Team Seacats

Friday’s racing was…interesting. NOAA was calling for 15knots with gusts to 28knots. We were a little busy trying to keep the boat upright (and fast) to consider what the wind was really doing, but I wouldn’t be surprised to have seen some of those upper 20s. We started the day by raking the mast back a little further to experiement to see if we could get the boat to point higher into the breeze…with the heavy air, this was a good idea anyway to help depower the boat. I think only 25 boats dared to venture out in the breeze so we stood to pick up a few positions by simply finishing. The Race Committee set us up for a three lap course and we started conservatively. We were doing pretty well and were mid-fleet coming into the second rounding of the windward A-mark when we noticed one of the new Nacra Infusions had broken their wing-mast and demasted (their mainsheet had come uncleated during a jibe leaving the mast unsurported to handle the high wind spinnaker loads). There was one boat capsized at A (and several around the course) so we were going wide to give them some room. A big sustained blast of wind came down on us and we were struggling to get the boat to turn through the wind to get back down the course. I tried twice to turn but had to quickly jam the helm to weather as the wind drove the bows in and started to pull the rudders out of the water. The gust seemed to subside a little but David and I had a miscommunication on the boat and as I turned down, he moved forward to release the jib sheet on the front beam. We plowed in and flipped just a little beyond a boat that had broken their spinnaker pole and were trying to recover. As we were trying to turn the boat into the wind to right it, the boat with the broken spin pole (still upright) drifted into us. They brought up their daggerboards but their rudder caught our trapeze lines and while their skipper desperately tried to free them from our rigging, they capsized on top of us. Incredibly, no damage occured other than breaking the bunji’s holding our trapeze lines in place. We righted the boat and setoff downwind again without the spinnaker while we caught our breath and tried to get the boat back in order. We rounded the downwind C-mark gate and headed back upwind slowly catching boats again. The trapeze lines were streaming out behind the boat and if I timed it just right, I could snag one or two with the tiller extension everytime we tacked so at least one of us could trapeze. As we rounded A-mark for the last time (more on that later) we were in the back of the fleet but had two boats just ahead. Unlike the other boats, we set the spinnaker to try and pick up a couple more positions. We passed those two boats and during a lull just leading a big gonzo blast were making the last jibe for the finish line – I was concerned that we might overstand the layline to the finish and thought we could get the boat jibed before the blast got us – but I was wrong. Without enough boat speed, the wind nailed us and we went swimming again. We righted the boat again and started back for the finish line but the Race Committee had finished us on the course and sent everyone back for the beach.

Now, remember that last A-mark rounding? The race committee had set a new A-mark to compensate for a wind shift but because all the chase boats were busy trying to assist the capsized and damaged boats, they blew the horn and flew the Charlie Flag (change course) from the committee boat that was a little further away from the C-gate (we never heard the horn due to the howling wind and the deluge of water). Further complicating things, the previous A-mark buoy and offset mark were still in the water. It turns out that not one boat sailed the proper course for the last leg and the Race Committee threw the race out – on paper, it never happened. That was terribly dissapointing.

We left shortly after the awards ceremony last night and got about 1.5 hours down the road – we were watching one heck of a light show from a major storm ahead of us (to the south) and a check of the radar on the computer showed multiple tornado watches and multiple flash flooding warnings. We elected to shut down for the night just north of that system at a rest stop (John Williams joined us about 45 minutes later). We got up at 5am and headed out – that same line of storms was STILL there but had subsided a little overnight. We got through and are currently just south of this pretty severe building line. I feel sorry for the guys that are trailering with RV’s that left this morning! I hope they’re safe.

I’ll put up some reflections on the event maybe later today or tomorrow. I need to check the radar again.