Know When to Walk Away, Know When to Rum

(Written for STYC Anchorline)

After a winter's worth of hard work getting Ishtar ready to race, we thought we would take her up to Canada and shake her down at the Southern Straits.  As you might have heard, the race dished out more than most people bargained for.  

The delivery ride up was a beautiful, calm cruise through the San Juans and Gulf Islands.  But by the time the crew arrived in full at the WVYC there was a fair amount of concern about the weather forecast.  Originally, it looked pretty good, with even a possibility of a spinnaker ride both ways, at least for the short course boats.  By Thursday, that forecast was gone and they were calling for a gale.  The WVYC brought in a top notch weather guy from Weather Canada and he pulled no punches in his briefing, saying that the system had developed into a closed low (reminded me of tropical storm gribs in the South Pacific with the low in the 975mB range) and that "this was the most dangerous weather system we could see for a race."  He also stated clearly that winds over 50 knots, and likely over 60 we probable, with seas (square waves) to 5-6 meters.  There were long moments of silence in the packed room as we all absorbed this.

Ishtar is a 30 year old boat, with 25' of waterline.  I've spent some time offshore, and have made my share of poor decisions when it comes to weather, at least according to my wife.  But even on bigger boats that were purpose built for offshore work we never contemplated going out in a forecast like this one, with so much certainty of misery. 

Still, there I was Friday morning, talking to the Race Committee Chair (intending to withdraw), when he said "it looks like the system may move over a little faster than expected, might not be as bad as forecast, and that he might postpone the start to allow the weather to pass through." Well, OK, let's go have a quick look, I thought.  After a brief discussion with the crew (Stu, Scott, Brandon, Eli, John) we threw off the lines and headed out.

We didn't get very far.  We rounded the corner at Point Atkinson and the wind was cranking 35 gusting 40.  It was all we could do to beat in towards the starting line, and our engine (who doesn't care for bad weather) wasn't able to provide much help.  After we heard on the radio about a boat losing part of its mast and watching another right in front of us blow up her mainsail, we thought that there was little glory to be had by us that day.  So we chucked our pride, spun her around and scooted home at 8 knots with just the storm jib up.  We were the first boat back to the bar, with zero damage aside from the ego bruises, and we medicated ourselves accordingly.

Throughout the day we sat in the bar and watched the carnage roll in.  A 40'er came in to be met at the dock by EMT, carrying someone off on a backboard (sheet caught round his neck?).  Not long after, they came back to get a different guy on a different boat (broken leg?).  We heard that two masts were lost, windows were blown out, and over 50 sails destroyed in a fleet of 40 or so boats that went out.  Worst of all, last year's winner in our class, Incisor,  was rolled and sunk.  The crew were pulled off by the J-30 Radiant Heat, and taken to Nanaimo for treatment.  In all, 11 or 12 people overboard, 9 hospitalized before the race was finally abandoned at 3:45PM and boats were advised to seek shelter.

Sometimes that tendency to head off to the bar early isn't such a bad thing.

Doing Swiftsure on Delicate Balance and other sorry updates

Much to the chagrin of Ishtar and crew, the skipper is jumping ship (again) for this race.  I am thinking of doing the Vic-Maui aboard Delicate Balance, a Canadian X-Yachts 1 tonner.  Swiftsure is a qualifying race in a number of ways (for the boat, and for the 2 open crew positions aboard).  Besides, I have a soft spot for X-yachts, and I have been wanting to test drive one in a blow for awhile now.  So there you have it.  Never mind that this one is water ballasted, had a sprit on the bow, and rates even with Mad Max, a regular race winner up there in the offshore races.  (They have a crew of 20, we have 6 and a glorified bilge pump...)

So in spite of the fact that we have a crew ready and willing to sail on Ishtar, no one appears to want to step up and drive.  And pay...the race costs a few $ as well.  Oh, and registration is closed.

Sorry chaps, hassle Brandon.  He appears to want to go cruising with the Sloop tavern folks instead?

Also, Whidbey Island Race week is off the calendar.  Our good friend Brandon has decided to take the boat to a wedding...

I'd hassle him more, but I sailed in and out of my wedding on Whidbey, which is where he says he is going...

How Not to Win the Ballard Cup...

Good race last week, lots of tension, drama, and a decent result.  There was not a lot of wind (none, whatsoever) as we motored out to the start, but we were surprised at how many boats came out to play.  Guess it was the last race of the series and with the series lead close between Ishtar, Muffin, Dacha, and Last Tango, it looked like most of the fleet was out there drifting around with us.

After a 5 minute postponement the wind came up and with Stuart calling tactics we found a decent hole that allowed us to get over to the beach quickly.  Not all the boats were so lucky, a couple were over early, and Mark on Summer Light wrapped the barge mooring line hanging off the hamburger buoy around his keel trying to get back to the line.  

As we got close to the beach at Golden Gardens we had a brush with a Farr 395 that had rights on us (but wasn't actually in the race).  We crossed him, tacked, and when we looked up, we found ourselves in 3rd, right behind our arch rival, Muffin.  Drat!

To make matters worse, she was driven by Kevin Swackhamer, the guy who won Whidbey Island Race week, the Grand Prix, and pretty much everything else on Ishtar back when she as called Isabeau.  It didn't take long for us to lock horns.

At the windward mark, he rounded a little wide, and I ducked up under him and drove for clean air above him.  He wasn't happy about this--at the bar he told me we didn't belong in there.  Hmmm... (whatever).  It looked to me like he left the door open, and we walked right through it. He also mentioned that he was going to try and take us up all the way to the beach, and the only thing that kept him from doing it was the traffic.

Yep, saved by traffic.  By now everyone else in the race was banging towards us on starboard headed up wind, while we were on port headed downwind with our spinnaker up, close reaching between an angry leeward boat and a line of starboard tackers trying to cheat down because their depth alarms were going off if they strayed too high along the beach at Golden Gardens.  Everyone had rights on us, and we were stuck.  But hey, at least Kevin couldn't force us up any further.

Boats above us were yelling Starboard!  The guys on Muffin started yelling about our kite touching their rig, we were yelling at them for room.  Finally Kevin drove down and gave us some space.  We promptly got the kite full and back and sailed over the top of them.  Now they were really angry, and beaten.  

We thought hard about doing turns, but in the end we felt he was playing hardball, and if he wanted to play that way, he needed to protest us.  He didn't, and we sailed the great circle (breakwater route) allowing us to stay in better wind than most of the fleet.  

By the leeward mark had a good lead on most of our competition.  Excepting Last Tango, who sailed basically the same route, didn't tangle with their rivals, and had a nice clean race.  Next time we'll try that instead.  In corrected time, we only ended up losing to them by 3 seconds...a lot of ways we could have gotten those three seconds back, too.  Oh well.

The long and the short of it was that we ended up crushing the Muffin, Last Tango won the race, and we were second.  Just good enough to secure our spot first overall for the series.  Well done Team Ishtar!  

I had a beer with the Muffin Boys afterward, and they were actually pretty nice about the whole thing.  They said we should have tried to cross the starboard tacking boats.  Hmmm, maybe (no!) but when I mentioned that the beach was on the other side, and that I was hesitant to cross a line of boats to park Ishtar on the beach with her kite up, I got the sense that perhaps the whole thing was a bit aggressive for a Monday night.  Then we got talking about the NOODS, and before you know it the whole thing was forgotten.  At least until next week.

Kevin even volunteered to sail with us and give us some coaching.  Guess it pains him to look at our sail shape (his notes:  needed to have more leech line on the main, more runner on the jib, and to shift gears by moving the draft back and forth on the main with cunningham.  He also says the mainsheet cam slips, and we need to wrap it round the entire block and half hitch it to stop this.)

So after a fun night of racing, we had a great time at the awards ceremony.  They gave out a number of trophies and we got our share.  The awards included

• Our sticker for second
• our mug for the series win
• 2 engraved plates for Race to the Straits, a 1st in class, and 1st overall in Division 1
• a nice canvas bag to haul our loot home in

A big night for the old girl.  Thanks to everybody who helped us win the dinnerware.  We go back to work next Monday when the second series starts, and I am springing for new Ishtar hats for those came out to help.  Bribery?  Maybe (yep!) but something seems to be working...let's keep it up!

Thanks again everybody.  I had a great time sailing with you all and hope that we can build some momentum here for more great racing this summer.

Graeme Esarey

P.S. results are at http://www.styc.org/ 

Race to the Straits Report

Janna and I had a great race the first weekend in May at the Sloop Tavern's Race to the Straits, a two day up and back race that is either singlehanded, or doublehanded.  This year there were 106 boats registered.  to keep our marriage intact, we have chosen the NFS class, and are back defending our title (1st in class, first overall, NFS division 2009)  Once again we have some talented competition, but old Ishtar is a Wylie dog, and this year folks are gunning for us.


After a drifter port start, we coasted across the sound keeping pace with the other NFS boats in front and behind us.  Gradually we pull away from Grayling as we work tide lines and sail hotter angles to keep the boat moving.  By the time we get to Point No Point at tide change, the wind is starting to build.  Our "middle west" approach worked for awhile, but by the time we get to wind, the smaller boats are gone.  Still with 100+ boats on the course, we had plenty of company.
When the wind finally picked up, it actually started honking out of the north and we scooted around the Double Bluff mark to finish the shortened course.  Because by then it was 5PM, it was too late for any of the boats to finish the long course.  We were the second NFS boat to finish, and won our class for the first leg.  Still we owed Time Flies (a well sailed "little guy" who started earlier with more wind) almost an hour.  So we knew we had our work cut out for us on the return leg.


Sunday was a bit of everything.  Had a pleasant start in light air (only a slight problem in that we had to be towed to the start 10 minutes prior because I couldn't get the engine bled and primed) tacking into the bay for tide relief.  We followed Ladybug to Marrowstone, where the entire fleet slammed into a nasty back eddy against 3.5 knots of tide.  With about 4 knots of wind.  Parking lot #1.  Boats aground, drifting, head sails down.  We exited with negative VMG to cross to the Whidbey side, followed by 2/3 of the fleet.
We did fairly well short tacking the coast, seemed to do better than the boats on the Marrowstone side, but since it was a re-start, the faster boats passed us and we had all we could do to keep a couple of well sailed Moore 24s behind us.  We rounded DB around two, just ahead of Blue Martini and Just behind Whistling Swan, with Fandango (the eventual overall winner) just ahead of them.
Then we caught a ride on The Zipper, the tide line over to the other side, passed a number of faster boats and managed put the C&C115 fleet in our rear view mirror.  Temporarily.
Just as we started congratulating ourselves, we found parking lot # 2, as the entire fleet crashed into a big wind hole.  By 4PM it looked like the 100 or so boats had all joined us, parked off Point No Point for a few hours.  
I had plenty of time to get the engine working again, so about 5:30 we fired up the engine to motor home, with the bulk of the fleet taking off in a cloud of blue smoke at about the same time when we realized finishing the long course would be impossible.  
Then it blew 35 on our nose.  Oh, and we were towing Frecklebelly Madtom, who couldn't get their engine to start. Then our engine died.  Fun.

So we ended up towing a Moore 24 home in the teeth of it, under reefed main alone.  Would have been motor sailing, but the engine kept losing its prime, and needing to be bled.  Still, good fun! 

Finally got into the marina about 8:30.  The race committee stayed late to help us with a tow if needed (not) and the good folks from Kowloon came down to catch our lines.  We were beat, but not beaten.

Once again, Ishtar finished first in class, both days.  And we snatched back the first overall division win from Quixote, who had a great day on Sunday, where speed overcame the early start advantage that the smaller boats had on Saturday.  

We had fun, Janna drove wonderfully, and I proved my worth as a diesel mechanic if not as a sailor, and we were able to motor in the last couple of miles to the marina and the exhausted but grateful guys on Frecklebelly.  bought Scotch for me and flowers for Janna.  How is that for a happy ending?