This is fun, here’s a video!

The forecast was not that exciting… 100% rain! And for once, the weathermen were right!
I loaded all the rain gear and long underwear that I could find, extra hats, gloves, socks, mits (!) whatever could keep me warm… I did not want to waste any fun! Left the house at 7am after a long but restless night of sleep.

Salsa Verde was patiently waiting on me at the dock. I loaded all my gear, put on the first set of clothing, started the engine and left the dock under a light morning rain and consistent NE winds. Ted was there to welcome me on the other side of the river. Thanks for the docking help! That would have been tricky…

Ten boats showed up, quite surprising for such weather. Also surprising to see very few boats from last year. We delayed the start by half an hour to allow two boats to show up… We were positively thinking “hey, maybe the rain will stop by then!?” No luck. In the meantime though, my cheering crew showed up! Matt and Andrea had convinced a few crazy Salsa Verdians to come sail with them and watch the race. Well, those people are hard core, let me tell you! Eric, Jon, Nicole, Ulf, Matt and Andrea sailed across the river just to dock and chill around all day with the race committee, screaming green and spicy encouragements to me as I was crossing the start and finish line! What a crew…

So the race…
After listening to Ted’s wise advice “better safe than sorry”, I hoisted the #3 and prepared the #1 on deck… just in case. This year I was lazy, I hoisted the main sail at the dock with Allan’s help to save some time and energy. Which was a good thing… you wil read later.
So there I am just before the start with my main and #3 up. I can tack easily and have a better range of visibility. After all, the only rule in that race is: DON’T HIT ANOTHER BOAT! So yes Ted, good idea!

This year, everyone had to do a starboard start since the committee “boat” was on the dock and there is no water nearby! Too bad for me, I could have used a little practice with port starts (Just kidding Rosanne ) Anyway, I somehow managed to hear the start sequence signal and timed myself a decent start; 4th boat on the line (something like that?) because I let the trimaran some room, too scared to hit him! Hey, 30 feet is a long way for a far sighted person like me with rain in her glasses…

And then I hear “GO AVOCADO WARRIOR” from the dock…

(video from Nicole)

So I’m on my way upwind, well in the pack, but I see Skimmer, the other J30 with his #1… and boy, he’s gaining on me slowly. I can’t let that happen! I gotta hoist my #1 too, it’s not that windy afterall. Well one thing I did not do ahead of time (other than not setting up the camera, sorry guys!) is I did not have another set of sheets. So I secured the helm (well, kinda) and ran forward to remove the lazy sheet from the jib and tie it to the gennoa on the port side. To explain the details: I’m on port tack and the genoa is ready to go in the port track of the foil, on the next tack! I think I’ve got it all figured out, I’m gonna tack really slowly so I can hoist while tacking and as soon as my genny will be up, I will take the sheet and just let the jib sit into the genny (because it does not have a port sheet anymore) and then as soon as I’m stabilized and up to speed, I wil take the jib down and tie the other sheet to the genny. Right? Makes sense no? Well… It did not exactly go like that. Some kind of problem occured when the genny was only half way up. Even if I had saved all the energy I could, I did not have the muscles to overcome the friction that the two sails were having on one another while flapping all over the deck and in iron! Actually, I’m not even sure why it did not want to go up anymore. I pulled and screamed and gave it all I had, I really felt like I was missing a mastman! So I looked at my speed: 1.2kt and I thought “SHIT!” I have to keep going! So I ran forward again and took the genny down, untied the stupid single sheet I had on and retied to the jib so I could finally finish that neverending tack. It felt like an hour had gone by, probably because I was more tired than I had ever been after 1 hour of bicycling or swimming. Anyway, enough complaining, the race continued, and now Skimmer was ahead of me. Not by much, luckily!

The next exciting moment was soon to happen!! When I tacked again on the port tack, surprise surprise… my genny was all over the deck and was catching like an umbrella in the wind! “SHIT” again, I ran forward to try to minimize the mess. I pushed and pulled peices of sails under the only sail tie I had, but everytime I tried, it would rather pop in the wind than stay calm on the deck… of course! And needless to say that time is precious with a bungee cord type auto-pilot! So I gave up again and continued on torwards the upwind mark. Just in time to dodge the trimaran who called me a “starboard”… that was a close one… if my heart was not pumping fast enough by then, this would do it!

Windward mark. I rounded just in front of the trimaran, maybe 30 seconds after Skimmer. Now I’m straight downwind… with my #3… This can’t be. Let’s give this #1 another chance to behave. Luckily, I hoisted the #1 ALL THE WAY UP this time, with a little winching help at the end. I had always wanted to do this: Keep both front sails wing on wing. I thought about it last year on the last leg behind Whisper. If I had had my #1 ready to hoist, that might have been enough to win the race, but I did not have it last time. NOW! YESSS!!!!! I did it I kept them both flying while Skimmer was desperately trying to get some speed off his funky spinnaker, hoisted by the clew! Ha! Back to his roots, that’s the way it’s supposed to be hoisted down there in S. Africa! I was happy to see that other people do this kind of thing sometimes!!! Thanks Tommy!!!
Ok, but the rise of happiness did not end here. It got even better when Tommy almost rounded marker 11 while taking down the dizzy spinnaker. It was my turn to say “bye bye” and take off! At this point we had our own little race, all the faster boats were gone, and Benedek was chasing them with his, properly set-up asymetrical spi… And we were watching from behind, as far as the rain would allow us to see.

At some point later I had to drop the #3 and jibe the #1 to reach a little more towards the last mark, 13. Before jibing G13 the winds pick-up a little, and I knew in the last upwind leg I would be overpowered with that sail, but it was short enough to handle. I had the main out, the backstay all the way in and let the genny drive me back to the finish line. Keeping an eye behind on Skimmer… I finished 4th in my class, 2.5 minute in front of Skimmer, which is my little personnal victory

Then I hear screaming again from the dock “WOOHOO GUACAMOLE!!!”

Benedek finished 1st overall after an awesome race, shaving everybody with his asym! Good job!!!!! Clic to see results

The rest of the day was awesome, like it is so well said in the movie “in the wild”: happiness is only real when shared. Thank you guys for being there, rain or shine! 2009 would not have been the same without you all!
Mag

And it seems like everything went well!

Reunion – first spinnaker hoist! from Magalie Laniel on Vimeo.

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PS: I finally found a place to post my video with music!!! Yoohooo! vimeo.com

This is a special race where each club of the region select 1 boat to compete in the spinnaker class and 1 boat to race in non-spin class. There were 10 boats total on a short start line ready for 3 races of 2 times around the windward-leward marks. All the most agressive racers were out there and the distance between the hulls was often reduced to the minimum. I wish I could have gotten more of it on tape, but unfortunately, since my poor camera got soaked in iced tea, it has not been very cooperative. Anyway, here’s what I got for a video :

Skimmer is the J30 that shows up to most races in Jacksonville. There are 7 (SEVEN!!!!) J30′s around the area as far as I know, we could have a class!! PEOPLE!!!!! COME RACE WITH US!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, he wanted wind for his birthday, he got more than what he asked for!

An image is worth 1000 words, so what about another video?

If you wondered why we were so far behind, it’s because both our spinnaker and spare halyards snap-shackles blew open when we hoisted the spinnaker… So after fishing the sail out of the water twice, we had a hard time re-hoisting the jib, but finally made it… And everybody else was broaching, but well ahead of us…

This season has been filled with new ways to loose a race, but since we always learned something, we are winners

Thanks guys, I love you all!!!!

What a surprise! The wind died in the middle of the day of the mug race (again). Who would have thought? The mug race is 38 nm long, but NO IT IS NOT THE LONGEST RIVER RACE IN THE WORLD! So they claim… Come on, get out of your coutry a little!

We left the dock at 7:45 am really excited because we knew there was going to be 3 other J30s on the race course!!! A first for us! Our pursuit start time was 9:04:20 same as Showoff, but the 2 others started 2 minutes earlier (Skimmer and Anarchy). We owe them 3 pins for having a class legal genoa #1 (163%), fair enough. The first few hours were slow, the current was against us and the wind was only partially cooperating. I had the bad idea to tack to the east side of the river just before the wind switched to the west side. Bad move. All other J30s were on the west side, going away… bye bye competition… (Erdem was snoring by then).

We were heading to mark B, slowly but surely, looking forward at a bunch of boats who were once sailing, but not really anymore. Skimmer, ahead of the pack, made it around mark B when all of a suddent, the last bit of moving air left us all  floating, unsatisfied. We used our momentum to slip in front of Anarchy through the pack and then dropped anchor like everybody else (while Skimmer was happily floating away in the right direction, probably wanting to moon us all!) It lasted what seemed to be forever… People started to swim while Erdem was stairing at the anchor line, wishing the sky to bring the wind back!!! He could not stand this, and so did I. Oh! A little puff on the horizon! Is it coming our way? No? Ah… This one maybe? Hum… not really hey… Well, we got one puff that was just strong enough to make Eric get his exercice! I thought we were gonna leave him behind! SWIM BACK NOW!!!!! (as Erdem is brigning the anchor back on board) Fiew! He made it while the puff lasted. Then we dropped the anchor again. Poor crew, they worked hard!

When the wind finally picked up for more than 1 minute in a row we hoisted the Rainbow spinnaker! In a sequence of gybes, zig-zag steering and 360s of the wind vein, we finally rounded the damn mark B in 4th position in our class, and 2nd position between the J30s. We tought our efforts towards mark A were good enough to discourage any remaining competition since none of them followed us to mark C. But in reality, they were probably all smart enough to know that they would not make it to the finish on time and called it early. I had no clue of the time, I was so thrilled by the wind being back, I did not care about finishing or not… we were SAILING!!!!!

The following hour of the race can be sumarized by a video :

We crossed all upcoming traffic from the south course, including in order: Ghost, Lilbot and Persistence. Good job all Then we started to see our people already coming back from mark C… Skimmer, Whisper then Risky Business… Oh my… We knew we had no chance to catch up, but hey, did it really matter? WE WERE SAILING! I was still very surprised to see that the committee boat was not at mark C to take finish times like last year. They should have known better with a day like this! Shame.

We hoisted Rainbow again for a nice and fast ride home. I called the Rudder Club (since the committee boat was not responding their VHF) to make sure the race was over, and sure enough the finish line closed at 8pm. The sunset was gorgeous, the weather was perfect, we were all happy anyway. We got back to the dock around 9:30 pm, talked about going to the RC for spagetti, but when I learned from Ted that NOBODY FROM THE NORTH COURSE FINISHED… I changed my mind. I was pissed for all those in front who made an awesome race regardless of the tricky conditions. They deserved much better. Doesn’t 56 years of organizing the same exact race give you enough statistics to know that when the wind dies for few hours, boats don’t make it to the finish on time? I guess my expectations were too high…

The tide was so low that morning that the bottom of the river was uncovered near the marina. The mud was trying to dry in the early sun. The dock was empty. I knew a few people who were going to do this race, I guess it was too early. I dressed up as if I was going skiing, and started preparing the boat. Installed my proudly home made lazy jacks and started to unroll the main sail into them. Wow, I was sweating after 2 minutes… So I removed some layers, I was not really going to ski anyway! This main is heavy, let me tell you that. Then I removed the intruments cover, the tiller cover and started the engine, with my other hands’ fingers crossed! It worked!!! Yoohoo!!!

At 8am, I was leaving the dock. Stuck in the mud because of the particularly low tide, it was not as pretty as usual. I managed to back up the wrong way (that prop pitch just wins over the rudder when mud is involved…) and u-turn around. That was the start of the adventure.

Winds were 10 to 15 kt out of the north turning to north east during the day. I thought hard about raising the sails to get some practice on the way to the rudder club. But motoring out there in an icesicle position, I had to remove my sailing gloves because the tip of my index and my thumb were frozen. When I put on the big mittains, the sailing option had frozen too. I kept looking back to see if anyone was following… no. The only other boat I saw was Ted, coming from the Navy Jax marina. We arrived at the rudder club at the same time. We were the first ones. Docking by myself at the rudder club was worrying me a little bit, but it went fine. As long as you line up that board against the mean pilling, nothing gets a scratch. Fiew!

Bill, who was in charge of the race, eventually arrived. The other boats too. We were 14 people registered. 3 of which were flying scotts and 1 lazer. At the skipper’s meeting, Bill announced that this was only the second time that a woman participated in the 18 years that this race has happened. The course was announced to be Start (E) – G5 – G7 – G9 – finish (E), all to starboard (approx. 8 miles). So everyone hurried to their boats, and here we went.

I motored off and raised my mainsail. Without a mast person, it takes some time and effort! I was able to raise it by hand until the last 2-3 feet, I had to winch the rest. Then the #3 jib, this one was much easier. I was so happy that the winds were strong enough for me to justify using the #3 that day! The #1 is so much harder to tack…

I made a few tacks around the start line area to get comfortable. I was surprised how easy it was to tack that jib. I had learned a trick at the Christmas party the night before the race. Dave Whites told me an easy way to figure out which end of the starting line is favored. You sail on the line and trim your main perfectly, then you turn around and sail on the line the other way around without adjusting your mainsail. If it is undertrimmed (luffing), the end in front of you is favored, if it is overtrimmed (too full), the end behind you is favored. Magic trick, I quickly figured out that the port end (the pin) was favored. Dave had also told me how the port starts are sometimes beneficial. I told him that I was not going to do it on that race because I did not think I would be quick enough at tacking in front of the crowd. Well, I did it anyway, just because there was too much traffic on the other end of the line. And it worked!!! I was the first boat on the line (almost over early, I had to fall off for a few seconds!) and I blew by everybody. I was ahead of the fleet for the first ¼ of the race. Then Whisper caught up with me because I went too close to the middle of the river where stronger currents were against me. I realized it while looking at a crabtrap… I hate them usually, but that day it was helpful! While we were heading towards G5, I was happy that Whisper was ahead, because I was not sure where the mark was. I had a GPS, but it was a little too far inside the boat. Whisper is faster than me on a closehaul. He was going away slowly, but he had his #1 genoa up. So when a good gust came along, he did not reach the main sheet quick enough, he rounded completely! His genoa popped the wrong way around, he was not able to come back. He had to let it go, tack and bring it back around. I’m sure he was not happy, this sail takes a long time to winch! I know because by the time he did all that, I had gotten closer and closer to him! I could almost see him sweat!!! Ok, not that much… but was I happy with my #3? Oh yeah!!! We tacked around G5 and headed to G7, then G9. This leg was a beam – broad reach. Sometimes I think I was gaining on him, sometimes not… It was tight. But the last leg, from G9 to the finish, was a running leg. That’s where he was happy with his #1… And I was not too fast with my #3… So I he gained enough on me to win… by 2 minutes 44 seconds. Not bad for my first single hand race! (Whisper is a C&C 38, with a handicap of 114, Salsa Verde’s handicap is 135. So he owed me 21 seconds per mile…) clic to see results.

Whisper and I sailed back to Julington Creek together on a broad reach under the nice warmer afternoon sun. It would have been fun to wait for the results at the Rudder Club, but the rest of the fleet was so far behind I would probably have had to come back after sunset! And I don’t mind docking by myself, but it’s safer in daylight Plus, why put the sails down, and up, and down again… too much work…

This day was a memorable one for me and for all the little muscles that I feel now and did not even know existed! Thanks mother nature for such perfect sailing conditions. The cold morning just made it a better adventure!
Watch for me next year… I’ll be prepared!

Magalie

VIDEO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Part 1 : Preparation

Part 2 : Racing