After taking most of the Fall off from racing, we rallied
the crew for our first ever Northern Century. It had been on the “to do” list for a while but we needed
better crew and gear before attempting it. 2014 would be the year and, having done the Northern Century
twice, we were excited to be back in “the hood”.
Jason and Shawn sailed the boat north the previous weekend
riding 20-30 kt southerlies up the Sound and across the Strait of Juan de
Fuca. We left the boat in Skyline
Marina and then met the crew there on Friday afternoon. The incessant flow of Pacific storms
had eased and a beautiful weekend was forecast, but wind could prove to be
elusive. We shuttled MB out to The
Hook on Shaw Island and the crew, which consisted of Jeff, Pete, Mike, Dan,
Mitch, Jason and Shawn went over to the Orcas Island Yacht Club for dinner and
the race briefing. We awoke early
Saturday morning and motored across the beautiful but calm waters of the San
Juan Islands. The wind gauge
registered 2-3 kts at the start off of Obstruction Pass and the one hundred
boats, which consisted of the best boat from the PNW (Wash and Canada) racing
fleet, drifted aimlessly.
The race committee delayed the start until a soft 3-5 kt
breeze started to fill in from the south.
We were in the third start and by this time the ebbing current had
started filling in, which was pushing across the line to the south / south
west. We positioned ourselves
towards the pin end, and then the wind died. As a result, we watched hopelessly as the 1-2 kt current
swept us and four other boats past the start pin and down the course. While the remainder of our fleet tacked
down the course, we were forced to turn around and sail back up-current in an
effort to get across the start line.
The wind was elusive to we had to wait five agonizing minutes until
there was enough breeze to even fill our sails since we were now sailing
downwind. Slowly 3-5 kts filled in
from the south so we set our spinnaker and sailed a tight reach to build boat
speed. We continued to tack away
from the mark before slowly jibing around and reach back. The wind was shifty and it wasn’t clear
we had enough speed to get around the buoy a second time before the wind died
again. Eventually we made it
around the mark, but at least 20 minutes had elapsed since our fleet had
started. As a result they were
miles down the course.
While it was extremely frustrating, all we could do was set
our jib and press on. Luckily MB
is a fast boat upwind in light airs.
We were quickly up to speed doing 5-6 kts in 5-6 kts of wind. We used the currents off of Blakely Is
to gain ground and quickly started passing boats. We made significant ground up until the SE corner of Lopez
Island, where a wind hole around Davidson Rock formed. We stayed outside, chasing the 2-3 kt
breeze and found ourselves pushing out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca while
most everyone else stayed inshore.
The breeze held steady at 3-5 kts and started shifting from the W to NW
so we continued on our tack, which gave us the most direct speed towards that
half way line and reporting station.
We crossed the half way mark five minutes behind Different Drummer and
12 minutes behind Kotuku, our regular competimates. The wind would never fill in and by 3:40 in the afternoon,
the sun was getting very low and we were three hours from our evening mooring
on Johns Island. Further, it was
clear that our 3 kts of boat speed wasn’t going to get us across the finish
before the 6pm cutoff so we pulled the plug and headed north under the iron
jib. We put on the reggae and
started drinking rum as we motored through the remaining boats hoping to finish
that day – most didn’t. We had a
great lasagna meal with wine with Jason’s family on Johns Is and retired for
the night.
That night it rained heavily, with wind building from the
S/SE. Luckily the rain quit around
6 am so we left the beach at 7:30 for the start just a few miles away. We had a great start with 12-15 kts
from the S/SE and everyone flew off the line on a port reach with spinnakers
flying. We saw several gear
failures and wipeouts, but MB was solid.
We held our own, passing a few boats by the time we rounded Turn Pt on
Stuart Is. We continued north and
the wind came around from the west, and was forecast to continue building and
pivoting to the NW. We sailed
north to Patos Is expecting the 20-30 kt ball buster to descend upon us at any
time, but it didn’t.
Our fleet rounded the mid-way mark off Patos Is in a tight bunch and we bore off towards the east side of Orcas Is. The wind at this point was fairly light at 9-12 kts and we were sailing deeper lines, which is not MB’s strength, so we lost some ground. As we rounded McConnell Island heading for the tip of Orcas on a starboard reach we could see the white caps forming to the north of us, indicating that the high pressure was coming, and with it the strong winds. The wind quick ramped from 12 kts to 25 kts and we sailed a deeper line to avoid the wind hole behind the tip of Orcas. Unfortunately traffic kept us high and we were forced to jibe out while everyone pressed on. We jibed behind our fleet and then jibed again towards the finish. At this point the wind was 20+kts gusting to 30 kts and reaching with our spinnaker was downright wild in these conditions. We suffered through our first full crew knock down, which was caught on GoPro, and then dropped the spinnaker, since we needed the jib to work upwind to the finish. At this point we were in a wild wind hole behind Mt Constitution. The wind would vacillate from 10 kts from starboard, to 10 kts from port. We literally sat and watched the wind direction gauge spin in circles on the top of our mast. Everyone was struggling. We switched from the #3 jib to the #1 since the force ranged between 5 – 20 kts. We aggressively worked the little puffs towards the finish.
Our fleet rounded the mid-way mark off Patos Is in a tight bunch and we bore off towards the east side of Orcas Is. The wind at this point was fairly light at 9-12 kts and we were sailing deeper lines, which is not MB’s strength, so we lost some ground. As we rounded McConnell Island heading for the tip of Orcas on a starboard reach we could see the white caps forming to the north of us, indicating that the high pressure was coming, and with it the strong winds. The wind quick ramped from 12 kts to 25 kts and we sailed a deeper line to avoid the wind hole behind the tip of Orcas. Unfortunately traffic kept us high and we were forced to jibe out while everyone pressed on. We jibed behind our fleet and then jibed again towards the finish. At this point the wind was 20+kts gusting to 30 kts and reaching with our spinnaker was downright wild in these conditions. We suffered through our first full crew knock down, which was caught on GoPro, and then dropped the spinnaker, since we needed the jib to work upwind to the finish. At this point we were in a wild wind hole behind Mt Constitution. The wind would vacillate from 10 kts from starboard, to 10 kts from port. We literally sat and watched the wind direction gauge spin in circles on the top of our mast. Everyone was struggling. We switched from the #3 jib to the #1 since the force ranged between 5 – 20 kts. We aggressively worked the little puffs towards the finish.
Mitch captured some amazing pictures from the weekend, which can be found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/
