The racing season is wrapping up next weekend with the Last Chance Cup on Oct. 1st and we’re having a very strong finish.

QCYC Series 3, Race 6

On Wednesday night, the final race of the QCYC series went in somewhat rainy and light-wind conditions. There were many on the dock suggesting that maybe they would call it off because there just wasn’t any wind… plus, who really wants to sail in the rain.

Well, we were only one point behind One More Time for second overall, so we were definitely going to go out.  And as for the wind: you just had to look for it.  Frankie, Paul and Astra came out to crew and brought their winning attitude…

Pre-start, the race committee did postpone us for awhile as they tried to figure out the wind direction.  We slowly sailing around, chasing them on just the mainsail.  But as our start was approaching, I noticed that we were sitting in almost no wind close to the city, while at the other end of the start line, boats were actually moving.  We got the gennie up to try and make it out there in time to setup for the start.

I was surprised that neither Blythe Spirit nor One More Time were setting up at the (windy) pin end of the line.  I guess the way the line was going, the boat end was a little closer to the first mark.  Anyway, we timed our start perfectly and hit the line at full speed, a foot away from the pin and right on time.

Somehow we were not awarded the jug, but we definitely had the best start – we were moving!

Following close behind us were the other Niagara 26, Wisterical (a new member near who joined late season: Roel) and Breakin’ Wind out for their first race of the year, after a trying season of boat repair.

We absolutely walked away from OMT and Blythe as they bobbed in the tiny breeze blowing near the city.  At the first mark, Wisterical  and Breakin’ Wind were close behind us, but the others were way back.

It was a triangular course and on the downwind we were catching and passing several of the boats from the start ahead of us, keeping Wisterical and Breakin’ Wind at about the same distance behind us.

Then it was a close hauled leg back to the start mark and we had relatively clear air to sail in, allowing us to separate a little further ahead. The light was starting to fade by this point and the wind was fading with it.  The rain was coming down steadily now.  We saw the RC moving into position to finish us early, so we headed down a few degrees to get a little more speed to the finish… not noticing Zig Zag was right below and ahead of us.  Astra was apparently too busy telling us how great it was on the low side where she was protected from the rain to tell anybody that we were about to run into another boat… We heard some shouts and luckily avoided them last second.  That could have been disaster for our race.

As it was, we cruised across the finish line well ahead of the fleet and knew right away that we’d finally won our first Wednesday night race of the year!  The win also means we’ll be second overall in the series.  High fives all around!!

AHMEN #5

But the winning didn’t stop there.  Saturday was race #5 of the AHMEN series – one that I try to get out to race at least once every year.  The legs are long and the racing more relaxed, but still… we’re racing.

Jay woke up early to join me.  It was a gorgeous day, and nice change from the cold, rainy weather we’d been having.  And the Monarch Butterflies were out in force; it’s that time of year when they are migrating south.  I always take it as a good omen when I see them fluttering around the boat, showing us the way.

Once again, we started well and kinda just went from there.  We had a couple of boatlength lead on Puffin, a C&C30 out of EYC, and we battled to stay ahead of them the whole way around Humber Bay.  Our biggest concern was not really knowing where the first mark of the course was.  Luckily there’s a big handicap difference between boats in the AHMEN races and we’re at the slow end.  We watched fellow QCYCer Nick on Ascend and just followed in his general direction.

Well, it seemed to work out… By the end we felt we were definitely top-3, if not top-2.  When the results were posted late last night, it turns out we won!

Did I mention I love sailing with butterflies?

Weeds, on the other hand…

QCYC Series 3, Race 2

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged a race.  I’ve just been so busy not sitting in front of the computer   But last night was probably our best Wednesday night race all year, so I figured I should make the effort to preserve the memory.  Here goes:

The forecast was a bit scary: heavy storms and tornado warnings for most of southern Ontario starting sometime in the evening prompted a few worried texts from crew.  But the closer we got to race time the more accurate the forecast timing of the storms became.  It looked like we’d get our race in before anything hit.

Dylan came out to join Phoebe, Kristina, Frankie and me.  We made a few jokes before we went out about how awesome it would be if a tornado picked up the boat and then dropped us off at the finish line…  It was definitely breezy when we hit the harbour – probably blowing 20 knots for the start of the race.  We went with the #3 and full main.  Several boats, including Blythe Spirit, were reefing and sticking with larger headsails.

We had a good start in the middle of the line; Blythe was just ahead of us.  I’ve found that with the #3 we can point higher than usual, and that first leg not only were we pointing well, but we had great boat speed.   Even with our new rookie crew learning the ropes, we found pretty soon that boats were crossing behind us all the way up.  We beat everybody to the upwind mark.

The pole set went smoothly and we cruised downwind, maintaining a decent lead over Blythe.  With One More Time away cruising, they were the only other series regular out with us.  We looked back to see them shaking out the reef in their main during the downwind run, so it wasn’t surprising that they started eating into our lead on the second upwind.

During that second lap, the wind eased slightly and probably favoured their larger amount of sail.  But we were still holding them off at the upwind mark.  That second downwind didn’t look that promising for us as the fast grey boat stalked us closely.  Our only real defence was to sail really high and not let them cover us.  By about halfway down the leg, Queen Car  had come into play and seemed to provide a bit of time and space for us as we passed them and left them between us and Blythe.

As we approached that mark, I knew James would be wanting to try to make a close, fast rounding and pinch up above us.  I falsely assumed that between having a couple of boatlengths to play with and Queen Car getting in his way that we’d be safe.  Apprently not.

We didn’t have the best rounding ever, and while I was busy trying to sheet the main in, seemingly out of nowhere, Blythe Spirit’s bow was right next to me.  And they had speed.  After a colourful exchange of words (all in good fun), they ran right over top of us.

The rest of the way they just kept pulling away.  The wind had dropped by that third lap to around 15 knots and was certainly in the range that we’d have benefited from a larger headsail, but the boat just didn’t feel fast, even in the gusts.  We had nothing for them.  What had started out as our race to lose, had turned into just that.

I wish I could blame the crew, but they were great all night.  Dylan’s a quick study.  So leaves blaming me (not desirable), or some outside factor.  I’m going to blame sea weed.

It wasn’t until after the finish (the race was ended after 3 laps) that I realized that there was a vibration in the tiller and the steering was sluggish… so I can’t say for sure when we picked them up, but definitely the rudder was wrapped in weeds by the end.  So we raced a great race and just got unlucky.  That, and a really good, fast boat beat us

Anyway, it was a fun, fast night and the light show we got to watch post-race was pretty awesome.

QCYC Series 2, Race 2

It’s been a couple of weeks since the last blog update.  You may have guessed that I was unemployed for a short stretch, relaxing, playing music, finally starting the garden… and not sitting in front of a computer all day every day.  Well I’m back at a desk this week, so let me catch you up:

The first QCYC series of 2011 ended with us holding onto 3rd place in our division, then new splits were announced for the second series.  We’re back with some familiar competition like One More Time and Blythe Spirit.  The first race, with light crew, featured the dreaded north wind filtering through the city in all it’s shifty, gusty glory… we were constantly busy trimming, tacking and re-trimming.  We raced pretty well, but picked the wrong side of the course on one of the laps and never caught up to the two leaders again after that; we got a third.

This week was another light crew night.  It was Phoebe and I plus Kristina, who made her first appearance of the year.  It was a typical July night with lots of calm spots to get caught in and patches of breeze that would blow in unpredictable directions.

After a brief postponement we were set to race around a short triangular course.  At the start it seemed that we all had the same idea to go for the pin end.  Blythe started yelling early that they wouldn’t let us in.  I was doubtful that they could follow through with their threat as we had decent speed coming in, but we ducked under them anyway.  One More Time made the right call and stayed high of Blythe, getting clean air and a free jug of beer in the process.

With 4-5 boats all fighting for the same shifty bit of air, it was slow start.  Eventually we got going on a port tack that looked promising… until One More Time spoiled our party with the right of way on starboard.  Rather than making a hard duck, we tacked in front of them.  I wish we had ducked.  We couldn’t really get going on the new tack and were heading away from the mark.  They tacked over behind us, so we did the same, but by then Blythe Spirit had taken off on both of us.

Chasing the breeze, a couple of tacks later got us to the first mark well behind Blythe and not close to OMT.  Several of the boats from the start behind us had already caught or (in the case of Dove) passed us.  Undaunted, we took a high line for speed.  For awhile it seemed to be working out great for us.  Sure, we weren’t taking the shortest line toward the next mark, but we were going a lot faster than the rest of them in our pocket of wind.  We passed Dove and seemed to be pulled about even with OMT.

Then, nearing the second mark, we lost our advantage.  Where once we had breeze, now we had calm.  Everybody passed us on the inside (including Serica II).

The mark had about 12 boats rounding it all at once as we held back and then found our spot high and inside.  With a lot of stalled boats struggling under us, we made good progress down the third leg.  We passed by Serica and Dove. (note: we don’t actually race Dove anymore with the new splits, but it still feels good to pass them )  I think it was during this leg that Phoebe took the initiative for the first time ever and was trimming the jib without (much) prompting from the skipper (though there may have been a few corrections suggested).  Very nice.

The fourth leg would be the final one for the race and nothing really spectacular happened… We did stay ahead of Dove though, crossing in from of them closely once on port.  So we got a bit of a moral victory and took third again this week.  It wasn’t until we were back at the dock that we heard that OMT had snuck past Blythe for the win, but obviously it had been a good night for skipper Al.

After the race, the wind came up a bit and we had a great sail around the harbour with still a couple hours of daylight to play with.  It’s not unusual for us to be the last boat on the water… it seems like most people are in a rush to get back for some reason.   Anyway, we sailed until the wind started to die again.   Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Kristina sailed us back in to the slip, saving on gas and impressing a few onlookers on our way down the lagoon.

QCYC Series 1, Race 4

Again: huge thanks to Pat Whetung and Paul Horne for their help in putting Panache back together again – and better than ever, really.  Without their help, we probably wouldn’t have raced this week.  The mast went back up only a couple hours before race time.  And Jim… I owe you a beer.

After a month of heavy wind, it almost seemed like we weren’t getting ready to race at all this week: there seemed nary a puff of breeze to be found.  Quentin, Astra and Frankie came out for this drifter.  At least it was warm and sunny.

Actually, once we got close to our start we found a little bit of wind and were moving (according to the recently repaired and fully-operational knot meter) at about 3-4 knots.  We had a decent start, right next to Dove.  Not quite a jug start, but a good one in clean air.

The course was a nice easy triangle, so it was one close-hauled tack to the first (west) mark.  On the way there we had The Shadow just behind and above us most of the way and Dove lurking behind the jib, just ahead an below us.  We worked to pinch up as high as we could while still maintaining speed.  I wanted to get in front of The Shadow so we’d have a clear path to tack at the mark.  About two-thirds of the leg into it, we had accomplished that.

Dove crossed us very closely to head toward the mark and we followed in behind, just a bit higher; I wanted to be able to head a little bit off the wind for speed.

We got to the mark just before a slew of faster big boats from the start behind us were arriving, which was lucky.  And the extra distance we’d given up to Dove was made up on the beam reach to the next (north) mark.

We were only four boat lengths behind them heading back to the east mark on a broad reach.  But we were definitely closing the gap… Then Abracadabra passed us on the high side about halfway down the leg.  Klaus apologized for stealing our wind;  I just told him that I was fine with it as long as he also passed Dove on the high side.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the speed to get there in time before the mark, so he had to cut in front of us (behind Dove) there, which forced us to give back the ground we’d gained on Dove as we had to go wide at the mark to give room for Abra to round.

The next leg back to the west mark would be the last of the night.  The light wind was waning.

We were about four boatlengths behind Dove and well ahead of the rest of our fleet, but they seemed to be pulling ever so slightly away from us on the upwind.  There were a lot of boats bunched up on that same tack and since we were a little low on the finish line, I made the decision to try to tack out to the middle for cleaner air.

Looking back, I wish we’d just stayed with them.

The tack slowed us down and instead of going almost directly toward the finish line we were sailing perpendicular to it, or maybe a little bit away from it.  Probably not the best plan.  We were forced to tack back when Messing About was closing on us on starbord.

I thought for sure we’d be able to hit the line, but then Lotus lee-bowed us (tacked right in front, just below us) and we were eating Ken’s bad air and couldn’t hold it.

Nearing the finish line I could see that Gone With the Wind II (who had spent the entire race safely behind us) had gone low, and was parallel to us now.  Unfortunately, we still weren’t going to make the line, so again we tacked and again sailed away from it to get a better angle, and also to try to get away from Lotus.

Somehow GwtW2 managed to hit the line right at the boat end while we were still futzing around and sailing in the wrong direction… ugh.  And Dove, well I think they finished about 5 minutes ahead of us.  In the light air, mistakes can cost a lot because we’re going so slow to begin with.

Oh well… for some reason GwtWII wasn’t scored for the race – maybe he hasn’t provided the club with a copy of his insurance or something.  More likely it was just an oversight.  Anyway.  The lesson here is: always sail towards the finish line.

Like the Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins.  They just wanted it more, kept their eyes on the prize, and dominated

Go Bruins!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!