Raced again last night

[Gordon Laco]

Hello Shipmates, 

It started out well…  

I got up Wednesday morning and my first thought was ‘yippee it’s Wednesday’.  Well actually no, my first thought was ‘I wonder of the roofing contractor is going to show up today?’.  

In due course the end of the work day came (but not the contractor).   The usual Wednesday routine of early supper and away to the Club.  At 1800 our attenuated crew of Robin (late skipper of Maid Marion) and Rob (my son) gathered and prepared Surprise for the race.  The thunderstorms which had stalked around us all day seemed to have evaporated.  The only threatening looking clouds were to leeward, clobbering someone else.

The first problem of the night occurred on the way out.  I really like our three-bladed Campbell prop, but it’s blades have straight and blunt leading edges.  This time of year the weeds in the club’s channels are growing and our prop does tend to gather them.  I normally do what I call a ‘mowing the lawn’ routine before backing out of our slip.  This involves letting the engine run a moment or so with the transmission in forward before casting off… the slip stream of the prop lays down the weeds and they tend to stay down long enough for us to back out over them.  That works very well provided I remember to do it.  Last night I didn’t.

So out we chugged, pushing Surprise up to about 5 kts then putting the engine in reverse for hard burps hoping to shed the weeds.  That worked after two or three applications.

At the start we found the usual 18 boats milling about and I gave my usual order to commence setting sail ‘I suppose there’s no point in putting off the inevitable, let’s get some sail on her’.  Up went the main, off went the engine, out rolled the genoa.  The setting of both sails was accompanied by another August peril, not as bad for motoring performance as weeds, but perhaps more distressing.  Out of both sails came a cascade of large spiders, all of them desperately trying to regain cover.  Dangling with their legs spread, some climbing, others spinning web like crazy descending, it was like a horror nightmare trapeze circus show.   Well I suppose as bad spiders go these things weren’t huge, but for a moment we were all dancing around and occasionally batting them away with flat hands.  No, not huge, but I did see one hit the water after I batted it and swim very vigorously back to the boat.  Ugh.

With genny and main up and trimmed, we glided toward the committee boat to do our usual fly-by of the committee boat, partly to ensure they got us as participating in their records, partly to say ’thanks for being committee tonight’.    Actually we had a lot more time to talk than just a quick thanks.  Our speed reaching was 0.8 kts.  I made the usual light air race joke, that being ‘I’ll try to keep my wake down as we go by’ which got the usual chortle from the people the comment was directed toward.

The start sequence began, as we struggled to keep Surprise moving.  I was making gybes rather than tacks in the interest of keeping the boat moving… and during all this realized that there were wild wind direction fluctuations.  From square to the wind one moment, there would be a shift to make the start a reaching one, then it would be properly square upwind again…  There’d be a jolt of about 5kts of wind, then nothing for a while. The upshot of this was that I found myself well set up for a start but with 90 seconds to go and in great danger of an uptick of wind forcing us over early.  Ever prayed for ’no gust’ in light airs?  We did.  But the gust came and I was forced to bear away and gybe yet again to shed speed and reset for our crossing of the line.  While doing that, our arch-rival Matt aboard Sun Dancer was also doing the same dance but we crossed in close company with each other right on the horn.  

Away we went upwind, reaching occasionally then beating again as the wind direction wandered around.  Then the wind picked up from the old direction poor old Surprise picked up her skirts and began gurgling along at 4 knots close hauled. Two more tacks and there we were crossing half of the fleet and swooshing around the windward mark.  

The course was relatively short, I expect because of the light air, so we elected not to set the spinnaker on that first run back down.  And of course right after I made that decision, the wind shifted and the course became a reach, a bit tight for the ‘chute anyway.  We ran down the run in quite heavy traffic, thankfully just out of the blob of squabbling Sharks all harassing each other and anyone near them.  There was some shouting as the boats ahead crowded around the leeward mark but I found a gap in the traffic and our rounding was clean and smooth.  I told my son that the traffic we’d just came through exemplified how I describe yacht racing to non-sailors… ‘like the chariot race scenes in Ben Hur, but at 3 knots’.

Up we climbed on the second beat.  Sun Dancer, our rival, tacked immediately and set out for the left side of the course along with most of the fleet.  Matt points a heck of a lot higher than we do so I reckoned just following him and watching him climb away from us was not a good strategy.  I went right on the course figuring I’d roll the dice for to take advantage of what wind shifts may come.  Well they came, but we were on the wrong side of them every time.  Then we fell into a hole in which we stopped dead after gliding with the sails slack for a while.  Over on the correct side of the course, all our rivals trudged along working their way up toward the windward mark.  

We struggled to get Surprise moving when there was wind, did the ‘bake ’n bob’ thing when there wasn’t.  Then boats started getting around the mark, and there we were stewing only 2/3 the way up.  Eventually all the other boats got around the mark while we wandered about, sometimes stopped, sometimes moving at speeds as high as 0.6 knots.  Oh the agony.  

Eventually a puff of wind came and we pushed Surprise around the mark, in last place.  I declared we were going to set the spinnaker.  Our situation was desperate.   Since our normal foredeck crew weren’t aboard, Rob being inexperienced with spinnaker, and Robin not really mobile, I gave the later the helm and jumped forward to do foredeck.    

Pole clipped to mast, guy through the other end, uphaul and downhaul in place, pole up.  back to the mast, a shout to furl up the genny (the wind was so light I wanted it out of the way completely during the hoist… perhaps a mistake) and back at the mast I hauled away smartly.  Something felt wrong.  

Looking up I found that somehow I’d led the spinnaker halyard around the pole lift, so the sail was snaked around it.  Down came the spinnaker, I dipped the pole so I could reach the lift’s shackle… cleared the mess then hoisted the pole again.  Up went the halyard… then I noticed the port spinnaker sheet was leading into the water over the starboard bow.  Yup,it was right under the boat.  I tried to lead it forward and felt it catch something… oh no, the prop.  Rob dumped slack into the water in hopes our 0.3 knot forward speed would clear it… wahoo that worked.  With the sheet on the correct side we hoisted again and this time the spinnaker went up clear.  

With all the jumping around clearing things the main had gybed itself so we shoved it back to port so the chute could pull… it did for a bit and speed came up, but then the wind pooped out.  

We were more than half the leg behind the next boat… and that boat was second last to our last place.  Last night’s race was run on course #5, a horrible thing were there’s a mark to leeward of the start line.  One mush sail past the start, down to the far leeward mark then beat back up.  Soon boats were finishing that last short beat and getting their horns… we weren’t half way down the run.  There was absolutely no hope of catching anyone and to be honest I was feeling very badly for the committee who would have to wait for us to finish the run, then struggle back up again in the barely perceptible light air.  

We bailed out.  I called over to the committee - they weren’t close but in the stillness my voice carried - asking them to DNF us please.  They acknowledged, looking quite relieved.

So there it is, last night’s race.  We weren’t last only because we bailed out.  Oh well, it was a nice evening to be out on the water… if only the occasion wasn’t a race.  


Gordon Laco
Surprise 426