Monkeybones spent most of
September on the hard at CSR getting the rig tuned and the bottom flared and
painted. After many years of neglect it
was time to take care of some missing chunks in the keel as well as strip the
rudder back to the gel coat to remove some big bubbles. With MB back on the water we entered the
Sloop Tavern’s Fall Regatta as a warm up for SYC’s Grand Prix, scheduled for
the following weekend. The crew needed
practice and we needed to work some kinks out of the rigging.
The Sloop’s Fall Regatta is one
of its only true buoy races and the organizers even warned the skippers that
they may need to “pack your chutes twice on a race” (STYC members are renown
for not wanting to work too hard during these races). The Fall Regatta was run at the same time as
the Race Your House event so the organizers were juggling 84 boats on the water
with six separate starts. MB was in the
fifth grouping which consisted of all the fastest boats in the fleet. With a PHRF of 81 we were the “slowest” boat,
with a Macgregor 65 being the fastest in our group with a PHRF of -30. The regatta consisted of three races and each
group started at five minute intervals with ours going last.
Despite an enduring high pressure
over the Pacific NW, we’ve been stuck with fog and low clouds for a week with
no end in sight. Luckily we had some
wind on the water for the race and had between 6-8 kts for most of the day. We were lightly crewed with Matt and Phil
joining Shawn and Jason. Fortunately the
light winds meant we didn’t need the weight on the rail, and in fact the light
load probably helped us.
The first race had us beating
upwind from the start off Shilshoal to Spring Beach and then running downwind
to the anchor buoy near the entrance to the Ballard Locks before beating back
to the start. Shawn and Phil did a great
job strategizing and putting us into the right spot for all three starts. For the first race everyone started on a
starboard tack and we picked the inside line by the committee boat and used our
big #1 to outpoint everyone up the course, quickly assuming the lead among the
five boats in our class. Once we had the
advantage we tacked on top of the fleet in a series of covering moves as we
worked upwind. About halfway up the
course we saw we were getting headed and tacked out, which proved to be one of
our few tactical mistakes all day. Most
of our competitors stayed inside and we gave up a ¼ mile by the time we came
back inside. However, we then stayed
inside and gained back what we gave up, rounding the mark in third place behind
the J/35 Bergen Viking and the Macgregor.
The Macgregor launched its chute and disappeared downwind while we
reeled in and passed the J/35. At this
point we had a tactical problem because we were suddenly in front of nearly
everyone and hadn’t taken note of the course prior to starting out. There were two smaller boats from the earlier
start heading towards a mark inshore while the Macgregor, which was in our
grouping, appeared to be headed to West Point.
We got out the binoculars and noticed that they had hour glassed their
spinnaker and, we learned later, were trying to untangle it (it took them so
long they wound up abandoning the first race).
As a result we sailed downwind waiting to see if the J/35 would jibe
into shore and followed them once they did.
We rounded the mark in front of them and, light handed, did an exciting
race rounding and headed back upwind to the finish. We covered the J/35 and finished a ways in
front of them. We crossed the line and
received the shotgun blast to signal that we had line honors!
We circled around the finish
waiting for the other boats to finish in our class and, after about 15 minutes,
were called over to the committee boat where we were notified that the J/35 was
protesting the race, claiming that we entered a box near the mouth of the
channel to the Ballard Locks, which is apparently a keep out zone. We have no recollection of this, and it had
no bearing on the outcome of the race.
We protested the protest and were told to talk to the J/35, which we did
and even offered a peace offering of a ½ gallon of gin. They declined saying “we can’t be bought
off”. Apparently they "weren't
happy you blew by us on that spinnaker run". We are a friendly bunch and enjoy friendly
competition, but their actions rubbed us the wrong way. When all was said and done we finished nearly
seven minutes in front of the J/35 and, from our perspective, their “protest”
was their way of trying to win at all cost, which is not the STYC way. As a result it became our day long mission to
burry the J/35 in the upcoming races.
Further, we renamed this keep out zone the Bergen Box and even dedicated
a song to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H0-0Py-v3k.
Fired up and with a clear mission
we charged into the next two races, which were short 2.5 mile courses that
consisted of a short upwind to the mark off Golden Gardens and then down to the
red lighted buoy and back. Tactically we
wanted to stay in the back eddy circling in front Golden Gardens so we started
pin high and on port to hug the shore and avoid the incoming flood tide. The rest of the fleet however wanted to start
at the other end of the line on starboard to keep the right of way
advantage. While we liked our strategy
it was going to make for an exhilarating start.
With Phil on bow and Shawn driving we found great lanes and Matt and
Jason manned the sheets to keep us powered while maneuvering like crazy to
avoid the onslaught charging our beam.
This strategy worked beautifully and, once clear, we outpaced the fleet
and rounded the windward mark in second, being passed by a C&C 115. We held our own downwind and pinched through
the leeward mark in tight quarters and finished in second place, six seconds
behind the C&C. The third race was a
near repeat of race #2 but this time no one was close to us at the windward
mark, and we held the lead through to the finish. Despite being the “slowest” boat in our fleet
we came away with two line honors and a second place (by only six seconds),
which put us in first place overall (either the protest was never formally
filed or the commodore ignored it).
Results can be found here: http://www.styc.org/race_info/Fall%20Regatta/2013/race1.htm
Most importantly, we finished the
second race 1:26 and the third 2:40 in front of Bergen Viking. Matt and Shawn swung by The Sloop on the way
home and picked up our fine trophy!
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