WYC Wednesday Night Race - Seeing Red

This was a start to weather with the committee being favored on the left. I figured that most of the J120s would try to come in from the right on starboard. Instead I opted to traverse the line on port and then tacked when we reached the first boat who happened to be Hot Ticket. Rod and I did our rope a dope to weather to finally force her to tack. When we crossed again were clear ahead and rounded in 1st place. After this we just covered and kept ahead. The last leg down Hot Ticket and Night Moves were sparring downwind. HT decided to stay closer to the Canadian shore where NM gybed back to the entrance channel following us. By the red buoy we heard screaming and then HT put up their genoa to get around red DP8. Oops they had forgotten it was a mark on the new course. They did deserve another chorus of "Oh Canada"

Result: 1st out of 5 J/120s
Link: http://www.windsoryachtclub.com/race/WYC%202008%20Results%20%20Fall%20Race%201.pdf

Chicago Mac - You can breath now, we finally finished!

This was race that at the start was very miserable conditions. It rained steadily for two hours before the start. We had already rigged an external display for the computer since I had cracked the laptop screen so that was a bit of distraction. When we got to the starting line we saw that the wind was coming out of the south at no more than 2 knots. Fred Roselle filled in as tactician so I could steer the start. We ran the engine up to 5 minutes before the gun from the west side of the line a little bit to the north. This would allow us to reach to the line.

Unfortunately, there were a few boats from the previous start who had the same idea. In fact the boat in front of us had to push themselves around the committee boat. Fred advised me to nearly skim the committee boat but he soon changed his mind when he saw that activity. Although we were a minute late crossing the start, we were one of the first in our section to cross. The real beauty of it was J/120 Flyin' Irish was approaching on port tack to our starboard tack. This forced them to gybe away where we immediately gybed back on port, throwing up the .5 oz drifter and then sped away ahead of everybody. I could see farther east up the line everyone was caught in a giant hole and not moving. In fact I understand that J/120 Night Moves was called over early and it took them at least a half hour to restart.

Farther up the course the wind went west with more force at about 5 knots. We put up our 3/4 ap spinnaker and managed to stay just ahead of Flyin' Irish. As the wind went more northerly we were forced to

go to the ap #1 headsail. At this point we seemed to get passed by Perseverance. We just kept running into other boats in front of us that would
gas us where Perseverance would not have the same problem. We did mange to stay ahead of Irristable and Flyin' Irish.  As midnight approached we seemed to come into our own. The wind died and crew was on their game for pushing through it. As daylight came up were again in the lead among the J/120s.

During the day the wind went back to the south at about 10 knots so we used the .6 oz runner. The fog was so thick that most of the day we could not see more than another boat at a time. In fact it got really spooky when we could hear a ferry boat horn going off and not knowing where they were. As we got close to the Manitou Islands we knew were a little ahead of Perseverance but 6 miles east. If they were going to go between the islands and the Michigan shore we knew it would cost them extra distance. As we passed through the Manitou Passage we could see them about a mile behind us.

Past the Manitous Perseverance drove a quarter mile up to our stern. When we thought the wind was going back we prepared the code 0. Unfortunately we did not come up with the lift and she nearly passed us to the north. As we approached the Graves Reef light the wind lifted and we managed to round it with Perseverance 12 feet behind us. We went in defense mode and entered the straights of Mackinac about 100 yards ahead. At this point I decided I wanted to stay closer to rumb and put up the .6 runner in 4 knots with the air abeam.

About 7 miles west of the bridge we saw wind filling in from the south and steered towards it. When we reached it we tacked in front of Perseverance and got a quarter mile lead again. At this point we simply did a loose cover to finish 2 minutes ahead.

Bayview Mac - How about an Irish coffee?

This one started wild and wooly. On the way out to the start, rain started coming down in sheets. Then the wind came. Visibility was so bad that two boats rammed each other in the prestart area. We hung out on the Michigan shore side before the race. When we finally traversed the starting line before the gun we found that the restriction mark that had started right behind the committee boat had drifted a third of the way down the line. This made for an interesting start.

We ducked just to the left of the restriction mark and then being leeward boat enabled us to get good boat speed. With the gun we put up our .6 oz spinnaker beside Hot Ticket. HT put up their .75 up because of their fear of more thunderstorms. I noticed a little wind shift and gybed towards shore. Flyin' Irish followed us on this path.

South of Harbor Beach,the wind died, especially out in the lake. We did spot some cat paws closer into shore so we got in closer. This enabled us to sail farther north than most of the J/120s except for FI. When the wind filed in it enabled us to get a good lead.

After this point the wind picked up feom the west southwest. WE used our 3/4 oz spinnaker mostly up the rest of the leg. We still managed to stay ahead of FI but we had aproblem just before the weather buoy. I did not get the crew up in time and we rounded up a couple of times to go to new headsail. FI rounded 5 minutes before us. The last leg was a fetch nearly the entire distance for abou 65 miles at 18 to 20 knots. We could never make up the distance finishing second. Just finishin the 400 mile on a 18 to 22 knots to Bermuda, this seemed like a walk in the park.


Crew: Nancy Caldwell, Mike Badendeick, Colleen Flanagan, Rod Weston, Brian Gennebaugh, Dale Marshal, Nathan Caspers

Finish: 2nd out of 8 J120s
Link: http://www.byc.com/mack/results.cfm?Class=J120&Class2=OD



Pink Pony - no explanation necessary =>

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Newport to Bermuda ---- Finally

Carinthia finally made it to Newport, Rhode Island! I felt that the difficulty of preparing for this race an accomplishment itself. It is a ISAF category 1 event we needed to increase some of the safety equipment to those standards. It is a requirement that a portion of the crew take the safety at sea class and just filling out the paperwork.The race is 650 miles and crosses the gulf stream. I was lucky enough to get veteran Chuck Beyer as navigator. With the meanders of the stream with weather forecasts so it was important to get the right guy. Also aboard was Bob Declercq who has done many successful offshore races with me, the world famous Jeff "New York Times" Henderson, world traveling racer Lynn Kotwicki, Jim Best, who is truly a great all round offshore racer, the skilled Joe Mayfield, and Erik Witte, who has done quite a bit of ocean racing.





The race began in Naggausauget Bay. The starting area was packed with spectator boats. We had to weave our way through them just to get to the starting area. We put up the heavy #1 and ran the line. We got to the left end on starboard and tacked at the gun.We managed to get out of the bay on two tacks and went to our #3 when the wind picked up. We did get a small lift and went with the code 0 for a few hours but soon returned to the #3. We had down loaded the gulf currents and got a big push in the first one. At that point we were probably in the lead in our class. Then an amazing thing happened. 4 miles west of us the boats sailed on at 7 knots where we sailed on at 2 knots. At this point we were already 50 miles west of rumb.

At this point we could just not pull it out. Even though we kept the boat fast on a fetch we could not catch up to a full headsail boat. We did manage to stay ahead of the other J/120s but it just was not enough to do better than 4th on corrected time.
































Result: 4th out of 13 in class 4, 24th out of 124 overall
Result Link: http://www.bermudarace.com/CompetitorsBoats/2008Results/tabid/264/Default.aspx

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Regata del Sol al Sol - St. Petersburg, FL to Isla Mujeres, Mexico - Race of the sun to the sun

This race is 450 miles from St. Petersburg, FL to Isla Mujeres, Mexico off of Cancun. What makes it extremely interesting is that the gulf stream flows at about 3 knots north up the gulf of Mexico, then loops south along the Florida coast. The race starts right off the pier outside St. Petersburg inside the bay. After a slow start at 10:20, with moderate running wind, Carinthia got out of Tampa Bay within a few hours with clear skies and warm weather. Early on a shoal draft J120, Tampa Girl, passed us at the outer buoy. As the sun set were on a windward reach with the code 0. During the night the wind shifted to 110 degrees and we gibed in the gulf southernly current. We then got pretty much on the rhumb line when then encountered the northernly current on the other side. At that point we made a hard right and crossed over to the other side of it. Once out we just followed the shore to Isla Mujeres. For some reason our GPS stopped calculating our position so we had to finish with handheld. I found out later that there was 32nd satellite added at the end of February and our Northstar could only read 31. This caused it to regularly get lost, especially the last 30 miles. Because we had two spare portables we still found Isla Mureres. We finished at 18:51 on Sunday night. In any case we finished ahead of Tampa Girl by about 1 and 1/4 hours corrected time. Carinthia won the spinnaker race division and placed 3rd overall in the entire fleet. As an additional plus I found out even though we were 4th over the line we beat the last record set by a TP52 named Rosebud. You can follow the race and look at the standings at http://charthorizon.com/races/2008_tampa_islamujeres/htdocs . The event website is at http://www.regatadelsolalsol.org









Under and past the Tampa Bay bridge with Tampa Girl in pursuit.











Although you can not see them well a family of dolphins came to play.--->

Mexican Navy at the finish(Comment on this)

Miami Nassau Race - Again Irked by IRC

This race from Miami to Nassau began with nearly 2 knots of air out of the southeast. Because the air was so light the start was delayed for nearly an hour at 10am. In fact because of the outgoing tide current we got pushed over the line early. We went back to start over. We then went right towards the cut and got a good push from the current and nearly got back in the lead. By noon the wind was at 8 knots with a boat speed of 6 knots.

Crossing the Florida straights we stayed in sight of the J125 and the J44 with a lot of reaching. On the Florida side we had a current of 5 knots so Carinthia would have to point at least 30 degrees high just to keep our north south position.

When morning broke the rain was coming down in sheets. Boat speed was continually good as we would get a buildup and more astern. As you can see we tore the .6 oz at the tapes and we went to the 1.5oz with no loss of speed.
 
     

In the last part of the race we managed to stay ahead of the J125 who had a faster rating. In the last 10 miles we passed Golddigger, a J44. This group sailed a nearly flawless race with almost 35 sail changes. Again I stuck it to us myself. If I would of registered the boat in IRC we would of placed 1st overall.

Happy, Sleepy, Doc, Grumpy

Whadya mean, no beer? Wait a minute this is not Hot Ticket!

The plot above got a little cruddy because in the middle of the race we discovered our alternator had fried and we let the laptop battery run down. (Click on the chart for a larger image)

Crew: Bob Declercq, Lynn Kotwicki, Mike Kirkman, Mike Badedieck, Colleen Flanagan,  Karl Kuspa, and in the buoy race Jim Dundas

As you can see above this race was a big deal here. This an event that was part of the old SORC. With the fantastic facilities on Paradise Island and hospitality of the Nassau Yacht Club this is a race nobody should miss!

In the buoy race it blew between 18 and 22 knots. We managed to lead in both races. Towards the end of the 2nd race Jim Dundas tried to move the boom with his head and we took him to the hospital for observation. Fortunately he got only four stitches behind the ears with no other permanent damage. BTW the doctor would not let him walk out of the hospital with the head bandage on.

Results: 3rd in long distance race, 1st in buoy race, Winner of Governor's Trophy
Link: http://www.miaminassauraceweek.com/