SCYC Summer Open

June 5&6, 2004

Right... here is a long regatta summary from the SCYC Summer Open.  It was two days but we learned a lot and a lot happened.  USA6991 is fairly damaged but we are not out of it.  For all the gory details, read on....

22 boats showed up for the regatta.  Gate starts were the plan which was also good news.  The main goal of Team Tortuga was to go to Santa Cruz and get some big air experience before the worlds.  We have sailed a couple times in the 18 range and were ready to practice in the bigger stuff (20+) before the big dance.

The boat was ready, we knew we needed some practice jibing but we were ready mentally and as you can't practice for big air without being in it, so off we went!

The forecast was for gusts of up to 30 so we were excited.  The first race Sat was a floater in sub-5kts of wind.  It was a horrible tedious experience having all the gear for big air and sweating to death in it waiting for it to build.  As for the race, we had a good start and showed some good speed initially over a lot of boats. We chose the left corner because it appeared to have better wind but we stood a good chance of getting pinned if the wind went right.  Yep- it went right.  Waaaayyyy right.  I think the majority of the fleet make the weather mark on one tack.  It was horrible watching the fleet climb up to weather and pass us due to the shift.  Tactical error... I think we finished 18th(ish).  Interesting though that the wind was totally opposite of the swell so we were sailing down waves going to weather, and up waves on the run so sail trim was very tough and driving was very strange. Was good experience though.

After the first race, the RC told us to head out to sea.  In the distance I could see big white caps.  As we got closer, they were BIG white caps. Within 1/4 mile (maybe less) the wind went from 5 to 22 kts and the seas were 4+' with some big 6' rollers. We de-powered the rig as much as possible and had some fantastic beats and runs.  We didn't even start the race, just blasted around the waves at probably 10kts boat speed (maybe more) going to weather.  It was a total rush- the boat just flies on a plane and water is everywhere- it feels like someone shooting you with a saltwater garden hose. Then when a wave hits, it throws Ben back behind me and he has to work his way back forward.  It was a lot of fun (don't know about for Ben!).  Except the time when as Ben was flying aft, his harness hook impaled me from behind (piercing the nylon and foam of the PFD and hooking on the horizontal strap of my PFD).  Ben had to unhook from me, while not unhooking from the boat while I attempted to continue to drive up and down waves.  We actually did it without slowing down much which was cool.  Downwind, we didn't even fly the chute... just screamed off the tops of waves and then back up the back side of the one in front in a very fast plane.  We tried a couple gybes which were very intense and spent quite a lot of time learning how to get the boat un-turtled in high wind.  We eventually decided that we could not depower the boat enough for the biggest of the puffs (which would overpower our totally raked back boat and stall the rudder, ending in another swimming lesson for Ben) and headed back in to work on the boat and try to depower more for Sunday.  I felt a little bad leaving early but upon arrival, found no less than 8 other boats had already retired, one with a broken mast, (Ali and Jessie).

We cleaned up, smiled, exchanged stories, drank a beer to two (or perhaps a few more...), then had a great party at Mike Holt's house (thanks Mike!). Thanks also to Aaron who let us all (three teams) crash on his floor.  Some of us (Dan and Geoff, perhaps) went to the Yacht Club (Brady's, that is) to make sure it was ready for the worlds.  It is not (and won't be) but we struggled through a few more.

Sunday started much the same as Saturday.  A light air race with better results for Team Tortuga (11th I think) followed by a slow slog to sea to look for the building wind.  It showed up right in time.  Same wind as the day before but a little stronger and the seas were bigger and much steeper. There were a lot of 6'ers that were almost breaking, making the beat up the face really awesome, then we'd crest and fly down the backside.  We did one beat and a couple tacks and were in the process of trying to depower the boat even more when we went over again and the boat turtled.  We don't know exactly what happened but in the process of righting her a big wave broke on top of us and we heard a horrible long crunching sound.  It sounded like we were dragging the submerged mast on rocks but we were miles offshore in very deep water.  We looked around and my heart sank as I saw pieces of mahogany float up from underneath.  We hailed an RC safety boat just in case and did some inspections before attempting to right the boat.  The rake was still set to 25-0, the shrouds were still on, the vang and main were both loose (I always blow the vang as the boat goes over in a last ditch attempt to keep her up and it makes it much easier to right the boat).  The standing rigging was all intact so we righted her to find that the mast had bent to stbd 1/2 way between the mast butt and the spreaders, tore through the thick wood mast box at the deck and continued on to rip a 4" wide and 6" long gash in the mahogany foredeck.  All I can figure is the weight of the water breaking on the hull, against the pressure of the water against the sail must have forced the boom laterally sideways and at the gooseneck and transferred the lateral force to the mast which blasted through the box and deck- that's my guess anyway.  Anyway, being upright, I headed off on a long reach toward shore (still planing fairly fast) while Ben lashed the lower mast to the port shroud to keep it from tearing anything else up.  We made it in under our own power and had the beer Ben had stashed on the boat (Ben is the BEST crew!)

We got into SCYC to find at least half-dozen boats already in with various maladies like jib halyard shiv tore out, spinnakers knotted in spreaders, etc. etc.  After a post-trauma beer, we picked up the pieces and headed back home.  We are currently weighing our options but while we do not have a boat at present, we are planning on sailing TNT this Thurs, FC#2 Sunday in a yet-to-be-determined boat and hopefully make it back to SCYC in July for one more session in the big stuff before the worlds.

Overall... it was a great time.  The guys at SCYC are great and the wind is unbelievable.  See you in July!

Cheers,
Geoff

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not much to add to Geoff's rather complete account, except to say  "hey, we were there too!" It really was crazy how the wind went  from zero to 20+ in a couple of minutes. The waves on Sunday were  somewhere between 6ft (my guess) and 10ft (Dan's guess) and shooting over them while headed out to sea we got some pretty good air. The  bow dropped 6ft on the backside of one wave and the bang when we  landed was louder than any noise I've heard on a boat. Glad to report  that nothing broke all weekend on Phlegm. We were right behind Tortuga  when they capsized. Didn't see which wave crushed their deck... there were a lot of them.

After the flip-fest last month, Dan and I were happy to make it  through the weekend with only one capsize. That happened right before  the start of the second race on Saturday when I said "tack", but  Dan heard something else, or maybe nothing over all the noise of
the wind, and over we went. Of course that was 2 minutes before  the start, and we were the rabbit. Nothing like a little pressure  to bring your game up to speed, and with everyone watching us we managed to get the boat upright with 30 seconds to spare. The water had almost all drained out as we streaked past the starting buoy. Unfortunately we had crashed down into a big mat of algae when we capsized so we had to sail the race with green streamers flying from the rigging.

But that was actually our best race of the regatta. Quite a change from our usual performance in big wind. Partly that was due to not flying the spinnaker. We made the strategic call to sail the runs with just main and jib and, even though we were maybe 20% slower than the other boats, we watched them crash all around us on both runs and only lost one boat going downwind. The other factor making that a good race was the extra effort and concentration we put into keeping the boat flat and minimizing the amount of flopping around we did.

On Sunday we did set the chute in the big wind race. What a ride. Those waves really look tall right before you go flying down them. Timing was crucial to not capsizing in the gybes. We went for it in the lulls whether on layline or not and just doused early for the final reach to the leeward mark. Again, staying in control was key to doing well. All in all it was a good regatta for us and we ended up in 8th or 9th place (there were multiple versions of the results floating around).

Like Geoff said, the shoreside activity was top-rate and Aaron kindly turned his house over to several crews even though he wasn't in town for the weekend. Can't wait to do it all again next month at the PCC's.

Bill