real close and were just able ( maybe 1.5-2 knots to spare ) to get through. Amazing to think that at some point this pass will run up to 16 knots!
The start is just around the corner in Deepwater Bay. We had plenty of time and proceeded to run the line and get a feel for the starting conditions. It was roughly 10 knots during the pre start but quickly became 15+ so we decided to reef to keep ourselves out of trouble. This proved the right move as being able to maintain control during these starts is key to staying out of trouble. Actually Dragonfly was hit by Night Runner just after the start.
This leg takes us through some very pretty country. It also makes for some challenging sailing as the breeze funnels and built to the high 20's and with a following tide, made for some very steep chop.
We ate it up and were doing extremely well. But these conditions were not for everyone and one boat, a multi named RUFF DUCK, loses her rig. They manage to cut it away but are forced to retire from the race and we see them heading back towards Nanaimo.
With about 8 miles to go we took a 6 foot square wave dead on and it blew the jib right out of the foil. The guys quickly got the sail down and we threw up the storm jib, only to have it peel out of the foil right away too. We bobbed up and down for about 15 minutes in total before we were able to lash the storm jib to the forstay and carry on. During all this the leaders got further away and many either passed us or made up time against us. We did manage to finish the leg in a softening breeze but ended up finishing a disappointing 10th just 19 minutes back of first, which we know we would have been close to had we not had our first bit of bad luck.
Also to note, when the wave landed in the back of the boat it shorted out our electronics, so we were without boat speed / wind / depth and electronic charts for the rest of the race.
The stay on the farm was fabulous. Our hosts were gracious and scenery spectacular.
This leg takes us up through Johnstone Straits and we get the privilege of staying at a fish farm with a preparred salmon dinner. But first we have to get there.
We powered along and met up with the boats that left too early to get through the Narrows. We hugged the shore real close and were just able ( maybe 1.5-2 knots to spare ) to get through. Amazing to think that at some point this pass will run up to 16 knots!
The start is just around the corner in Deepwater Bay. We had plenty of time and proceeded to run the line and get a feel for the starting conditions. It was roughly 10 knots during the pre start but quickly became 15+ so we decided to reef to keep ourselves out of trouble. This proved the right move as being able to maintain control during these starts is key to staying out of trouble. Actually Dragonfly was hit by Night Runner just after the start.
This leg takes us through some very pretty country. It also makes for some challenging sailing as the breeze funnels and built to the high 20's and with a following tide, made for some very steep chop.
We ate it up and were doing extremely well. But these conditions were not for everyone and one boat, a multi named RUFF DUCK, loses her rig. They manage to cut it away but are forced to retire from the race and we see them heading back towards Nanaimo.
With about 8 miles to go we took a 6 foot square wave dead on and it blew the jib right out of the foil. The guys quickly got the sail down and we threw up the storm jib, only to have it peel out of the foil right away too. We bobbed up and down for about 15 minutes in total before we were able to lash the storm jib to the forstay and carry on. During all this the leaders got further away and many either passed us or made up time against us. We did manage to finish the leg in a softening breeze but ended up finishing a disappointing 10th just 19 minutes back of first, which we know we would have been close to had we not had our first bit of bad luck.
Also to note, when the wave landed in the back of the boat it shorted out our electronics, so we were without boat speed / wind / depth and electronic charts for the rest of the race.
The stay on the farm was fabulous. Our hosts were gracious and scenery spectacular.
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