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ISHTAR GETS A NEW OWNER

It is with great sadness that we said goodbye to ISHTAR.  She was sold to a couple of folks who we hear will continue to race her, and who dream of shorthanded racing to Hawaii in her one day.  We wish them the best of luck, and that she teaches them as much about racing and having fun on the water as she taught us.  She is a great old boat, fast, and extremely rewarding to sail.  We will miss you Ishtar!

It is not all sadness here though.  The crew has moved on to bigger things, and we are racing Kotuku, a Farr 1220 that has more room, a lot more strings to pull, and yes, more waterline (almost 10 feet more, actually).

Look for us at KotukuSailing.Blogspot.com

Ishtar Cruising

Ishtar has a tendency to take the middle of the summer off and go cruising.  We did exactly that, cruising for 9 days over the 4th of July to the San Juans.  Even with the dacron main from the 80s and an old number two, loaded down with provisions for a family of 4 and a large lab, Ishtar hauls the mail.  We had a great sail up, carried the 1.5oz kite through Cattle Pass jibing back and forth between the rocks bucking tide, with Talia doing a bit of the driving.  (not a bad helmsgirl, at 4)  Then had head to head racing with a Freedom 36 (same handicap) and a Cal 30--Eli's boat every day, just to keep us sharp.  Race results?  Well, it hurts Eli and Tom to admit it but Ishtar was undefeated although Pegasus, the Freedom was a handful if the wind was up and we were reaching.  Upwind, in the islands, I like Ishtar's chances.  Really looking forward to the Northern Century as it will show us if our crew work lately will pay off in the longer races.

Ishtar is off again in the islands this week, as Brandon and Anh are taking their turn.  Too bad they had to choose Whidbey Island Race Week, but they couldn't get their friend to change their wedding date for us so I guess we are stuck.

2 Races, 2 Places

OK, so we are not quite off to the banner start we had in Series I.  So far, with two races in the book we have yet to win a race.  But we haven't been clobbered either.  

In the first race we sailed well tactically, but at the final leeward mark rounding we jammed our kite halyard and couldn't get the sail down.  Watching Kowloon and Muffin go by us (while we dropped from first to back of the pack) was a killer.  But we fought through, got the sails down, the jib back up and ground back a couple of places to salvage a 3rd.  (One of the other boats who crossed in front of us actually retired for sailing into a restricted area, so I consider this a soft third.)

In the second race they sent us up to Spring Beach for the long race, despite the fact that the wind was fluky.  We got a solid start in 2nd place (behind Muffin) out of an 11 boat fleet, and began the long beat outside into a northerly with a lot of west in it.  Inside, Kowloon (with Ringer Bob Pistay calling tactics) found an Easterly breeze that led them more directly to the mark.  Muffin and a lot of the rest of the fleet got stuck in a dead zone in the middle.  Summer Light really got the outside to pay heading home, and finished first across the line.  Kowloon did better by staying inside, and actually corrected into first.  Leaving Ishtar 3rd across the line and 3rd on handicap.

So after two races, 2 thirds.  Good enough for a strong second place so far for the series, but Kowloon is looking tough to dislodge at the top.  We will have to match race with them next week and see if e can't steal a point or two on them.  Good sailing!

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.