01/23/2010

This year, Tom asked me to take the role of tactician on board Flight Simulator. I accepted with some trepidation, as I have never had to call tactics before on a windward-leeward course, and I knew we would be up against some very good sailors.

Sure enough, conditions on Monday were very shifty, with a 10 knot northerly breeze that was veering all over the compass. It seemed that every time we tacked on a 10 degree shift, we ended up on the wrong side of a 30 degree shift. It was a disaster! I just had no clue which way the wind would go next.

Talking it over with the team that evening, we determined we had to stay close to the competition and not try to play those shifts. That worked better, but we found the boat was not moving with speed over the competition. Even the smaller sprint 750s seemed to be pulling away from us in the lighter wind conditions.

It was not till Thursday that stronger southeasterly winds arrived and we got the boat moving up to our usual pace. With wind in the high teens and good size waves we enjoyed the conditions more like those of past years, and finishes in the front of the fleet.

Friday brought more light winds, but buoyed with the previous days success, we fought our way to the front again.

Overall our standing was fourth, but we missed beating the third place boat by just 9 seconds. And all the boats above us were professionally crewed.

I always learn a lot from sailing with Tom on Flight Simulator. This week I learned what it takes to claw our way back from a miserable first couple of days. We maintained good moral, and everyone on the team was working together to solve the problems and go back out there and do the best we could do. I am very lucky to be part of this team.

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01/15/2010

I never thought I would have to wear my warm survival suit on top of my drysuit, along with every other article of clothing I brought on the race, especially in Florida! But it was a cold night.

The wind was very similar to last year. The start was dead downwind, about 10 Kts. Around 10 pm it filled in from the NW at around 15 kts, quite the opposite of the forecast. So we had a nice fast reach in the smooth water in the lee of the reef.

The crew on Flight Simulator was the regulars, Tom, Ron and myself, plus James, who sailed this race with my boat last year. We worked hard to change gears when the boat needed it. We went from the big downwind spinnaker to the smallest reaching spinnaker, then to screacher, then just main and jib, back to screacher then back to the reaching chute. It was a busy night! Towards the end, when we were all dead tired, James downed two cans of Red Bull, and steered the last three hours of the race.

Once again, we did well, finishing first overall in the multihull fleet. Cheeky Monkey made it to the finish without capsizing this time, and I would have thought conditions would be ideal for their lifting foils. They had a fast race but not fast enough to beat us on corrected time.

Now we have caught up on our sleep and are getting the boat set up for "Key West Race Week presented by Nautica" (got to keep the sponsors happy). The weather is warming up, and I am looking foreward to some great racing.

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01/12/2010

Yes, Its that time of year again. Sorry if the blog is getting repetative, but I can never get enough of this race! It is a blast! This time I am sailing with Tom on Flight Simulator. We had a busy day putting the boat together today ready for the start tomorrow. The event website, with real time boat trackers, is www.keywestrace.org.

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09/11/2009

We have no problem rolling these guys to leeward... winning on corrected time is a little harder!

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09/01/2009

The wind was still blowing a solid 20 knots as we headed out on Sunday, but now from the NW, so there was a good size chop on the water. But at least it was sunny. A lot of boats put in a reef straight away, but we went with full sail. Just before the first race, the wind moderated, down to 15, but still with some strong gusts. Our competition were mostly busy shaking out reefs, and were late for the start. That made for an easy win for us.

For the second race, the wind was up a bit, and there was a big right shift during the first downwind leg. We were overstood with the big spinnaker up, and when we headed up to the course, the helm ventilated and we stuffed the bow pretty badly. I was a little shaken by that, and ordered the spinnaker down. We sailed the course with main and jib for a few minutes, then put up the small spinnaker. That seemed to be the right sail for the conditions. Fortunately for us, the G32s also made a mistake and sailed to the wrong mark, so we still won the race in our fleet. That sail change cost us a lot in the overall standings, however.

Going into the last race, we were in the lead overall by four points. But 8th place in the last race put us down to third... We were less than 4 minutes away from beingt he overall Great Lakes champions, but we blew it! Oh well, there is always next year!

We had three days of fantastic sailing, and the shore activities were great, too. The Gougeon brothers invited all the sailors to their boat building shop for dinner and entertained us with the stories of some of the remarkable boats they have created. This was a fun time, and we'll be back next year.

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08/29/2009

Today was a distance race, a 23 NM triangle called the Black Hole Dash, and the wind was on! We had about 15 knots of wind from the west at the start, building to near twenty. The first leg was a fast jib reach, and we got away well, going about 15 knots with Tom on the helm. We quickly pulled away from the G32s, which were our competition yesterday, but the F27 and 28 R were on better form today and were snapping at our heals.

The second leg was directly downwind, and we flew along with the full main and spinnaker. The bottom mark was a big light tower, and because of its size, we misjudged the mark rounding and got the spin down late, without leaving time to get the jib up. Bob Neld in the 28R got ahead at the mark, and held onto a slim lead all the way to the finish.

It was a fun day to be out racing. Last year we had a blast going round this the same course on Tom's boat, but this was better.

I have not seen any results, but I figure we must be first in our fleet, as the boats that did well yesterday did pooly today, while we had a good race.

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08/29/2009

It turned out to be an overcast, drizzley day, with a fresh Easterly breeze that died away to less than 10. We had two races. The first race, we got a great start at the committee boat and were keeping up with the G32s for most of the first leg. The G32 is a fast boat (rating 21) and seemed to go well in the short chop that we were pounding into. Out main competition seems to be Jan Gougeon in the G32 "Janet C", and Greg in "Wild Card". We seemed to finish close enough behind them to maybe get them on corrected time. In the preliminary results we got two seconds, which puts us tied for first place in the standings.

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08/28/2009

We arrived yesterday in Bay City, having driven 300 miles from Youngstown. My crew is Tom and Eric, both veterans of regattas earlier this year. We set up the boat quickly, and as the wind was still blowing a nice 10 knot North Easterly we went out for a sail. There was a nice sunset as we sailed back into the harbor. We are moored next to the famous Cheeky Monkey. There are 17 multihulls in the regatta, including some very fast machines. We are at the slower end of the rating scale this time!

The forecast for tomorrow is light wind in the moring, picking up to 20 knots from the east in the afternoon, with rain showers. We plan to go out for a bit of a practice, then come in for the skippers meeting at lunch time, then go and race.

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