[Public-List] First race, first cruise....

[Gordon Laco via Public-List]

Hello friends, 

SURPRISE had her first race of the year last Wednesday ­ it was a thrilla as
usual for first of season.

Despite what I advise people, we never did make it out for practice runs
(again) and our first race was also our first sail.  As usual, none of the
standing rigging was tuned, the halyards were all ahoo with each other, the
spinnaker hadn¹t been even looked at since somebody put it away last fall.
(Is it packed?  I dunno, there¹s three corners on top, so I guess so....)

In the last minutes before the jousting at the start we realized that we
couldn¹t find the stop watch.  We had to fall back onto our usual ploy of
following somebody who looked like they were more on the ball than we were
and trying to jump them in the last seconds (which they were timing).  The
wind was howling 25kts so we chucked in a reef in the main while dodging
traffic...  

Away we went with a very good start, all things considered.  Clear air, the
rest of the fleet stampeding toward the pin end of the line because they
were all early (which we weren¹t because we were following them for
guidance...)  In came the sheets, and away we went.  As usual, we found
ourselves in close combat with Matt in his SUNDANCER, thank heavens not yet
flying the new sails he threatened me with during the winter.  As usual, he
was better upwind that we were, particularly because it took me half the
first leg to get used to steering again ­ this was the first time since last
fall.

We rounded the windward mark about three boat lengths behind him and watched
him shoot off to starboard on a very broad reach, no doubt planning on
tacking downwind.  We left our spinnaker below because in the high-ish wind
I didn¹t want to stress my crew nor myself out ­ and since SUNDANCER didn¹t
set theirs, we heaved sighs of relief.   A skipper I sailed with many years
ago told me that spinnakers in high winds are like atomic weapons in
diplomacy... Nobody really wants to use theirs, but if one does, all have
to....

Half way down the running leg it suddenly occurred to me that there was a
cure for the genoa being blanketed by the main... Gee wiz, we could wing it
out on the pole!  I¹d forgotten all about that... So we did, and the boat
took off like a sled down a steep hill.   We caught SUNSTONE as she was
reaching to the turning mark... Yes we were by the lee big time but I needed
that boom over there so we had rights to elbow our way ahead of them....

Round we went, SUNSTONE was able to turn inside us and we began slogging
upwind on the second beat.  They were on our weather quarter almost
splashing us with their bow wave... Oh what a battle.  Because they can
point higher I was in a terror that they¹d let us sag away then climb over
us but somehow we managed to keep going and close so we lee-bowed them
horribly.  Every time they tried to tack to break away we tacked as well and
managed to gain a little every time.  Back up at the windward mark we¹d
stretched our lead to about ten boat lengths.   We boomed out our genny
feeling pretty chuffed...but then my son Rob pointed astern and shouted Œoh
no!¹.   There was Matt¹s daughter Rachel up on their bow hooking up their
chute.

Grimly, we got ours out and surprise surprise, up it went without a hitch.
Because they got their chute up somewhat before ours they closed the gap but
we still got Œem.

How did we do in the fleet?  I have no idea, but we beat SUNDANCER.  Back at
the club we had a beer with them and told each other how good it was to race
hard with good friends.   As he was saying good night, Matt said he thought
he¹d have his new main and genoa next week....  Oh dear.

++++++++++++++

So, this weekend being the Victoria Day long weekend, and our 29th wedding
anniversary, Caroline and I decided to head up the coast on our first
overnighter of the season.

Saturday morning we set out in very light air, so resolved to motor up to
Bone Island in order to get there in plenty of time for lounging, book
reading, wine drinking...  Getting up the Sound to Gin Rocks, I noticed that
the islands at Minnicognashene were dissapearing ... Fog.  That¹s a rare
thing here, it¹s been many years since we coped with it, but superior
seamanship should be an ample shield.  We took fixes on several land marks,
started a DR log, and drew a course (005mag) from the green pin off the
Rocks to the entrance of the channels ahead.  The distance was two miles...
We were doing five knots under power...  I wrote down ³10 minutes to
channel².    

We were enveloped in the fog.  Suddenly we couldn¹t see 50 yards but carried
on steering 005.   There is a red pin off Brebeuf Island that we should pass
to starboard of us about 1.3 miles along, I was searching intently for it.
But every time I looked back down at my compass I saw I was up to 20 degrees
to starboard of my course.  Hmm.

Then the depth sounder started showing the bottom coming up....  190¹, 140¹,
60¹, 30¹.  I was just about to say to Caroline that the ten minutes was
about up when the sounder read 5¹ then we skipped a rock.   We turned hard
to port and skipped another rock, harder this time, but glided on after
that.  I chopped the throttle to idle, steered SW toward open water, and we
considered our situation.  nothing seemed sure now.  We went through very
shallow water for a long time before we had any depth below us....  Weird!

I looked at my DR notes... Jumping out at me was an error.   At 5 knots one
doesn¹t do a mile in five minutes, that¹s the rate for 12 knots, which is
the speed of the RCN¹s minor warships when at economical speed.   I¹d last
DR¹d with the service and those figures stuck in my head.   At 5 knots one
does a mile in 12 minutes, not 5 minutes.  So fast work with dividers on the
chart showed our true rate of progress along the chart... But no shoal...
Hey, wait a minute, there¹s Osprey Bank, on the other side of that red pin I
was looking for...  I¹d wandered starboard of my course by poor steering and
we¹d hit Osprey.  Not only hit it;  we¹d CROSSED it in a deep spot and hit
the far side of it, which was why it took so long to find deep water coming
back out.... I was shocked at the two very basic errors I¹d made.  I
apologized to Caroline who just grimaced at me but shrugged her shoulders
too.

So, I was alert enough to realize we¹d have to start navigating when the fog
came in...  But nonchalant enough to make two stupid mistakes (the steering
one continually...  I had the feeling all the time that the boat was
wandering to port despite what the compass was saying, so I favoured wheel
pressure to starboard... I was looking ahead for my red pin instead of
concentrating on the compass...)

After a while we saw land appearing ahead through the fog... There were
houses on it... It had to be Adams Point.  Then we saw the green pin we¹d
started from off Gin Rocks.  We sped back up to 5kts and went back onto our
005 course.    About then a yacht named VISION from our club materialized
and fell in on our quarter.  They have radar, but my shame at my errors and
desire to regain my composure and self confidence forbad me to follow
them...  In 24 minutes the outer buoys of the channel appeared and we began
threading the archepeligo.  The fog lifted and all was easy after that.

First race, first cruise.... Oh how much one forgets over the winter....

Gord 426 Surprise

We fell in with a yacht named