June 9, 2001 - SYC's Blakley Rock Race…
A tale of two multi's.
Submitted by
Martyn & Linda Adams
It was a dark and windy night…Hey! Let's back up 12 hours.
June 8, 2001. SYC Club house. SYC has a free meal, free beer & wine, some
real nice people and Linda and I find out the next day's race to Point Lip Lip
is really to our old friend Blakley Rocks. We had just rigged the boat at
Shilshole and made the Friday night party. The wind was blowing at a steady 12
out of the North (yep the North) when we left the boat and it looked like we
should have a dandy day for the race. After the party and Vic-Maui race
presentation we returned to launch and settle in for the night. Huh? Southerly
at 6??? Jib is on but it feels like rain so the chute goes below. It's important
to keep it dry.
Now the mood is set.
It was a dark and windy night. 2 AM I awake to the wind howling, boat
creaking and other unpleasant sounds in the night. Sounds like a gale. Pillow
goes over head and I try to go back to sleep. Some time later Linda's quiet
voice utters, "Sounds windy!(?)" My brilliant rejoinder, "Uh
huh." The radio goes on about 7AM to WBX. The winds are 0 at Forks, 3-5
most other places and 12 at SeaTac. I stick my head out and it is not as bad as
it sounds. Southerly at 12-15…Cool!
At 8:30 we meet a friend from our sailing class we invited to join us to see
what a race is all about. Seems he went sailing a few times before.
As we round the north end of the jetty, my eyes got kind of round. We are
getting bounced around and I announce we are hoisting the main with the 1st reef
and I'm reefing the jib as well. The skipper says OK and that she still has way
too much power with all the other boats around.
8:50 is the first gun. We are the last start but we don't know how many
starts there are. We spotted Shadow and realized we only had 2 multis.
Hey, they are going way up there. Are they leaving? I know it's windy but…
We watch as class after class start. Oh goodness they are all flying kites.
Linda and I look at each other and I say "No way! I'll rig the screacher
but no kite." OK this has got to be our start. We are set up for our run at
the line. Wait here comes Shadow. I guess it is not our start. 5 minutes
later with 1 minute 30 to go it is time to jibe and run for the line. Shadow
is ahead and look at them go. Looks like they have a reef in the main and maybe
the jib too. We cross the line late and I announce the screacher is coming out
and to furl the jib. Talk about jets. Our guest is planted on the upwind ama and
is told to hang on. Shadow is beam reaching and we reach off a bit
more---15.5 kn solid and it looks like we have Shadow on a reel. At maybe
8 lengths they match us and together we gain 10 minutes on the rest of the boats
to the Jefferson head mark. Hey, I thought you weren't supposed to fly any
pennants or flags. One of the monos lost both guys on their chute and it is
streaming straight out from the top of the mast!
We round the mark wide and I wrestle the screacher back onto the furler and
pop the little blade jib we sail Cuttlefish with (Yep, I should have
rigged out the jib first) and Linda swings hard on the wind. Oh, Oh, Shadow's
lead has stretched. "What is the wind?" Linda calls as she extends the
tiller handle and moves outboard. Two of the monos ahead are at 60 degrees of
heel and most others are laid over pretty good. Our guest's eyes are wide as I
point to a big mono that broached with sails flogging and leeward rail in the
water. That has got to be one violent maneuver but then all this heeling ...They
have to be standing on the walls.
Us… 11 degrees of heel, 10.5 kn boat speed, 29-32+ kn apparent wind at 50
deg, spray flying with the leeward ama planted to 80 percent and penetrating the
bigger waves as they explode off the akas. Linda…absolute concentration on the
telltales, a firm and gentle grip on the tiller extension, minimum deflections
to the rudder (there is no name writing in the wake this day!), a quick flick of
the eyes to scan for the fleet, a flinch as another wave slaps an aka, that same
look of determined confidence she had when she flew in bad weather, the grunt
and powerful input to the tiller to counter a gust as it catches Cuttlefish
at the top of a crest and twists us off that mental line she has plotted for the
boat. Our guest, Bob perched high on the windward ama trying to take it all in,
a look of shock as a wave crest slams into the forward windward aka exploding
into a shower of cold salty spray (a drenching reminder of why we insisted he
don a suit of our blue Ruf Duck rainwear at the start). Me…a thousand
questions, trim the jib a touch more, the main with the reef is well formed with
the four leech telltales streaming straight aft but it "feels"
different, travel up (will it reduce the twist), I should move the pocket
farther forward and reduce foot tension, the monos are pointing higher but we
are keeping up, where is Shadow, how is shroud tension…this was one of
the scary parts for me. When I checked the shrouds I noticed the leeward cap
shroud was loose. Not slack but LOOSE. I sprang to the windward tensioner and
pulled it to the next mark (4400 lbs) and saw no discernable difference! I
believe my statement went something like, "Oh Oh" which seemed to get
both Linda's and Bob's attention. Sometimes it is faster to act than tell. I
snapped both the main and the jib sheets loose and told Linda to depower the
boat that something was wrong with the shrouds. It seems a wave had smacked the
leeward aka at the fiddle block clam cleat and knocked the shroud tensioner
loose. I reset it to the 4400 lb mark, trimmed the sails and off we go again. I
believe at this point I am running 50% adrenalin and I admit I nearly threw in
the towel. What is that splash? "My gosh, there is a dolphin swimming in
our bow wave!" "Hey! There is one on this side too!" I'm sorry
but this is "way-cool".
I took a deep breath, "What do you think? Two hours and we are a third
of the way through this race. The wind is blowing harder. There is no sign of Shadow.
He probably had enough sense to go home. You want to quit?" Linda gave me a
long look and a quick look around. "Let's continue this port tack over to
the shore", she said. "The wind is lower and we can decide
there." Well, the wind was lower; the water a bit smoother, and there is a
real header. All the thrashing and bashing just wasted time. Here the wind has
shifted 10 maybe 15 degrees to the west and we can lay the point and sail at 65
- 70 degrees apparent rather than the 50 degrees we were trying to do.
(Hindsight is so great. If only we had done this as soon as we rounded the first
mark. Next time!!!). Look! There goes Shadow sailing proudly downwind to
the finish. His chute is full and there is only 1 other boat around him going
that-a-way.
All thoughts of stopping are gone. There are a bunch of monos to play with so
lets "get it on" as my son Roger would say. I would love to say we
zipped through the field and sucked their sails off….We didn't! We did creep
by three of the boats and opted to do an extra tack to get more room around
Blakley Rocks to the delight of a forth boat we were trying to pass. When we
finally fell off to a beam reach past the rocks we did hit 15 kn and then
dropped lower with the screacher out to run ahead of that same boat who had his
chute up. It was fun calling out our speed to Linda and Bob as the other crew
got whiplash as we went by.
The boat feels solid and Linda is steady at the helm. I can't get the
screacher to fill the way I want it. Humm! I look at Linda, Bob, the sails and
the water. Ready the chute. Now Bob has never seen a spinnaker of any type and
has only read about how one is rigged. With me telling and both of us doing we
get all sheets, halyards, and tack lines attached and the sock hoisted in front
of and to windward of the screacher so we will jibe, furl the screacher and pop
the chute. Let's see, wind speed only 16 kn (Yeah right with 15 kn of boat speed
downwind). The sock goes up, the tack line comes in and the kite opens with a
splendid "crack". With really only Linda and I to fly the chute I
preset the sheet to be tightened as soon as I can get into the cockpit. Even so
the chute is ¾ full and pulling. As I trim the sheet the chute opens fully and
the ride begins. Except for the 5 or 6 jibes, from the time we popped the chute
to the finish we only dropped to 14 kn once. I saw 19.4 kn once and lots of 17+.
There weren't any real waves to surf down, the water was too broken. Linda and I
had been discussing "heating the boat up by reaching" and then as the
apparent wind moves forward to gently drive down. (It is kind of like flying
that thin line where lift from speed and lift from angle of attack just balance.
We used to call it flying "on the step", a delicate dance and lots of
fun.) We found that the conditions allowed sustained steady courses with the
apparent wind at 120 deg and speeds of 17-19 kn. Now our previous high boat
speed was 17.4 kn while surfing down some waves during the Duamish Head race.
Today that isn't even worth mentioning. We are exploding through some of the
waves. The bows, driving like a Corsair 200 years ago running before the wind,
were even driven into the bottom of a trough with water running back to the
cockpit. A quick easing of both spinnaker and main sheets brought the bows up
and the dance continued. Water exploding off the akas into spray must have made
us look like the old MISS THRIFTWAY coming out of turn one 40 years ago. The
only thing missing was the noise!
The anti-climax was the finish. Once we found the finish line Linda laid a
line that would take us to the committee boat on one of those 120 degree 19 kn
runs. I would truly like to have seen their faces as they watched our F-27
Corsair under full main and spinnaker, with spray streaming, flying at them
nearly level at 19.1 knots, only to jibe 3-4 boat lengths from the line so we
could go parallel to the beach rather than straight at it. Linda still says
"That shore was sure coming at us mighty fast." Thank you Ian Farrier!
What a rush!
Now, I don't know if it gets any better than this… Linda slept for an hour
on the nets tied to the dock and for an additional 12 hours once home. Bob said
he had fun and enjoyed it and probably thinks all races are like this. Me…
Somehow I don't remember much between Jefferson Head and Blakley Rocks. I know
the dance got pretty brutal for a while. I honestly don't know if I had fun
there. I learned more and my respect for the boat increased and yes, I scared
myself. What a ride! Would I do it again? Does it really get better? Wait a
minute! Shadow beat the corrected first place overall finisher by 9
minutes if I read the results right. We corrected out 45 minutes later and
weren't last. Maybe I should ask him if it gets any better. Well done Shadow.
See you next time. Multis rock!!!
Martyn & Linda Adams Cuttlefish 69160
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