Jul 5, 2001

Marina del Rey - San Diego Race

The 34th annual 100 mile race started on June 30th, 11:00 AM.  There have been upwards of 350 entrants in some past years, but this year it was a manageable 48 boats in most PHRF classes, plus a spin and non-spin cruising class.

  What started out to be a six man crew, ended up with an old friend, short on sailing experience, but good on naviguessing, my sailing brother from N.J., and myself.  Doable, but a bit short handed if any sleep was desired.

  It is basically an easy race, in that the only course change is the 11 mile bouy at Palos Verdes Peninsula, where a 45 degree left is made and then a straight shot to Pt. Loma, the entrance to the San Diego harbor 90 miles southeast.

  The hard part, as Roger Jones described in a few emails to me, from his experiences in prior races, is to asertain whether to go INSIDE or OUTSIDE.  The late night light breezes are either light off shore breezes coming off the desert, or prevailing onshore breezes.  Depending on which is occuring, the plan is to follow the coast closely, after turning the PV Peninsula, or head out close to Catalina, and stay outside (offshore) some 20 miles.  It appeared to me that the outside was the best route to take, and I was relieved to see that about all the fleet made the same decision.

  We got off to a great start, first across the line, at about 5 kts, and maintained the lead in our class (18 boats) to the PV mark.  Got caught in the doldrums getting arund the corner (too close to the high hills of the peninsula - damn!), and lost a number of positions.

  Had a great broad reach run across the LA shipping channels, doing from 6 to 7.3kts., continuing down past Catalina to about Newport Beach - Dana Pt. area.  I'm thinking, "This is great, we're gonna be in San Diego before sunrise!".  Wrong thoughts, right?  Like someone turned off the big fan in the sky, within 5 minutes, we came to just about a dead stop - nothing, flap, flap.

  Put up a big light (borrowed) drifter, and managed to crawl mebbe 6 miles in 3 hours.  Flapped our way through the night for the balance of the distance, arriving at the finish line at 10:45 AM, almost 23 hours after the start.

  This is definitely a spinanaker race, but not having one, I settled for the nonspin class.  Got to upgrade for next year!

  Finished 6th in class.

  Too bad Gary, you wern't on my boat for your first race, and sorry I didn't think to call you at the last minute. Too bad you had that kind of experience. Nothing but laughs on my boat - well, 99% of the time.  But never any screaming!...........  

PC
'80 Cal 31.5 #122

Date: Mon, Jul 2, 2001

I raced Friday night. A skipper on our dock was without a crew and talked 3 of us into racing with him.

We were late getting out and headed to the course under full throttle raising sails with the wind on our beam. None of had been on his boat before and there were lots of lines running back to the cockpit. The skipper was already screaming like a madman at 3 guys he's known for only 5 minutes. Raise the main it's the outboard halyard. No No No #$%@ the inboard halyard you dumb %^&$#.

We were late getting to the line and everyone had quite a jump on us. The skipper didn't know the course but the committee boat was very helpful screaming out the numbers as we roared past the starting line. We also had lots of boats to show the way.

The downwind leg was not dead downwind. None of the other boats were running wing on wing. Our skipper decided to use his new wisker pole and give it a try. None of us of had never used a wisker pole or had any racing experience for that matter. The wind was quite brisk and the seas were choppy. I was one of the 2 who went forward to set the pole. We managed to get the sail over and the pole attached to the sail but then the real fun began as we tried to push the sail out and attach it the pole to the mast. The skipper was so busy screaming profanities and waving his arms that he was doing a very poor job of maintaining a heading. The sail was flapping about wildly, the pole cracked the other guy in the head several times and nearly impaled me once, I'm very quick when it comes to ducking and sidestepping. After several minutes we managed to clip it on the mast. Then we began the process of extending the pole. Even with both of us pulling on the extension line with all our strength we could only extend it a few inches. Again more swearing from the skipper, erratic steering, and the sail went forward of the head stay and around to the other side putting quite a bow in the wisker pole. We appeared to be running at hull speed with only the main and I'm now wondering why we're risking life and limb messing with this pole in what now feels like gale force winds. Somehow we manage to get sail over and tried to extend the pole again. This is when we notice the 3rd inexperienced guy has the sail sheeted into the spreaders. He's probably been working against us all along. We begin screaming at him to release the sheet so we can extend the pole. He can't hear us over the howling winds and it takes several hand gestures to get the message understood. The skipper is again screaming profanities at us and demanding that we extend the $%^@# pole, apparently obliblivious to what is causing our difficulties.

Finally the sheet is released, the pole extended and we make our way back to the cockpit, leaving a trail of blood, fortunately not mine. We're less than a minute from the mark and it's time to get the pole in. Again more problems. We've attached the pole to the sail rather than the sheet and can't get it off the sail. We finish the race with the pole attached to the sail and banging around on the fordeck.

After the race we had a beer and discussed everything that went wrong and all the mistakes we made. The skipper accepted no responsibility for any of the mistakes but was more than willing to criticize our efforts. We weren't much of a crew in his opinion. This racing is fun and I'm anxious to do it again. Although I think this particular skipper will be looking for crew again next week. Gary Dickel
1967 Cal 34 #61

Jun 3, 2001

Rake & Racing Report

I spent most of Friday afternoon re-tuning my mast back to plumb, and tuning the backstay tensioner so it would take the stretch out of the wire, pull the slack out of the headstay and then add a bit of bend to the mast. I can get about a 1" camber before I start pulling too far inward on the split back stays. I rigged a Cunningham last week, as well. I wanted to get out and do some test runs, but ran behind as usual and duty called from home.

My test runs--racing PHRF on Saturday, in a 5 boat fleet. Only one of the boats had more than two people on it, (a J-22) so there was no spinnaker class. That was a relief to me, as all of my crew had one reason or another to flake out, except my loyal son, who has been sailing only twice. There was 12-15 knots of wind +/- and the sea was very flat--of course it is always pretty flat inside a 3 to 5 mile radius of the harbor, where most of our "casual" club races occur. My Cal 2-29 points higher with a plumb stick! No question about it. She points higher, sails flatter without weather helm, and sails faster close hauled. The head-stay tensioner also makes a difference when pointing, but I need to remember to release it for reaching--it makes a noticeable difference. Even with it slacked off completely she still sails better in every way.

So, now I've got her dialed in and ready to fine tune and compete. All I have to do is learn how to skipper a race. No problem, right? I made some laughable progress for those who want to wade through the agony. The quote for the day was "Snatching defeat from the jaws of Victory!" Race #1 Got a miserable start--in fact dead last. I make up some time upwind, and blow by the 4th place boat downwind. A J-22 that sails PHRF is a distant speck, but I realize I have more speed downwind--not enough to catch him from that distance, but comforting to note. I caught the 3rd place boat at the leeward mark. I needed another 100 feet of downwind course to get rights inside him, and he calls "clear ahead", I yell "damned if it ain't true" and he crosses my bow to round the mark. My son was at the helm, and I thought it best for me to wrestle the whisker pole down, so I told him to "follow them around." He's a good boy--follows orders well. I didn't think to tell hem how fast they might slow down if they "threw" the helm over hard and didn't sheet home efficiently. So my son is being screamed at by the opposing skipper--distracted--he doesn't dodge fast enough, attempts to turn inside but there's a huge iron channel buoy there. Thank God he picked the softer of two objects to run into. Crunch. Gotta paint a Catalina 30 silhouette below my cockpit. Back on the wind, did a 360 penalty turn. Wait, should I do a 720? Can't remember--oh well, maybe I'll come in 5th instead of 4th. Ooops. Disqualified.

(My impact caught the Catalina on the toe-rail 3' forward of the transom--he's a great guy, and laughs it off-- but my boat needs filler and awl-grip. Glad my Anchor was laying in the dinghy back at the dock. Might have been in that Catalina's port lazarette.) Race #2 Nailed the start. Full speed on starboard and on favored side of the course. Forced the J-22 to go under and head for the beach. First tack, my son had trouble getting the sheet off the winch and we lose a little time. The J-22 tacks back from the beach. Can he lay the mark? He always does, so I cross his wake and tack a couple lengths above him. We're pointing well and we're gaining on him. We're well above the mark, so I ease her down and pick up some speed. (did I really do that?) We're within 3 boat-lengths and I know I'll pass him easily downwind. The J-starts pointing higher and higher and suddenly I realize he's in a big current and will miss the mark. I miss it too, naturally, but we're still well out in front of the rest of the fleet. Even though there's lots of time between us and the 3rd boat, I want that J so bad, I rush my second tack, miss the mark again and have to tack a second time. #3 boat comes up on starboard, as I build speed away from the mark, and he forces us to duck him before we can tack to round. That delays us enough to let #4 boat get overlap, he calls it and we let him around inside. We pass #4 downwind, but he's the skipper that I race with on Wednesdays, and is also my mentor. He plays with my wind a while, but since he had foolishly loaned me his whisker pole (before deciding to enter this race,) I head down a bit and run clear of him. It's nice that he's a good sport--He is at a huge disadvantage running DDW without it. He yells that he wants his pole back, and I tell him to come and get it. We round the Leeward mark flawlessly and finish 30-40 seconds behind him, managing to take 3rd place in a race we could have won.

What a great sport. I'm totally addicted. David

David Wilkie Owen Cal 2-29 "Missy" Santa Barbara, CA http://www.101freeway.com/users/wilkiespag