A short recap of this weekend sailing event (fiasco for
some)
Prelude
Richard Atkinson, a tennis buddy ( all around good guy too)
suggested a couple of months ago suggested we sail the Ditch Run
using two separate boats Slider (Richards boat a 32 ft beneteau- a
french manufacture) and Indy ( my boat an Islander 36 which never
had a name, but had to have one for the race...btw it is an
AMERIKAN boat). The ditch run is a 67 mile race from Richmond to
Stockton which is mostly downwind. Interesting enough our boats
have a identical PHRF rating of 150 to 153 (more about the rating
later).
Richard and I immediately sent out emails to our regular tennis
crowd and folks that we thought would be interested in racing and
each boat had a crew of 8-10 (figuring a few would drop out in the
weeks before the race started). With a solid commitment I needed to
get my boat ready to race. Now the work really started on my boat,
the brite work (woodwork) was scheduled for this year anyway so I
spent about three weeks getting that done (removing weathered
varnish and then preparing for 9 coats of varnish ( had to cure for
24 hours before the next application). I also had to insure the
rigging and halyard was ready for the race which resulted in
replacement of
Prelude
a braided rigging support for the mast, replacement of the pins
holding each rigging point on the deck, replacement of the jib
halyard( over a full hour up the top of the mast to feed the rope
through an impossible small opening...special thanks to Richard and
Ron for getting me up there) where I moved my stall arrows slightly
and removing my beloved club jib and installing a 135 overlapping
genoa sail. My boat was ready and I took her out for a couple of
day sails to test the rigging and re-familiarize my self with
sailing with a jib requiring moving sheets and sails over during
tacking (changing the point of sail)...boat sailed great.
The week of the race:
Richard and I had a practice race to see how the boats preformed
against each other. The day cooperated with winds around 15-20
during a high tide...the course was determined and watching Richard
slip during the race to weather I chose to remain high when Richard
tacked thinking the tides where disrupting Richards pointing
efforts ( the crew aka Rich Selby wanted to tack, but I argued the
tides could push Richard below the mark and we would have a run
down to the mark and win the race to the Mark)...I was dead wrong
and Richard made the mark ( he later confessed if the tides were
more influential he never would have made it...my impression of the
tides working against Richard was a result that Richards boat in
heavy winds could not point as high).
Richard and I each lost a crew member and I had another possible
cancellation which could not be confirmed until mid week which
happened leaving Richard with a crew of 3 and me with a crew of two
( no worries mate I thought since I had a seasoned sailor)
The race committee had selected two channels for broadcasting
during the race which my old boat radio did not have and I had to
purchase a hand-held radio...Richard gave me a $15 coupon and I was
off to wets marine to make the purchase...this happened
successfully although the coupon expired 2 days before my purchase,
but we west marine honored it.
We made some logistic decisions and it was determined I should take
my boat over to Richmond on the day before the race since I had an
early start (9am) where Richard would pick me up in the afternoon
and we would work on his boat after a quick trip to west marine. I
would motor alone from Alameda to Richmond it took almost 2 hours
and as luck would have it an end tie slip was available, but after
two passes of trying to slow down enough to jump off and secure the
boat with s kind sole helped me tie up on the third pass. Richard
showed up and we were off to Alameda and west marine. I wound up
spending more at west marine than Richard picking up two auto
inflatable PFD ( personal flotation devices)...interesting enough
at a deep discount..we thought it was mis-marked and so did the
check out person which resulted in a 10 minute halt to make sure
west marine had it marked correctly( incidentally the cost of the
pfd's should have been at least $100 higher I got them for the
cost of the C0-2 cartridges which were included) . We then went
back to Richards boat and set up his spinnaker for the race the
next day had dinner and waited for Rich Selby (driver and crew on
my boat) to show up around 10 pm.
36 hours ( 6:30 am Saturday to 6:30 pm Sunday)
Richard woke Rich and I up at 6:15 am and we headed to Ole's (the oldest breakfast joint on Alameda) around 6:30...the start up the journey...breakfast was great with Richard and I having the famous pecan waffles and Rich choosing an egg omelet (I always think this word has 2 t's)...around 7:15. Rich and I were off to Richmond and Rich went back to his boat to await his crew...he had an 11:25 start and would motor up to Richmond once his crew showed up around 8 am.
Rich and I got to Richmond ( the town I was born in and lived for all of 30 days) about 8 am and got the boat ready for our 9 am start...we were in the cruising division which did not allow a spinnaker which is a huge sail which is used mostly on down wind legs (the Ditch Run is almost all downwind which means the wind comes somewhere from the back of the boat) and can be the fastest point of sail.
Unfortunately having a 9 am start meant the winds would be light for a couple of hours, but we could use our motors for 1 hour which would put us in the middle of san pablo bay without any wind around 10 am and then waiting for the wind to pick up somewhere around 10:30.
Well at the start we killed the engine and started to sail, but noticed our competitors started using the engines immediately...we figured they must have some local knowledge and we started up the iron sail and hit the gas... at 15 minutes of motoring we were passing our fleet...they were yelling something so Rich looked at the sailing instructions and realized we had a maximum speed of 6 knots under power while we were doing around 8 knots, The wind picked before the San Rafael bridge so we killed the engine and sailed for about 15 minutes averaging around 5-6 knots, remember strategy is king....well the other boats continued to motor...we ran the wind until it died and then started the motor again...the boats in our fleet motored for an hour with one boat motoring for 45 minutes (ghost)...then sailing when the wind picked up and when it died restarting the motor for the last 15 minutes. We motored for 45 minutes straight catching up to our fleet...passing all boat but Ghost until both of our motoring credits expired...Ghost chose to run higher in San Pablo bay while we chose to take the more direct route to the Carquienz bridge...big mistake local knowledge rules in sailing...the winds filled in better the closer you sailed to towards the napa river and ghost and another boat were ahead of us from that point forward.
About three quarters through san pablo bay and around 12:30 or so the first of the 11 am boats started to show up behind us with their spinnakers flying and the wind picking up...about this time we were doing about 5 knots after a hour or so of 1-2.5 knots of perhaps forward momentum because of high tide pushing us with minimum wind.
The 11 am starters would catch us on the other side around benica with the next 7 divisions starting to fill in behind us (157 boat were started beginning at 11 am with start times staggered every 5 minutes until 11:30 am.
The fleet was catching up with us and passing us for the remainder of our journey...we got to see a number of fast boats smoking by us as we started picking up speed (between benica and the benica bridge averaging 6 knots) so the pain of being passed up was not as heart wrenching since we now had some forward momentum.
Once we hit the benica bridge we were in a group of 15-25 boats for the rest of the trip...some passing us and some jumping in front for a short period of time then us passing them because we could point to weather better when the winds would get above 20 knots. About this time we were chasing two boast in our fleet Ghost which was ahead of us (and having the same rating we had to beat head to head to win and coyote ( about which had to give us some 35 minutes of time for the 67 mile distance of this race due to coyote's rating being much lower rating than Ghost and Indy). We would chase ghost and coyote for the remained of the 40 miles ahead of us never getting close...our next closest competitor had fallen behind us considerably in san pablo bay and we would never see them until the race was over.
About this time the fleet of hobies, moores, expresses and wabbits started to appear they were like gnats all around us...they had the largest fleet around 40 boats and wre moving upwards of 12 to 13 knots while we were hitting about 8.5 knots (maximum speed for my boat) and we were approaching port chicago a weapons facility (U.S. I hope, but we could hvice presidentave sold it to China) and the coast guard was warning us that we must not get too close with a bull horn and a 50 caliber machine gun on the bow of the boat protecting port chicago.
This is a dangerous location since the depth is only 2 feet outside the channel and everyone was skirting danger by pressing as close as possible...by now our 2 competitors were puling away with ghost not even visible while coyote was still in viewing distance
As we approached the narrows between pittsburg and antioch the winds started to pick up and boats were starting to round up....averaging between 6.5 to 8 knots consistently...as we approached the antioch bridge at maximum hull speed the winds shifted causing us to move the jib over while jibbing...our first loss while moving the whisper pole, the sheets were release prematurely causing the whisper pole to flip up and off the boat...we waved and lowered our hats as we smoked by at 7.5 knots....thoughts of going back dimmered quickly as we realized recovery would be unlikely given the approaching boats and the trickiness of recovery...we continued racing and with 16 miles to go and the channel narrowing. The number of boats started to increase as the river narrowed, the winds started to pick up and spinnakers started to cause a number of boats being out of controls for the remainder of the race. About this time the second lose occurred a vent got knocked off when the jib wrapped around the front stay and it was being cleared.
The next 12 miles or so was utter mayhem...winds really picked up and round ups, spinnakers wraps and close calls happened all around us...with more than a couple of misses for the final miles...interesting enough during this time we were in the middle of all the rocket ship of boats which were mostly 24 footers, but the less seasoned and it showed since the acceleration really taxed the teams and the crashes were spectacular.
We finished 11 hours after we started with 3 rd place and took down the sails and found a place to tie up ...with 160 boats jocking for a tie up it we took a spot at the back of the yacht club getting tied up around dusk...Rich bought me beer tickets and dinner...we were happy and waiting for Richard and his team to show up... as it turned out a tricky spinnaker wrap did his team in and they motored in later with a dnf...the first on 9 boats that did not finish under sail.
Hey what do you know we got 2nd place (quite a cheesy trophy I must say...fiberglass with a leaded glass sailboat in the middle) after the phrf adjustments were made
