Folks,
thanks for the posting regarding our first swiftsure. It was a great event and I look forward to next year. I will say, however, that I'm ready for a rest from racing having done 3 races 3 weeks in a row including 2 long distance events. All in all, I've put well over 500 miles under the keel in 3 weeks and I need a little rest. For the next few months, our Friday Night Log Dodge events will be fine since it is extremely informal.
As for the Swiftsure, yes, I have a few stories. Early into the race, one of the folks who was tailing was a little slow to pull in the headsail resulting in my first spreader putting a nice rip in my very old Kevlar sail. It was very minor at that point and given a small assortment of sails on board, we continued the race quit successfully with it until Murphy showed up later in the evening. More specifically, later in the race when I was down below, we failed to adequately bring the boat sufficiently around (read over stating during the tack) and put a much larger hole in the sail that was now only held together by a very strong leech line. Given the light winds and our close proximity to the mark (~7 miles out), we elected to continue keeping it flying opposed to going to our 90% from our 135%. This impacted our pointing ability and we lost a lot of ground at this time (we were doing well up until now). The down wind leg was equally enjoyable as I got to fly a brand new .6oz spinnaker that I purchased for$800. Unfortunately, heading in to Race Rocks we encountered ~25+ knots of wind and I thought my new kite was going to become a “one use” designed. After watching flog in the wind while we tried to take it down, I’m really amazed that it didn’t self destruct given the repeat broaches as we tried to get in the calm around race rocks. Seeing this wasn’t the case, we finally got it down but certainly not without some challenges. After we got it in the boat, we noticed the rudders of a Cat that had turtled (check out
http://www.pacificfog.net/Temp/CatSass.swf for details and some great shots).
All in all, it was a great ride. I’ll likely do the same race next year or perhaps the cape flattery race. We did the long course last year and got first in class and 7th overall (on an express 37) so there is not need to try and beat that high water mark. I noticed another 38 did that course though and it would be nice to race against another like boat. There was a 3rd that did the 18 mile course so that wasn’t a good reference point.
Things for next year.
Remove the chain from the locker.
Empty more of the water tanks.
Have less fuel on board
Have a new pentex 135
Update the roller furling to a twin track with removeable drum.
Go Race!
Thanks
Regards
shaun