Apr 14 2007
Race #2: Have Paddle, Will Travel.
Lake Union must be one of the most amazing places to hold a San Juan 21 race anywhere! It has beautiful views of the Seattle skyline, house-boats, and the Space Needle, and is particularly cool for the steady flow of floatplanes roaring through the fleet.
It also has things to teach you! Things such as:
- How to deal with a 180 degree wind shift…
- Why masts and high voltage electrical wires don’t mix…
- How you will react when you run out of gas in the ship canal… and are being run down by a 150ft crab fishing boat…and are late for a party which your wife has gone to considerable trouble to arrange…
When the student is ready, the teacher appears!
Ok… I admit it… I probably didn’t prepare for this race as well as I might have. I figured that after the long string of disasters and questionable decisions in the first race, I would be due for some brighter days ahead. And I did make some good choices. Firstly I talked Dave (one of my very favorite Canucks) into crewing with me. I also packed some Guiness, which is a great brew for any sailing endeavors. What I didn’t bring was gas or 2 cycle oil for my outboard. When launching from the 14th street ramp in Ballard no outboard can leave a very long slog to Lake Union and back.
Fortunately, at the last minute I decided that I should fill up. . . I begged some fuel off of other Fleet #1 members. (Thanks BOB!) What I didn’t have was 2 cycle oil. Oh well you can’t seize up an outboard from running light oil for one tank! Can you?
I also learned that there are launch ramps where putting your mast up to early can be a very… very… bad idea. Both of the ramps on Lake Union require you to step your mast on the ramp just before putting in if you want to avoid running into high voltage power lines. Luckily this time I didn’t need to learn from experience, but could just follow the lead of more experienced skippers.
The ride out to the Lake was nice. I am not sure how much space was between my mast and the Freemont bridge, but from down below it didn’t look like much. When we got to the Lake, I quickly walked Dave through what to do when I shout “Helms A Lee!” With a tack to starboard and a tack to port under our belt, were just in time for the first start.
I have to say I love racing on Lake Union. It probably comes from being the slowest boat in the fleet, but I really liked how the gusty and shifty wind conditions meant that at any moment you could get lucky and sail past another boat. In the first race I followed Wooglin and Scout to the East shore of the lake. They quickly sailed away from me, but I seemed to be able to point as high as them. The rest of the fleet picked the West side of the course. When we tacked back into the fleet I was excited to be in front of Rascal, Serendipity, and Habagat. I gave myself extra distance well past the lay line to ward off needing extra tacks should the wind shift. I was happy I did so… because the wind shift came and had everyone behind me doing extra tacks.
Some of the five boats ahead of us got confused and headed for the leeward mark instead of the jibe mark. Wooglin ended up sailing past the jibe mark, taking down their chute and tacking back to make their rounding. One of the benefits of being in the after guard is knowing just where to go. Dave did a first rate job setting the pole and we popped the tops off of our Guiness for the down wind run. Rascal and Serendipity caught some good puffs and gained ground on us. We were all within a couple boat lengths at the rounding. Serendipity had their spinnaker up and sailed past us to the mark. Rascal also gained on us and performed a great rounding coming out with a better angle and more speed than I did. The race was on to the finish, and I did some stupid tacks looking for wind shifts. I need to remember how much momentum the boat loses every time I tack. As it was, I think I edged out Rascal, but it may have been to close to call. I am curious how the scoring will come out. Best case tied for 6th, worst case 8th.
The next race the wind was almost completely dead at the start. I happened to be ghosting along about 3 boat lengths from the line at the one minuet horn, and I was one of the very first boats across. Unfortunately the 36grit sandpaper bottom on Limpet does not “ghost” well, and I was left in the dust as some little puffs came up. However there was plenty of race course remaining and I managed to keep us ahead of a couple boats. We came in a solid 7th in the second.
The final race was the most bizarre of the three. The wind shifted around to the West, flowing out of a large cell and down the slope of Queen Ann hill. Rain began to fall and we put on our rain gear.
The start line was heavily favoring the West side with almost a strait shot to the windward mark. So what do we do? Everyone came crashing down on that side of the line. I was solidly in the middle of the pack with boats on every side no more than 6-12 inches from me. I was completely focused on not hitting anyone and forgot about the time. There were about 5 boats over early, with me right in the middle. I turned back over the line, and started again, but at this point I was in dead last with little hope.
I was on the verge of heading home when Dave promised me that we would not finish last. So we hunkered down and worked the sails. The wind was shifting from South to West with some fair regularity. During the south puffs we ran the jib out wing on wing. When a West wind hit we pulled down the pole and sailed a reach with apparent wind almost 90 degrees to the boat. When reaching we put some serious boat speed on. The shifts were wreaking havoc on the boats we were chasing, and we were climbing back into the race. By the jibe mark we had sailed past Habagat. The wind then took another shift and came around from the Northwest. Serendipity found their spinnaker dragging them backward and we sailed past as they fought with it. We were now on a close hauled course to the supposed leeward mark. On rounding we had another beam reach back to the start, and finished less than 5 minutes after rounding the leeward mark. Again we managed a solid 7th place out of 9.
I was very happy with the days results. We didn’t finish last once, and didn’t need the benefit of spinnakers’ getting caught on keels, or boats not being aware that the race had started to keep us out of the cellar. Some smarter decisions on my part, some new sails, a new keel gasket, maybe a quick sanding of Limpets bottom, and I can envision being very competitive in this fleet.
Feeling very happy with ourselves Dave and I pulled down the sails and fired up the outboard for the run back to Ballard. About a half mile from the ramp the outboard ran out of gas. It was a little unnerving as we drifted into the path of a gigantic fishing boat, but they managed to avoid crushing us like a bug. Not to be deterred I vowed to purchase an extra gas can for use on Lake Union, and broke out the paddle. Dave took to power the boat while I messed with getting a sail back up. By the time I had a sail ready another boat had come along and offered us a tow back to the dock.
Better late than never!