jT - sunny with light winds
05/26/2013, Sydney Harbor

Crew (Doug, Luke, Andrew, Dan, Annabel, and Jeff)

Dan was on the boat early, and advised that Manuel and Ollie wouldn't be showing up. Something about last seen kicking on at 1am. Slackers! It was a quiet morning setting up, Dan had some good looking blueberry muffins, and I almost took one offered but figured a bacon and egg sanger might be needed. The wind prediction was light and getting lighter during the day so some calories were in order! Six crew was the right amount, so all was good.

We got out to the race course and there was about 10 knots of breeze. We played the start line and bit and got our first tack figured out. First time this year I held us up towards the start boat, so we had a line of yachts on Starboard below us as we came up to the start. With a bit of pushing and shoving by the boats below, we surprisingly started right next to the start boat in clean air. With a bit of bobbing and weaving, we kept the course with the intention of staying under Clark Island. The first leg worked for us, with a nice lift taking us up towards the mark. By the first mark, we had Inkonkoni in our sights and had taken at least half of her one minute lead out of her. We had a good off the breeze run back to Shark Island and were slowly pulling the 46 foot Beneteau in. Heading down the harbor, towards Sow and Pigs, was a nice beam reach. The wind was slowly dying out and we slowly reeled Inkonkoni in. By the mark we had closed to within 10 seconds and pursued her up the course. Behind us the wind was even lighter and our competition hadn't closed the gap on us as of yet.

For the next leg we kept pulling close to Inkonkoni until we were less than a boat length off her transom. Both of us would have to tack in order to clear Neilson's Point, so I cut us away first hoping to beat her by just enough to force behind us on starboard. With several minutes of sailing, she came back at us on port tack, but was able to tack right under us! Still just barely a length between us, I waited until we cleared the point and then decided to duck under her. Inkonkoni stayed high, and with the boys (Luke and Doug) trimming like crazy, we were able to sail under her and clear the Shark Island mark well ahead of her. We repeated the earlier tactic and kept below Clark Island after crossing the first lap gate. This paid off by the time we hit Garden Island with a nice chunk taken out of Inkonkoni. The only downside was L'Attitude caught and passed us at that mark!

The next leg was tricky sailing, with the wind shifting and fading away. We poled out the heady and almost were pointed at Point Piper trying to chase a wind line. L'Attitude kept her line to the mark and was able to still beat us by a wide margin. We dropped the pole and angled back to the mark on a near beam reach. Just as we pasted the Shark Island mark, the wind just died. Down to 1.5 - 2.0 knots. We ghosted along for about 20 minutes and were barely able to keep on our course.

The two big fifty footers, In Cahoots and then Silver Minx slowly pulled us in. I would have swore they had a motor on if both boats weren't in a ghosting conga line! We lost all steerage as In Cahoots past and nosed towards Neilson's Point. The wind returned, well just enough to regain control, just before we would be in danger from hitting the rocks. Tacking, we slowly drifted on the tide back towards a triple wood pile. Clearing by barely two feet, we had to call starboard on another boat. They had enough speed to be able to drive behind us. Our friend's, Inkonkoni had caught up and we also were able to force them to duck below us. Unfortunately for them, Sextant (our friend from last week) was right below them on starboard. Sextant called Inkonkoni on Starboard, but the wind was dead. There was almost a collision as Inkonkoni was barely able to move and tack. Sextant slide by her with inches to spare. With us just above Inkonkoni, we should have had to tack as well. But with them tussling, we kept our course and then just barely ducked Sextant. Inkonkoni applauded our 'seamstress' abilities by our threading the needle!

The next two hours slowly ticked by and with the sun dropping behind the skyline we still hadn't reached Sow and Pigs. With time expired we turned on the motor and headed for home. The bar awaited us, and Kirsty came down to commiserate our lack of finishing. A slow day, all and all! The first lap and a half was very competitive, bummer it didn't end up counting. Out of the ~100+ boats, only 4 in all finished... Till next week...

16 CYCA Winter Series 2013

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jT - Rain
05/23/2013, CYCA Board Room

A quick update on the protest that happened last night. After 40 minutes of discussion and statements from both skippers, the Protest Committee took time to decide the facts and case.

In the end the protest was dismissed. Per the rules, Sextant had not fully passed through the wind, and therefore was just performing a "luff" into the breeze. Nemesis responded to that "luff" appropriately by keeping clear as the non-right-of-way boat. It was determined that the skipper of Sextant's call of "I'm Tacking" was just an informative statement with no bearing in the rules. All part of the fun and tussle of sailing!

We sat down and had a few beers, rum and cokes with Sextant's skipper - Denis. While we don't see eye to eye on the event, we both had some laughs and a good discussion. I think we've come to know the other skipper a bit better and next time we come together will work it out.

See everyone on Sunday for the next race!

16 CYCA Winter Series 2013

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jT - Sunny and cool, a cracking winter day!
05/19/2013, Sydney Harbor

Crew (Doug +1[Amber], Chris, Manuel, Andrew, Luke +3[of Yvette, Darshan, and Priya] Ilse, Dan, Annabel, and Jeff)

Today started at the club as a cracker of a winter morning. Bright sunshine, gentle breeze, and a darn good egg and bacon roll from CYCA. We got the boat prepped with expectations of 12 knots of breeze from the West. The crew got the #1 out and everything set with practiced ease. Luke had a few guests from the USA, so it was fun welcoming them back onto US soil, AKA Nemesis! We pulled out of the slip and headed out to the race. Dan helmed us out to put up the sails, fresh back from Antigua race week with Shane. Some great stories of the week and then cruising the islands. With the sails up we heading toward the start and checked the course, Course A again for the fifth week.

We challenged the start line low down at the pin end. With a decent start we had to weave through traffic on port tack, but as the tide was low and flooding in it helped getting out into the channel for our first upwind slog. The wind proved to be fluky and variable as we tacked our way to the first mark. With 12 onboard we had a full compliment, and lots of help to keep weight up or down based on the wind. The new and newer crew members did an excellent job in the tacks! With a bit of traffic at the mark, we seemed to be holding off our competition. Rounding the mark we settled in and got the heady poled out, only three tries to keep the downhaul attached! Doug got it sorted and we chased after Inkonkoni and Astral. This would be a common theme for the day!

With the next mark down, we beam reached up the harbor towards Manly, Sow and Pigs being our next mark. It was a very fast angle and we found ourselves pacing and even passing smaller boats flying spinnakers. We managed to take both yachts on this leg, as Astral and Inkonkoni kept a bit West of the lay line. With a quick lap up and back down the harbor, we pulled for the last mark of the first lap, still managing to hold Astral off. Inkonkoni slid in front of us right at the mark, with Andrew telling us he knew the skipper from his dinghy days and he was a champion sailor. Hmmm, I think I liked racing him better when I didn't know that! No worries, Doug chimed in that I was blooded in Mexico by two hurricanes, so it's all good! We had a laugh as we traded tacks with Astral as we ploughed upwind towards the gate and first lap complete.

The second lap was a close repeat of the first, but we lost ground to L'Attitude and Inkonkoni. As we approached Sow and Pigs we had a fleet of massive boats in our division all gunning for us. InCahoots, Silver Minx and Sextant were in a line chasing us down. It seemed like Silver Minx was sitting on and playing with Sextant as she struggled to pass. Love when faster boats in our division tussle, as it gains us much needed seconds to fight our very aggressive handicap. We rounded Sow and Pigs and tried our best to hold them off as we headed back towards Shark Island. Fluky wind brought us right into Nelson's Point and we were force to tack away from it, calling for water (room to avoid the rock obstruction) and lucky the two boats that had us pinned quickly tacked to let us out. Doing this allowed Sextant to sail under us, with Silver Minx and InCahoots also closing in. We barely managed to keep in front of Sextant, and she finally overtook us just before the last turning mark before the finish, LM4.

With a small boat right above us, we were held from tacking after the mark. We were hard on the wind and with only a boat length in front of us we also were able to hold Sextant from tacking. I could see the skipper keep looking back and knew he was itching to tack. Doug kept fighting the fluky breeze and we gained a small bit on Sextant to within 1/2 a boat length. With both of us on starboard tack, and us being the windward boat, we kept clear of Sextant, but were too close for her to tack and still give us room to avoid. She knew this, but choose to ignore the rules. Her skipper turned and hollered "Tacking!" and started to turn into us with less than 6 meters between us and both of us doing 6+ knots! "Starboard" and "Hold your course" were screamed at Sextant as Doug slammed Nemesis into the wind to avoid a collision. Sextant return to her course with spare meters before hitting us, so a few choice words were exchanged, including us calling "Protest". I reached into the port locker and pulled out our red protest flag and hoisted it on the backstay.

Our momentum drained and course distracted we tacked away from Sextant and struggled for the finish gate. We tacked for the finish line and waiting for us was the starboard train called InCahoots and Silver Minx. Just passing the start boat, on starboard tack, I called for a snap tack to try and clear the finish line. The speed just wasn't there and with Sextant finishing below us, we were force to tack out of the way of InCahoots and Silver Minx on starboard. Gutted, we watched them steam through the finish line just seconds in front of us. We tacked back to starboard and finished the race. Exhausted. What an ending to a day of sailing! Four boats in our division finished within 30 seconds of each other.

Back at the club, we discussed the events and decided to press our protest against Sextant. We'll reconvene on Thursday at the club and see how the protest hearing goes. It is an absolutely tough division we are in. Mostly new and huge boats, with 46, 48, 50 footers being the majority. This, along with the very aggressive handicapping forces us to punch above our weight in every race. Single mistakes or slow tacks can and will cost us those seconds that lose us races. More to come on Thursday night. Winning the protest against Sextant will only change her score, it won't claw back the four seconds we needed to finish our tack and clear InCahoots and Silver Minx at the finish line. No, Sextant and her foolish, greedy skipper took that time away not to be returned. Sad when a faster boat has to resort to cheating to win. That, my friends is yacht racing!

16 CYCA Winter Series 2013

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jT - sunny and light, light winds
07/08/2012, Sydney Harbor

Crew: (Doug, Dan, Luke, Shane, Guille, Tessa , Jeff)

Sunday dawned just beautiful... sunny, with just a trace of clouds in the sky. We all assembled for our last race of the Audi Winter Series point score. With the race and final drop we are just a point behind catching our nemesis, L'eau Co. We had gathered the day before and stripped all the unneeded gear, sails and ropes off Nemmy. As the crew gathers, barely a ripple of breeze blows thought the fleet at dock. We take the unusual, and for Nemmy, unprecedented step of taking out all the covers and cushions from the boat.

Light as, we take our devised positions and prep the boat as we motor out to the start

Main - (Shane/Guillermo)
Winches - Tailer (Dan)
Winches - Grinder (Luke)
Winches - thrower (Doug)
Helm (Jeff)
Pit (Shane)
Bow for start and Running-back stays later (Tessa)

Setting up, we watch a chorus of shouts and hollers of "Starboard" as the fleet starts before us. Somehow by taking 3rd place last week we have been handicapped an extra 2 minutes behind L'eau Co and 4 minutes behind Star Ferry. The biggest threat in the light weather is Lu Lu Belle starting some 11 minutes before us. We watch as the other take off and see many able to hold the tack toward the first mark. I set us up high on the start boat, but some crossing boats on starboard delay us being able to turn into the starting line. We line up high on the starting boat and end up about a minute late for the start in the light winds.

There is actually a bit of breeze on this first leg and we move nicely, catching each lift and looking to make the first mark in one go! The crew is low down, sitting as ballast to help tip the boat and sails in the light wind. I've been there and know it will be a long race with little to do between the tacks. Surprisingly, we near the first mark and see ALL of our competition in the series. Lu Lu Belle has just passed the mark, Star Ferry is approaching it and L'eau Co is still below us approaching the tack to the mark. We get a bit more lift and actually beat L'eau Co, forcing her to duck us as we call "Starboard!" on her! She slips under us and barely beats us to the first mark.

As we start on the first downwind leg, the wind starts to dramatically ease. Downwind is ALL about weight and sail area. We are 10.5 tons and thirty years old, the leader L'eau Co is just seven years old and half our weight at 5.5 tons. We watch as all three competitors slip away from us in the light winds. They round the Bradley Head mark and I start my timer to see how much they have chewed away from us. We drift at barely a knot as we so slowly claw down to the next mark. The only good thing is a huge wind hole is near the mark and boats are just drifting. We see Star Ferry past the cardinal mark and point the wrong way, back towards us! At twenty minutes we finally reach the mark, but thanks to the nearly non-existant wind our friends are all within sight! Poor Lu Lu Belle has drifted to the far side of Shark Island and looks to be near hitting it. We have just enough momentum to clear the mark and tack for the channel and hope to make some gains with the outgoing tide.

Slowly, the wind fills and we finally get back up to speed. We tack down the channel and watch L'eau Co and Star Ferry stay just out of reach. Nearing the next mark we find another in our division, Applejack, under our sail and almost crack into her as we tack. Thanks for the warning crew! I finish the tack for our mark and Applejack hollers over to ask where we are going? The mark I holler, and then inform them they just rounded the wrong mark! We'll take a whiskey at the bar, I tell them as they scramble to follow us to the correct mark.

We are finally around the mark and both L'eau Co and Star Ferry are far in front of us. We run our own race and try to claw back as much time as we can, but fear the race will be shortened and we are just out of race course in this light wind. Just past the mark the funniest thing happened. Good ole HubcapII is behind us and suddenly comes rushing up with a bow wake! What the @$%$#%?!? She is a much lighter and newer boat but this just feels weird! She passes us with a few other boats in company and we just assume it's breeze we are not in. Slowly, we claw back our lead. Just as we near Neilson's Point, here she comes again, but this time the other boat around her don't seem to have the same wind?!? Another bow wake in just a hint of breeze, to the point I'm trying to see if her motor is on... Baffled I hold my course to the line as she comes under us and pulls even. Then just like that the "breeze" stops for her and she resumes a similar speed to us. I fight for our line and position and am able to squeeze her out from over taking us. Finally, we finish the race following some very clean tacks and are able to beat Hubcap over the line. The light wind has crushed our race, but being a heavy boat we did all we could and return back to CYCA under sail.

Inside the club the results are in. L'eau Co took the race and the series. Funny thing is we could have beat them today and still not won the series, as they would have had to place third to our first to surpass them in the point score. With Star Ferry placing second today, we just scrape into third. Within the point score we actually TIE Star Ferry in second place but have more wins in the season so that puts us in second place for the season!

Well done to the crew for a great series! The final reward came after all the day's prizes were handed out (we got a shirt for third place). The sponsor makes an Audi available for a weekend test drive and guess who won! Jeff and Kirsty will be taking a long weekend somewhere in the next few months in an Audi!

15 Audi Winter Series 2012

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Doug - Sun, wind, clouds - spring?
07/02/2012, Sydney Harbor

The weekend started with a work day on Nemesis Saturday. A handful of jobs were needing to get Nemmy into first class fighting form.

Top of the list was to remove all additional weight below decks that might be slowing us down. A number of sails, anchor chain and ropes were piled into three trolleys to be carted off to storage. The new hydraulic housing was next to be installed and lines bled to have our vang and backstay adjustable and no longer static. Followed by a little cosmetic cleaning below and above deck she was ship shape.

Big thank you to the volunteers: Dan, Luke, Guillermo, Manuel, Oliver Junior and Doug.

Sunday was to be a competitive session with S/V L'eau Co on the top of the leader board with Nemesis following two points behind. The forecast was set for a 15kts start, building into the afternoon to the low 20s. A star line up and the return of lost celebrities formed a spectacular crew.

- Guilermo - returning from setting fire to Madrid to fill the big void created by Chris's absence on the main sail
- Tessa - globetrotting Europe and USA - then collecting a new sponsorship visa
- Shane - MIA for a month with working taking a priority in his life!!? Huh?
- Dan - Back breaking work - walking wounded after Sunday's showing
- Luke - prepared with ant-acids, chocolate bars and sustenance drinks for tack after tack after tack of grinding.
- Aga - running-backs and crew moral leader (more comments below)
- Kirsty - fighting flew and working in the Pit (more aptly called the trenches)
- Jeff - not even a lost voice can stop him shouting with a hunger for victory.
- Doug - Mr Consistency.

Bob Marley set the tone on the dock as the crew gathered. In a flash we were off and motoring towards the point.... Did we leave the dock without Manuel? Unsure if he was to come and without any missed calls from the Spaniard we assume he had a bigger or more successfully night then planned.

The race kicked off with the usual Sydney 38 division starting towards the city sky line. The Harbour Bridge was veiled by a huge dark rolling front steaming towards us.

Full Main and No.1 Jib was holding very well and not over powering until the front came through with 28knts putting us on our side 15min ahead of our start. A hasty first reef was put in the Main sail and control was back on our side.

Jeff took control of the helm in the lead up to crossing the line with near perfect timing we were in the game. As we progressed towards the first rounding marker the front had passed and more calm wind followed.
The reefed main sail had us under performing our potential and falling behind L'eau Co who rounded the marker first. We hastily shook out the reef and were back in business, sailing Wing-and-wing on the downward trot to the Shark Island Marker.

We slowly clawed back the boat after boat as we continued around the course. L'eau was never far behind and at one stage were cutting the shoreline so close we had doubts and thoughts this might be their last race for the season.

Lap 2, Aga produced another culinary surprise with deluxe chocolates.....will be missing her treats for the remaining races.

While S/V Lulu Belle dropped a large number of places in the previous week, she gained a large handicap advantage in Sunday's race. We had a lot of time to catch up on her and Nemesis closed the time gap to 2 and half min ....but we needed more... S/V Star Ferry's had a spectacular run around the course with the fastest Elapsed Time for the entire fleet.
From the points boats the order of finish was Star Ferry, Lulu Belle, Nemesis then L'Eau Co.

The outcome of today's races sees all 4 boats (Nemesis, L'eau, Star Ferry and Lulu Belle) getting a lot tighter on the points score and the outcome of season will come down to the performance of one last race.

Thanks to everyone for your efforts.

Doug

15 Audi Winter Series 2012

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jT - sunny and moderate winds
06/24/2012, Sydney Harbor

Crew: (Doug, Chris, Dan , Manuel, Haiyen, Aga, Jeff)

What a day for racing! The sun is out... just a light jacket over long sleeves... The shortest day of the year has just occurred so it's all uphill towards spring! We get out in the light winds and stage up to start. Full main and the big, gold, Kevlar #1 has us ready to go. With last week's race our friends L'eau Co is starting with us at 34 minutes handicap. We line up just in front of them four minutes before the start. They are keeping us covered, but I'm on the helm and sense they aren't tacking up to normal snuff... They also seem to have a ton of people on board compared to normal. Hmmmm.. I gybe away from them and the maneuver gets us behind them.

Now I shadow L'eau Co with just a minute thirty until our start. I keep right on his ass as we both depower the sails and approach the start. I've now pushed him to the lower part of the starting line and with him where I wanted him quickly gybe again and claw up towards the top of the starting line, right by the start boat. We are only 15 seconds late for the start, but with the gybe we are high up and able to push straight for the first mark. L'eau Co seems to be struggling down low and has multiple tacks to clear land, islands and finally make the first mark. We pull several minutes ahead of her in the first leg!

Our luck holds and we crush the first leg with just one tack at the end heading straight for the mark, my helming is distracted with all the tactics churning through my mind so I hand the helm to Doug and take over headie trim with Dan and Aga. We have a few boats in our sight and head back down the harbor. We know we have good speed on, as Assassin (a Farr 40) is barely able to pass us. Assassin was docked with us at Woodley's, so we know the crew quite well and I raced with them the first season in Sydney. I harass them that they are barely pulling away from a 10 ton cruising boat , as the pull away from us. Love it!

In the middle of the third leg, we pull up even with three other boats in our division! HubcapII, Lu Lu Belle and Star Ferry all in a row! This NEVER happens! We have speed and momentum and slide right between the lot! Now in front we proceed down the harbor. I'm calling for Manuel to find the mark as I'm trimming and Doug is doing that steering thing. Somehow we get pointed to the wrong mark and start to separate from the three boats chasing us. It wasn't much but now we have to turn and reach back for the mark! BUGGER! Both Hubcap and Star Ferry beat us to the mark and now we have an uphill slog back to the start, having to try to re-pass our competitors! ARRGGHH!

We pull it off and are able to catch up with all our competitors. We reel in everyone in our division and are on the last three legs when we see a boat on it's second to last leg flying our division K flag?!? Who the hell is Shorething? They have a red duck on the mainsail and we push hard for the mark so we can turn upwind and try to chase them down. It is a VERY slow process, almost feeling like slow motion as we slowly reel them in. Down to the last leg and we just don't have enough race course left to catch them. Funny thing is they pass the finish line and don't get the horn? Someone in our division must have been in front of them, so we are in third place? Confused, we also get headed and have to put in two tacks to cross the finish line. Another boat is passing with us and a division winning horn sounds as we both pass. I holler over to them if they think they won?!? Nope... we kinda celebrate but aren't sure how/if we really won.

Back at the club, we stock up on rum and coke. The results come in and we are surprised with a 1st place on points, but a 'visitor', Shorething, has pipped us at the line for line honors! Looking at the elapsed time we SMOKED the division with a time of 01:55:22. The "winner" Shorething had an elapsed time of 02:03:14 and a handicap start of only 23 minutes! Our main competition in our division, L'eau Co and Star Ferry both are in the 02:04:00 timeframe. It seems that this Shorething has a PRINCESS handicap given to her, as she was seven minutes slower on the course over barely two hours but had a 11 minute head start. The joys of racing and the handicap system! L'eau Co crew sit with us at our table so we have a great chat and drain those pesky rum jugs. Our second place (over the line) prize is a Musto Navigator Bag... I'm miffed for missing out on the 1st place jacket, but what can you do?

We are racing consistently around as one of the fastest elapsed times week on week in our division. We also have the biggest handicap, so we always have a big slog to pass every boat in our division. With this win we slide into second place, now just two points behind L'eau Co. With one drop left and two races to go this series is heating up!

PS - I do more research into who this dark horse, Shorething, is? Turns out the boat has been in division F, spinnakers, and has been at the absolute bottom of the pile. Funny, they are still register in Division F and had a DNC for race 8. Somehow they have been ALSO added to our Division K as a visitor. I called up the racing office to query why they were dropped in this late in the season AND seem to have a totally wrong handicap. Time will tell what happens with this and if it's even allowed in the rules... time to do a little reading up and checking!

15 Audi Winter Series 2012

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