We were all excited about our second straight Round the
County race. Round the County (RTC) is a two day 76 mile course that
starts and ends at Lydia Shoal near Obstruction Pass, and overnights at Roche
Harbor. The popularity of this race is
incredible and they had 113 registered boats, with everything filling up in a
few days. Technically it was full at 100 and Shawn had to talk our way into it
by working with the race organizers.
True to form Shawn and Peter took the boat north on November 1st to position it for Round the County in near gale conditions - we always have big weather for the ferry trips. This time they were going with the weather and set a new speed record, going from Elliott Bay Marina to Skyline in around 7 hours. With the boat sitting comfortably in Skyline, Shawn and Jason spent the few days before the race working logistics in the San Juans. We provisioned Johns Is, our Saturday night basecamp, and positioned the Almar in Roche Harbor to ferry the crew over the Johns Is. The forecast was for big air Saturday morning, easing off in the afternoon. Sunday was light, possibly turning into a drifter.
The crew of Shawn, Jason, Peter, Dan, Phil and Adam arrived
at the boat at 6:30 Saturday morning with gale force winds and driving
rain. We made it off the dock and set
our main to push us along to the start.
Coming around the corner by Washington Park, the wind was steady in the
high 20s with gusts to 35 kts with big swells coming off the Strait of Juan de
Fuca. The boat was highly loaded right
out of the starting block but taking it well, surfing down the waves. We could see boats converging from Anacortes,
the San Juans, and other points of the compass.
We decided to throw in a reef for safety sake, and for practice. As we made it to the start we thought the
wind would slack off, and while it initially did, it built again as the start
approached. It was a crazy downwind
start with lots of boats weaving around at high speed. We started on the west (pin) side of the
course alongside Time Bandit, and stayed west.
We were flying a full main and #3 jib and had rigged for a spinnaker
set. However, with the wind in the
mid-20s and gusting to 30kts we decided to err on the side of caution. Further, the wind angle was a full reach at
120-130 AWA and it would be questionable if we could have flown our symmetrical
spinnaker in those condition, especially with that much wind. We instead watched a few other boats attempt
it with consistently disastrous results - there was a lot of broaching and a
few blown chutes. Time Bandit put up an
asym and was gone on a full plane (at least 10 kts), choosing to take the west
side of the course and laying a rum line for Pt Lawrence. We followed their western line and did well
on the fleet with boat speed in the 8-9 kts range. We all rounded Pt Lawrence and sailed a deeper
line, but it was still high 20’s gusting to low 30’s. We toyed with setting the spinnaker, but with
the boat already cranking along at 8-11kts and we weren’t sure how much more speed
we could get (although we did consider putting up the #1 jib). We chose to stick with our gear selection, as
did most everyone else, and enjoyed a nice downwind sleigh ride in building
seas. Somewhere between Pt Lawrence and Matia
Island we set a new Monkeybones speed record of 13.2 kts while surfing down the
front side of a swell under full main and flogging jib. This was somehow all caught on GoPro. The big fast boats started flying through the
fleet with full spinnakers at speeds that looked to be at least 20 kts. It was a sight to behold. Shortly after this we heard the may-day on
the radio that Dragonfly, the 40 ft racing catamaran, had pitch poled (flipped
end over end) a little farther up the course.
Further there was still lots of gear getting shredded and boats getting
knocked down. We were content to play it
conservatively since our sail inventory is already small compared to everyone
else’s.
We rounded Patos Is, the half way point, at 11:30 am and headed for Turn Point on Stuart Island in a driving rainstorm. We now had 25 kts on our beam and the boat was power reaching at 8 kts. We passed a good number of boats, including some in our class, and traveled the 12 nm to Turn Point in 1.5 hours. We rounded Turn Pt and headed for the finish off Roche Harbor. This turned into an upwind beat in subsiding wind and it took us a while to find our groove. Further, we waited too long to do a head sail change. The net effect is that we lost a lot of time to the competition on this short 4.5 nm leg. We finished middle of our fleet at 2pm. Everyone was extremely wet and tired after many hours of intense sailing. We put the boat away, transferred our gear, took a quick walk of the dock, and then headed to Johns for the evening.
The next morning we were off the Island by 7am and, after a
quick boat swap, motored with the fleet out to Open Bay for the start of day
two. It was forecasted to be light and
we could see wind out in Haro Strait, but it was very light at the start. After putting up the sails and tuning the
boat, we maneuvered into the start box outside of Snug Harbor. We initially wanted to start pin (west) side
but saw there was a current setting boats that direction, so decided to go
committee boat side. The winds were very
light but we had some forward motion and this strategy served us well. The bulk of our fleet started pin side
without enough speed and the current set them all, before they were able to
cross the line. This happened to us last
year and it took us 20 minutes to sail back up and around the starting
mark. However, this year the wind was
elusive and nearly half the fleet was unable to cross the start within the 30
minute time limit and were forced to withdraw.
We were excited to be out on the water and racing, but progress was
extremely slow. The wind was out in the
channel and very faint on the inside and we did not have enough of it to cross
into the heavier breeze. And then it
went away altogether. We were forced to
sit and watch other boats in the wind disappear over the horizon. While we were across the line we were within
a mile or two of the start drifting with other boats until the wind finally
reached us nearly three hours into the race.
It was an extremely frustrating few hours but we were glad to be finally
sailing, and once going MB got into her grove and did great. We were able to point high along the shore
and stuck with faster boats Jam and New Haven on an inside track. We crossed the mid-point at 12:58 well behind
those that got to the wind, but ahead of the group of boats we were in. We made smart tactical decisions and
continued to pass boats on the inside up to Davidson Rk. We turned the corner into Rosario Strait at
2:30 in really nice sailing conditions with 7-9 kts over the rail and a bit of
sunshine. After so much despair that
morning, we were starting to feel good about our chances of actually finishing
the race. There was a big rain squall
over Anacortes that freshened the breeze from the east and we power reached up
towards Cypress Island, surprised to see the fleet all bunched in front of
us. The weather on Sunday was a weird
convergence of northerly and southerly winds, with the convergence creating a
belt of dead wind passing right through the middle of the San Juan Islands on
an east-west track. We struggled with it
at the start, and apparently is was also sitting atop the finish. We approached the finish in a strong easterly
wind and could see boats stuck in a wind hole about a mile in front of us, many
of them tacking on a northerly wind.
There were boats parked on the west side along Blakely Is, while the
east side along Cypress still had good pressure. We hugged the wind line on the east side and
got to within a half mile of the fleet, and then the wind shut off. We waited and hoped for the northerly to
descend down to our location but the rain storm shifted our direction and
dampened the wind, essentially snuffing it out.
We sat for an hour and watched all the boats we had passed sneak up
behind us. Some of them took their cues
from our despair and followed a slight breeze, now a westerly on the west side
of the strait, and snuck around us in the dying light. As darkness fell, and the time crept towards
the cutoff time of 6:00, the ebb tide started to build, pulling us back to the
south and away from the finish line. A
slight wind gave us some forward motion but it was never enough to compensate
for the current. Twenty minutes before
the cut off time we were sailing at 2kts north, but going 0.5 kts south because
of the current, and were sitting 2.5 nm from the finish. We decided to cut our losses and head for
Skyline.
When it was all said and done we finished fifth in class and
48th overall. One boat that
snuck by us on Sunday actually finished with 10 minutes to spare, but we were
never going to make it. It was an epic
weekend of sailing and we already look forward to next year.
