Seabbatical Adventures: Day 28, Saturday July 20th

Day 28 Saturday July 20^th Race Day

Up at 6:00, shower, group breaky, stow away all the bedding and we are off the dock for 8:00. We had taken down our enclosure and sent it to Little Current with Denise Chabot, but no one to take the dinghy and motor, or our wind generator so we are racing, cruising style. We also have 400 feet of chain and 3 anchors, and 75 gallons of diesel fuel so we are very heavy for racing. Oh well, we are going to have fun. Our boat is rated to do well as it is one of the larger boats and the more waterline, the faster the boat should be. There are 3 fleets and we are the last start so there are 21 boats jockeying around in a small area. We need to stay out of the way of the boats that have the 1^st and 2^nd start. It is a beautiful sight seeing the start. The winds are around 12 knots and the boats are all healed on a port tack. Now it is our turn. We are not very competitive as we don’t even know how long it will take for us to get to the line. The 5 minute warning goes off and we power up (tighten up the jib). We head away from the line as we are too close, and then tack around and head for the start. The 1 minute warning goes off and we realize we will have a reasonable start. We could be 100 metres closer but good enough. There are 3 boats ahead of us, but 3 behind us. We are creeping up on tack 2 and moonshadow. We pass Moonshadow and are catching tack 2, but then tack 2 takes off and we don’t ever catch up. Fracas is catching us and passes us and soon we don’t see her anymore. We are not thrilled with our trim. We have stayed too close to shore and the winds are weaker here. Darn!

We have lots of weather helm which means that the rudder is turned which slows us down, but is necessary to keep us on course. We have realized that the way the rigging is tuned we have this weather helm problem. We will need to read about how to trim to get rid of it. More research to do..... This is a constant part of our life. Read manuals, tinker, experiment, sometimes break, then fix.....

We are getting near the north end of Clapperton, and will change our heading so we start preparing the assymetrical sail. This is the big colourful foresail. We have only launched once and we did it with the jib down and figuring it out with the jib out adds to our challenge. It takes us about 20 minutes to get the rigging ready and Fred and Beth are struggling to keep the existing sails full so we are losing more time. Finally we launch and there is only 1 line wrong. We realize we could have had this sail up about an hour ago, but thought the wind direction was not favourable. Turns out our assymetrical is capable of “reaching” not just downward sailing. More mistakes for us... We speed up and start catching up to the fleet. We are careening and surfing now at about 7 knots of speed. It is a fun sail from the top of Clapperton to James Foote patch marker. Then hell breaks loose as we struggle to keep the sails full. They are being flaky. Then a gust and the assymetrical blows its sheet and they get tangled. Both Dawson and Julie try to untangle the lines, but they are whipping around. Julie bruises her hand and gives up then Dawson gets smacked and finally we hear Fred yell, “Douse the sail”. The lightbulb in Julie and Dawson’s brain goes on and we douse quickly which controls the sail and we can untangle. We need to get the jib back out, but we are frazzled and wait to ensure that there are not tangles and delay the jib launch thereby losing even more time. Finally the jib goes back out and we have a good sail for the final 5 miles. We are deflated from all our errors and Dawson’s hand is a bit of a mess. Swelling and bruising is setting in. It was dumb of both of us to think we could hold the lines with the winds gusting the way they were. Lesson learned. Luckily no arms were broken.

The horn goes as we pass the finish line.There are a couple boats behind us, but with our handicap, they may finish ahead of us with adjusted time.Bummer! Oh well.Racing forces us to learn and challenge ourselves.We park in our slip uneventfully and break out the celebratory toasts.We get the stories of the other 2 fleets, and socialize along the docks.Off to the evening banquet to be dancing fools and call it a race and fun time!

Cheers Julie and Dawson