QCYC Last Chance Cup

This log entry is a little late, but it was a busy weekend… more on that later.

For the last race of year, I was joined by Jay (#1), Bromley (#13) and Amy.  Quentin was to skipper the race, but called in sick.  As it turned out, he probably made the right call…

The forecast was calling for lots of wind and “isolated showers” throughout the day, but while we floated around the harbour during the pre-race there was only a light breeze.  An ”isolated gust” blew through just as we were about to start, which knocked us down for a few seconds and shifted the wind about 45 degrees.  As a result we were really late for the start – but so was most of the 28-boat fleet.

Then it was a fun time tacking back and forth to get out the eastern gap towards the lake.  I say “fun”, for me at least; Bromley and Amy were doing most of the work, tacking every couple of minutes.  Jay was up on foredeck, skirting the sail as necessary.

We were doing well, sort of in a second-to-lead pack that included One More Time, Cyrendipity and Blythe Spirit.  Then ahead of us we saw Veloce run aground close to the rocky pier that protects the end of the gap from the open water of the lake.  Water levels have been noticeably lower lately as we had a dry September.  Several other boats peeled off, either because they feared doing the same, or just because Veloce was in the way.  Blythe Spirit was a few boat lengths directly ahead of us when they tacked over.

Knowing that we’d sailed over that exact spot many times already this season and that our draft was about two feet less than theirs, I decided to wait and see if Veloce would get off the bottom in time to get out of our way.  They did.  Now at this point, instead of noticing that the wind was lightening up and that the waves of the open lake were rolling into the entrace to the gap making it a dangerous place to be, I saw only the opportunity to get ahead in the race.  It appeared that we had lots of room to make it out without tacking, so we went for it.

I was wrong.  Unfortunately, by the time I realized my error, we were in too deep to be able to do anything about it.  The water of the inner harbour and the gap had been quite calm with some mild breeze which allowed some decent sailing; once we started getting hit with those rolling lake waves, we lost all speed and were pretty much unable to steer.  We couldn’t tack if we wanted to (which, honestly at that point, we did).

The long line of rocks with a big cement block at its tip steadily came closer to the side of the boat as we slowly progessed forward.  I thought it was maybe a 50/50 shot for whether we made it out to the open water unscathed or wrecked the boat.  Visions of Panche being mercilessly beaten to death against a rocky pier by those waves were filling my thoughts.  A profound feeling of powerlessness swept over me as I moved toward the motor well and realized that it would take far to long to lower it, attach the fuel line, prime it, get it started and into gear.  We had seconds, not minutes.  It was time to start praying. 

Foot by agonizing foot we crawled ahead and were finally abeam of that big cement end of the pier.  The adrenaline was rushing through my veins as we were close enough to the rocks on the surface to touch them (one big wave at that point and I’m convinced we’d have been washed on top of the pile), but the submerged rocks under us presented an even bigger worry as I felt if the keel hit one, we’d lose the little momentum we had and it would be all over.  All the crew was on the low side, heeling the boat toward the pier and keeping the keel as far out as possible…

BANG!  The tiller snapped out of my hand as the rudder hit something.  The whole boat shuddered with the impact.  Then a split second later the next wave picked us up and the boat was moving again.  I had the tiller in hand and was easing the jib further as the boat turned away from the wind, around the end of pier and picked up a little speed.

Just as quickly as the impact happened, the boat seemed not to be sinking and we were back racing again.  It took a good 15 minutes for the adrenaline to filter out of my blood.

By that time the wind had died down even further and the waves were just rocking us mercilessly.  We stayed with our pack for awhile, but I think with the combination of our lighter displacement and closer proximity to shore, the lumpy waves slowed us down more than the other bigger boats who were further out.  We steadily fell back.

Two hours later, making no noticeable headway in the no-wind, seas tossing us around in the direction of some new rocks (the ones that protect center island’s beach) and with Jay turning a sick shade of green, we lowered the jib and started the motor.  It’s the only race we’ve retired from all season, but it was definitely the right call.  Everybody behind us had given up.  And most boats ahead of us eventually did too.  Only four were determined enough to finish the race.

Back ashore I took a look at the rudder.  It’s scraped up, but seems ok.  We’re not 100% sure that the keel didn’t also hit at the same moment.  The shudder was pretty big.  I guess I’ll find out next weekend at haulout…

Anyway, the awards banquet that night was fun (if a bit overpriced… and no drinks included?!?).  Quentin was recovered enough to join us and Astra came out as well.  The combined crews of Blythe Spirit, Ace, Breakin’ Wind and Panache were making lots of noise as we each went up to accept our series flags.  The whole hall seemed to be pretty boisterous and getting into it - it was great.  My surprise of the night came when they awarded Panache a trophy!  The David Smith, Esq. trophy for best yacht in LORC events – I didn’t know there was such a thing, but I’m happy to have my name on it now, next to some pretty good company… 

Dave Smith presents "his" trophy to the skipper and crew of Panache (L to R: Meg, Dave, Mark, Astra, Quentin; missing: Pete; totally absent from the party: Jeremy, Jeff)

I wished I could have stayed to party all night, but the next morning I had to catch a flight to NYC where my short film “Debris” was having its premiere – sound impressive?  Well, it was a very small film fest, but still well worth attending the screening.  Any excuse to spend a few days in New York.

Anyway, this may or may not be the last entry for the season.  It’s been a fun year.  Thanks to all the crew that made the sailing possible, and especially my long-time friend Q for stepping up and learning foredeck.  Hopefully next year just gets even better.

QCYC Champions of Champions

After a moderatly successful summer of club racing, Panache qualified for the Queen City Club Championship.  The “Champions of Champions” is an invitation-only (all competitors must have won as least one flag in the Wednesday night club racing series), three-race event and was held this past Saturday.

Despite the crappy weather in the forecast, Quentin, Jeremy and Phoebe all got up early on their Saturday morning to come and crew.  In fact the weather turned out quite nice for most of the day.

Seeing as our best overall finish for a series was third, we didn’t pretend that we had much of a shot at winning the thing, but we got on the water early and took the opportunity to try out a slightly different setup with the jib sheets fed to the inboard track.  It may have been our imagination, but it seemed like we could point a little better – at least as long as Jeremy thought so, I was willing to agree.

The first race was four times around a short windward-leeward course from the city to the island.  The wind at the east end of the harbour wasn’t really sure what it was doing, so it was not always a true windward-leeward.  Typical harbour racing. 

We started ok, but seemed to not be picking the right shifts and fell back on the first leg a bit.  We still weren’t terribly far back from One More Time or Dove as we approached the windward mark.  That is, until “the incident”; it was very early in the day, but it definitely became our most talked about moment.

As we were approaching that first windward mark on a starboard tack, only a couple of boat lengths away from the mark (within what is known in the new rules as “The Zone”), Borne Home came in on port and tacked directly in front of us.  Phoebe yelled to me: “Do you see this boat?!?”.  It was hard to miss it only a few feet ahead and not accelerating out of their tack quickly enough that we weren’t going to plow right into them if evasive action wasn’t taken – and fast.

My bow was so close to his transom that I couldn’t go up without clipping his outboard, so I went to his low side – only to hear a chorus of: “Mark!” from all three of my crew.  I didn’t understand at first… but it quickly became clear: The mark was now directly in front of us.  Borne Home had not left any room to spare, so with no time to think the options were: hit them, hit the mark or circle back around.

I cursed and circled back.

Several moments later (which seemed like an eternity) we were rounding the mark and Borne Home had sailed on ahead (along with everybody else).  We were a pretty pissed-off foursome.  Jeremy wanted to protest them, but I couldn’t think of what rule had been broken.  Though it certainly seemed like a “dick move” at the very least.  Feeling like we had nothing to lose, the protest flag was produced from down below and as I steered us around the offset with my feet, I afixed the solid red flag to the backstay.  I asked Jeremy to announce the protest over the VHF, and the next time we were within “yelling range” of  Borne Home I yelled our protest over to their skipper, David.  He just turned back and kept sailing.

Now I don’t know him very well – only met him a couple of times – but he seems like a pretty affable, easy-going guy.  So even though our race was pretty much screwed, I was really just more frustrated at our situation than actually feeling any anger towards him – in fact I wasn’t even too sure that he had broken any rules.  It certainly seemed like he felt that he hadn’t

We managed to somehow finish ahead of Ace for last place.  Then we sailed over to the RC boat and filed our protest with the race committee.

Second race.  They reset the course for the shifted wind.  Time to shake off that first one and just sail well.

We had a pretty bad start, but at least we’d have clean air for the upwind…  I don’t know how Skeena does it, but no matter what we did, we couldn’t point nearly as high as they were… I think I kept trying to steer higher than we could really go, trying to match them.  It wasn’t working and by the windward mark we seemed fairly well back from the pack.

Cue the great downwind leg.  Whatever we did, we caught up big time.  By the next mark, One More Time was right in front of us and Dove not far ahead of them.  On the second upwind, we still weren’t pointing as high as those cheaters (I kid) on Skeena but we were certainly pointing better than One More Time.  They crossed us only a half a boat length away.

Our excitement was short-lived.

We had a slow tack which dropped us back a bit, and then to start the downwind the pole wasn’t getting up for a minute.  Even though we raced pretty well from there on out, we never caught up.  We finished 9th of 13.   Still not bad, considering the higher-than-normal level of competition.

Happily, the third race we sailed pretty mistake-free.  Unfortunately, it seemed like so did everybody else!

It was finally a great start for us and we felt like we were sailing really well.  I mean, we were close behind Enkidu! And we had a great back-and-forth battle with One More Time the whole way.  The final leg ended up being a broad reach; we were two boat lengths behind OMT and it would be hard to pass.  We made up a bit of ground, but I couldn’t pull any tricks out of the bag and we finished 11 seconds behind them in 10th.

Overall, we came in 11th of 13 for the day.  I think for the newest crew out there that was a pretty decent result.

Back ashore, I consulted with Al Rae (one of the more experienced racers) to get his opinion on whether or not we should go through with the protest.  His feeling was that it sounded like we had a good case and if for nothing else but to get experience of going through a protest, we should fill out the forms and go ahead with it.  So we’ll see how that goes…

Only one race left in the season: next weekend is the Last Chance Cup.

QCYC Series 3, Race 4

The last club race of the 2009 season.  Sad but true.  We still have the club championship and Last Chance Cup to race for, but no more getting out of work early on Wednesdays to go sailing…  oh well.

Mother nature co-operated with some good breeze and mostly sunny skies; it was a bit on the chilly side though.  Jeremy, Astra and Quentin came out to try and end the club racing season with a bang (yes, that’s a thinly veiled reference to the gunshot usually signaled for the first boat to finish in each division).

The start line was a mile long, but when it came down to the final few seconds, it seemed like everybody wanted the same 10 feet of it.  We managed to block Dove from barging in, then bore off a couple feet before hitting the transom of the RC boat.  Then Breakin’ Wind was right there underneath us to force us up further than I wanted to go and I thought we might be over early again – there was no way to see the pin with a dozen boats blocking the view.  The only thing that seemed ovbious was that Blythe Spirit was way over early, two boat lengths ahead of a whole pack of boats on the line…  But after the single gunshot for the start, there was no subsequent shot, no flag nor any radio announcement – maybe Blythe was so far over that the newbies on the race committee didn’t see them?

However it happened, Blythe Spirit was able to take off in clean air while the rest of us fought among ourselves in a tight pack.  Skeena was under One More Time who was under us and we were not able to point high enough to stay there.  We were heeled over 20 degrees and coming within what seemed like inches of rubbing OMT before we tacked out.  That first upwind, it would have been really nice to have gone straight out the left side on one long tack (like Blythe Spirit was able to do), but instead we made several more tacks and though we were close behind everybody else at the windward mark, Blythe was already long gone.

It was a bad first leg for us, but lots of time to make it back up.  The first downwind went better, as we stopped the bleeding.  Dove and One More Time were not that far ahead.  And the second upwind went much better than the first, though position-wise nothing seemed to change.

When we crossed close ahead of Blythe (they, already on their next downwind while we were still heading the other way),  I asked them to slow down – barring a breakdown they had the race in the bag.

Finally on the third and final upwind, Dove went furthest to the right and seemed to be a bit slower, if still a decent distance ahead.  But somehow Panache was pointing 5 degrees higher than One More Time and we gained just enough on them that we were able to tack right ahead and under them coming to the windward mark.

We struggled a bit to get the main and jib flying at the start of the downwind and they pulled dead even with us.  Paul shouted over: “Now it’s a real horse race!”  I responded: “Heeya!”

How many times this year have we been running neck and neck with these guys?  Man, it was fun; we’d catch a gust and pull ahead, then they would, then we would, then they would.  We were both only about 5-6 boat lengths behind Dove, too.

Finally, with 100 feet to go, our jib collapsed on a shifty wind gust and we fell a full boat length behind.  We pulled the only move we had: I turned down and sat right behind them, trying to take all their wind and stall them out.  I didn’t think there was enough time for it to work, but we had to try it.

As One More Time slowed, we turned up for the pass; the finish line pin was really close.  Could we actually pull this off?  When we got to about where we thought the line was, we were almost dead even with them.  From my perspective I thought their stern was slightly ahead of us (and they’re 1.5 feet longer), but Quentin, sitting on the foredeck thought our bow was ahead…  There was no horn from the committee, so we really couldn’t tell for sure when or even if we had finished the race…

In fact, Steve Cutting called me from Blythe Spirit asking if there was another lap – we had already taken the jib down and were sailing back in on the main… we briefly re-hoisted before common sense prevailed.  The sun was already touching the horizon and I was sure the RC had posted “x3″ to begin with.  Something must just have been wrong with their air horn.

It wasn’t until the results were posted later at the club that my suspicions were confirmed about the finish… Paul got us for third by one second.  But we still got the third overall for the series.  Not bad at all.

When I think back to our first Wednesday night race, we’ve all come a long way in just our first year… and we’re already looking forward to next season.

NYC / QCYC Open Regatta

Unbelievably, there are no more regattas left this year.  This past weekend’s NYC/QCYC joint event was the last on the LORC schedule for 2009 - at least we ended this part of our racing season on a memorable note.

Friday (the day before), I met up with another local Niagara 26 owner, Mel Martin of Margie’s Mink.  He graciously lent me his spinnaker pole (as you may recall, Panache is currently pole-less due to Wednesday night’s break).  His is a slightly different design, but Quentin wasn’t thrown off at all - in fact it sounded like he kind of prefered it.  I got a few funny looks and questions about a bicycle jousting tournament when I walked the pole down from College and Spadina, through Chinatown to the QCYC tender dock.

Day 1: Saturday

Meghan, Quentin, Peter and Phoebe arrived at the QCYC tender dock early, as instructed; I was worried there’d be a lineup.  It was lucky, too – obviously somebody forgot to tell the tender captain that it was regatta day, because he came over to pick up 40+ eager racers in the small, 12-passenger work boat.  We left a lot of annoyed people behind… Anyway, I had a little trouble locating the race course out on the lake, so it was a good thing that we got that head start.

Despite it being one of the best weekends for sailing all summer (sunny, hot and 10-12 knots of wind) it was a very small turnout.  Only one other boat was racing in our division: Shimakaze (though its name is nowhere to be found on the hull and we referred to it all weekend simply as “the Beneteau“).  We were also grouped with boats from some other divisions though, including One More Time sailing in white sails, so we had someone familiar to compare our progress with at least.

With the wind already blowing 10+ knots early, Phoebe decided on the #2 jib and nobody argued.  The sail had only been out of the bag once this year (in May) and smelled pretty funky.  Guess that’ll need a cleaning this off-season.

We started first, by a longshot.  Either the other boats were still just waking up, or they didn’t read the RC’s flags right.  Unfortunately our race went downhill from there.  The wind was shifting constantly and instead of building in strength, the closer we got to the windward mark the more it was dying out.  I asked the crew to be ready to change headsails as soon as the spinnaker was up.  That turned out to be a bad idea…

The wind had shifted so far around that we weren’t really on a downwind at all.  By the time I realized that we weren’t going to be able to sail towards the gate on the spinnaker, the #2 was already off (credit the crew for their speed) so there was no choice but to keep going until the sail change was complete.  When we hoisted the #1, we were way off course and way behind;  the race was shortened to just that one lap because of the massive wind shift.

The wind started to come back up a bit while we waited for the RC to reset the course in the proper direction (about a 90 degree shift).  Phoebe didn’t appreciate the big waves that we were bobbing in for nearly 30 minutes of delay and turned (a yellowish tint of) green.  She stuck it out though.

When we finally did get going again, we sailed two solid races.  In both the second and third races of the day we had some minor issues to deal with – the uphaul being clipped on over the jib sheets and an “over-early” start – but we stayed pretty well ahead of the Beneteau.  But One More Time absolutely blew us away in the third race.  Luckily we didn’t need to worry about them in the standings, and with our 2-1-1 finish we were leading after Day 1 – time to celebrate!

That night we bolstered the winning glow with a few cold beverages and some BBQed burgers and corn.  At some point, Meg and I found ourselves at a table with our good friend Dan Smith (who was racing on his dad’s C&C 110) as he shared a pitcher of “Dark and Stormy” (apparently a Bermudian favorite: Gosling’s Rum and Ginger Beer with a splash of soda water).  One pitcher turned into two… it’s a dangerous drink… indeed.

Day 2: Sunday

Peter cheerfully stuck his head in the cabin at 9:30am, proclaiming another gorgeous day.  I was barely able to lift my head off the pillow and my whole body was reeling in the aftermath of hurricane “Dark and Stormy”.  I made a mental note to punch Dan right in the throat next time I saw him… Ugh.  To make matters worse, NYC was the first club we’ve been to that didn’t serve a regatta morning breakfast buffet – I shuffled back to the boat and had a few bites of a sandwich and took my time chewing a couple veggies.  The fresh morning breeze helped.  A bit.

Pete had gone home early the night before and brought his wife Julia with him on Sunday.  Phoebe also left the party a little early and got to stay home, sleep in and recover.

Whether it was Pete’s cheerful attitude, the determination not to let a possible regatta win slip from our hands, the water and Advil or some combination of the above, we eventually got going.

At the racing area, the J fleet (which raced on the same course, starting just before us) gave us an extra 5-6 minutes to shake off the hangovers when they all started early, prompting a black-flag restart.  Our race started well.  We probably could have shut out One More Time in the final countdown, but since we weren’t racing against them, we gave room.

We somehow managed to sail a great race, keeping pace with OMT the whole way, and finishing ahead of them – though we technically should have been even further ahead if our spinnaker rating is to be believed.  Meanwhile, the Beneteau seemed to be having issues on the downwind.  We got them by over 5 minutes – and with that win we knew that if there was only one more race that day (as the schedule said there would be) our lead was insurmountable – though we never talk about winning until it’s all over, right Q?

By the end of that race I was feeling much more alive – probably about 40% (up from 10% earlier in the morning).  I even managed to enjoy some chips and doritos when Julia offered them in between races.  Meg and Quentin seemed to be feeling ok – or at least they didn’t complain as much as I did.

The second race started slowly as we were all caught in a bit of a lull in the final minute to the countdown.  The Beneteau came at us on a starboard tack and forced us to tack under them and let them start first for a change.  They headed left, while we took the right side of the course with One More Time.  We had a good little upwind race with OMT before they edged ahead (and to windward) and stole our wind, prompting an early tack.  We had to make a couple more tacks near the mark to get around and saw the competition closing in behind us.

On the downwind we had another perfect set and great gybe, but the Beneteau seemed to have worked out their earlier problems and was sticking quite close behind.  We caught up to, and were about even with OMT when we went through the gate.  This time we went left (followed by the Beneteau, while One More Time again went right).

During that upwind I caught myself steering too low a few times, and felt we were losing a little more ground.  But when we reached the windward mark, we were actually ahead of OMT, so maybe not so bad.  We couldn’t shake the Beneteau though.  Again, they had a great downwind and only finished about a minute behind.  On corrected time, we were 30 seconds behind them.

But – the most important thing – as we passed the committee boat they were flying the “no more races today” flag which meant that we had just won our first regatta!  High fives all around!

At the awards ceremony, they handed me 5 tall cans of beer to go along with our new yellow flag.  I decided that I’d rather save them for another day… I was still only feeling about 55% by that point

We motored the boat back the 20 minutes to QCYC and I enjoyed a DIY chocolate milkshake (Q and Meg had their ice cream “plain”).  Just as we were about to take off for the city side, Blythe Spirit pulled up, returning from their Viking 28 regatta.  They too had been weekend winners and had some good stories to go with it.  Something about a start line collision and a bananas-printed spinnaker?

And Pete, I won’t even mention that stanchion that was snapped off it’s base during the last race; oops, I guess I just did…