First Place in Fleet

Storms last weekend led to the Boston Harbor Alliance Regatta being rescheduled until Sunday October 11^th. We had our first crew of 7 and it turned out that we needed everyone to tame our sailing beast in the high winds. As we approached the start line winds were blowing around 20kts which we considered to be good for us with a heavy cruising boat. The race being a pursuit required good timing, we were a little late to the start line but overall it wasn’t bad. We headed on a beam reach to the Nubbles, passing two boats on the way. Then down the Nubbles and turned to starboard and tacked towards Long Island bridge. As we rounded red buoy#6 by the bridge we started contemplating using the spinnaker. We were close to the edge, but needed to catch yet more boats. At this point we had passed all boats that started ahead of us except for two that we could see in the distance.

As we approached Red buoy #2P near Peddocks island we decided to deploy the spinnaker. With 7 on board she went up flawlessly, and quickly. Many jobs to be completed, attach the halyard, pull the halyard from the mast, take up the slack in the cockpit, furl in the genoa, switch genoa for spinnaker sheets (we have only one set of winches), raise the spinnaker “condom”, and trim the sail.

We set course for green/red near Hospital Shoal then a little more to port for green #7 daymark at the tip of Gallops. On this long reach we were chasing down Atalanta, a Sabre ketch who had started six minutes earlier than us. As we were approaching #7 we were able to block her wind and cut inside between the day mark and Atalanta. We then turned to head up The Narrows, with the spinnaker sailing 60 degrees off the apparent wind. We were flying!! However, we couldn’t come more into the wind so we quickly dropped the spinnaker and got out the genoa. Again the crew were fantastic. Joe and Morgan on the deck were getting wet, but wrestled the spinnaker into the bag.

We sailed close hauled back towards Spectacle island still with Atalanta behind us and chasing one more boat. We had to tack across 100yds to finish. It was a great sail. Nobody passed us, and we passed other boats. That was a novel feeling. Atalanta beat us the last time we raced together at Marblehead, but not today.

We continued to sail on home, opening beers on the way and feeling pretty good about our performance but not certain of our position.

After cleaning the boat and having some snacks we retired to the bar “Ironsides” to wait for the results to be posted. We watched the Patriots. Ordered Dark n Stormies followed by IPA. This morning it feels like we may have ordered to many. Then the results finally came in. We ordered more. We came first in our fleet (3 raced, 4 no shows), and second overall across all fleets that sailed the same course (16 boats).

A great way to end the season.

So little wind

We started the Rogue season of Wednesday evening races last night. These races are more relaxed in pursuit style and start between pier 6 in Charlestown and a daymark across the channel. It’s on an honor system, no race committee. As the slowest boat in the fleet we were off at 6:18:03. Unfortunately at the start line the true wind was 3 kts and the tide was against us.  We made a great start, even if it was slow (its much easier when you are not jockeying for position with other boats).  But then a big barge came behind us and we had to tack away to the edge of the channel to avoid it. Now the faster boats were starting and soon over took us.

Winds increased (up to a roaring 6kts) as we sailed and the crew – Rudy and Yolande – did a great job of spotting wind holes and we took the tactic of staying near the north side of the channel until we could make one last tack over to green buoy #13 that is on the southside where there was little to no wind (2kts). The ploy worked and we made significant ground on the other boats that had headed to the south side of the channel early.

We rounded the green mark and headed to red 12. Well we slowly drifted at 0.5kt. Now the current turned in our favor but the highest wind was 3kts. It was an hour and a half into the race and only one boat had turned and deployed its spinnaker and set sail for the finish line. Yes, Shout was in the lead. She is an amazing boat that seems to be able to sail under the breath of her crew. But even she was having problems. We too were having our own problems – thirst. We decided to turn on the iron genny and head home. Well the sunset was beautiful and the beer was very tasty. Congrats to the hardy crew that finished the race/drift.

Third

We entered a race over near Marblehead yesterday and managed to do pretty well despite not knowing the course. Prior to the race there were limited instructions with nothing about the course. We sailed out at 7:30am arrived in good time for an 11am start. We asked for course details over VHF, but received no response, checked the website for the race (again) on our smart phones but still found nothing. We noted down symbols displayed on the race committee boat thinking they might be meaningful. There was confusion about which fleets would start at what time since conflicting information was provided. Also to somewhere with a hearing issue B, D and G fleet sound very similar so that added to the confusion. But we had our eyes on another boat that we knew was in our fleet and we also knew that it was a boat from the local fleet. Hopefully they would understand the course.

We followed it to the start and then used it as a course guide. We literally had no idea what the course was. Worse still there were two courses, one each for different fleets. We kept our eye on a boat we knew and rounded the first mark. We could now use this first piece of known information to scan through information online and the codes on the back of the boat and we managed to piece together what we thought to be the course.

On the downwind leg we flew the spinnaker and passed the boat that we used as our pilot boat. We rounded the mark and headed up wind amongst boats that were on two courses. A few miles later we saw the fleet splitting, but which was our course? We made our decision and saw one boat ahead of us. All others were on another course. To make things worse, one of the symbols should have sent us on yet a different course. But since these were local racers we trusted their course selection better than ours.

It was a beautiful day with winds 10-20kts, bright blue sky. We finished with boats behind us and came in third on corrected time.

It was a great day on the water. Next time we race in that area we will learn more about how they decide and display their courses. It’s the first time in this year’s racing that this has happened. Learn something new every time.

We then sailed under spinnaker back to Constitution marina and totaled almost 50nm in the day. A great way to end the weekend.

Finish Strong

Yesterday evening was the last of the CYC evening races in the Boston inner harbor for the season. There was a good turnout for the race although winds started low (6kts) and were predicted to drop soon.

Danielle, Morgan and Yolande joined me on Prairie Gold for the race. We set up for a port tack start circled and came toward the line at good pace. Unfortunately all but two boats in our fleet were on starboard tack, so we had to turn hard to port to change our tack as we were crossing the line. As a side note, the next division all started on port tack, clearly the preferred approach for the course.

Low winds on a cruising boat spell disaster. As the winds dropped to 2kts we were wondering whether we would make it to the finish line. At one point we calculated 18hrs to go. We slowly clawed our way tacking along a small line of wind. When we were about a quarter of a mile from the turning mark, the wind grew to 6kts and turned to come from the south. We turned for the finish line and were able to sail on a beam reach with the assym spinnaker. Winds grew to about 10kts and we were now making 6kts and catching the other boats.

We came across the line in an unequivocal last place position. With the handicap adjusted time although we came last we were really close to the rest of the fleet. Handicapping is done on time over distance. Thus when speeds are low, and the faster boats pull away they have a distinct advantage since there is no handicap adjustment. No complaints, we are doing well.

Its been a great season, having learned lots but most importantly, shared jokes and laughs with good friends. A couple more weekend races to go.

Black smoke and low rpms

On Saturday I headed out for a solo sail and just after I got the mainsail set I noticed black smoke coming out the exhaust. Yikes. So began a weekend of troubleshooting. I quickly put fenders back out and prepared to dock bow in since I wanted to minimize maneuvers in the marina. Came in bow first at low speed in the hope that if the engine shutdown I could make it into my slip and wouldn’t hit the dock too hard. Fortunately, the engine didn’t quit on me and docking was fine, although I must say I impressed myself with my speed estimate.

Now began a weekend of troubleshooting. I got on to Mr. Google and began searching. Here are the symptoms:

Max rpms in forward 2.2k, in reverse ~3k, in neutral >3k some black soot or un burnt diesel in the exhaust.

Eric, who does boat cleaning and waxing, was working on the boat next to me. He offered to dive to see if there was anything on the prop. Prop was clean which was confirmed by the ability to turn the prop manually with engine off and in neutral.

I changed primary and secondary fuel filters. They looked clean, but a new set wouldn’t hurt. No change in performance.

Perhaps the fuel injectors were dirty. I purchased some seafoam fuel additive to clean the cylinders and injectors. No change in performance.

Maybe one injector was bad so I measured the temperatures of the 3 cylinders. All the same and the engine sounds fine.

Rick who works on boats in the marina dropped by and spent time helping me diagnose.

Back to Mr Google. It seems that the only option remaining is that the exhaust mixing elbow was clogged with carbon. The mixing elbow is also referred to as the Achilles heal of the Yanmar 3YM30 diesel engine. I tried to take it off but didn’t have the right tools. Time to call in the troops

I spoke to several people in the marina to find a diesel mechanic – they are hard to come by. Howie in the marina office suggested calling Steve’s shop in Charlestown which repairs Yanmar’s. I spoke to Brian on the phone and he said likely an injector or mixing elbow problem. Within 24h he came to the boat and confirmed the mixing elbow was at fault and replaced it.

Looking forward to going over tonight to give her a test drive and to race in the final Wednesday evening race of the year.

Thanks to all for your help and advice. It’s a great community in the marina.

4th

Prairie Gold is still racing. Yolande and I were away for two weeks but we left the keys with Morgan, Danielle and Joe so that they could continue the races. You may remember that each season’s race position is impacted by the numbers of races one completes. Our strategy, in addition to going out and trying, is to enter all to help us move up the leaderboard. In both of the two races while I was away the crew got Prairie Gold out racing and finished (still awaiting results). In the last they were persistent and despite drifting for 45 minutes, were able to find wind to finish. It was great to receive text message updates while in Australia and then Japan from the finish line and during post race libation. Thanks for taking good care of Prairie Gold and getting out and racing.

Last Wednesday evening only Joe and I were able to make it to the race. We were tracking windspeeds online from the airport station and could see winds gusting to 20kts. Regardless we put the spinnaker on the deck and rigged her ready to go. The course was #1 twice around which is from near Battery wharf to green #13 (world trade center) back down to a mark near courageous sailing. We had a great start in which we couldn’t have got closer to the line without a penalty. Two other boats had a similarly good start and we were off. We held our position well and it was good to have J boats next to us, at least for a while.



We rounded #13 and came downwind initially with the genoa. Quickly we decided we had to try the spinnaker. Woohoo, we were flying. A great downwind leg, followed by an excellent upwind leg. We were in the thick of it and came downwind fast, very fast. As we finished we were slightly behind Eagle and Uncle Joe and finished ahead of another boat! We look forward to seeing the times since our handicap should help us tremendously.

We have come along way in 1 season with our core crew really clicking and understanding what to do and importantly, when to do it.

Back at the dock other crew were congratulating us on a great race especially with crew of two. We might be at the slow end of the fleet, but we have big hearts.

We sat and realized we were sweating profusely – it was warm out, but we had a serious workout getting Prairie Gold around the course. Next morning I am sore – was it the previous day's gym session or the race?

RESULTS ARE IN: We came fourth in our B fleet division based on corrected time. Several boats were disqualified, some retired, perhaps because of the high winds, and we were able to beat Charisma 2 on corrected time. High winds are where we excel given that it helps with our heavy displacement boat. We also beat Uncle Joe and Eagle from Fleet A. We look forward to the return of Morgan and Danielle to the crew this week and to our final Wednesday evening race.

Over early

During the season I have been reading books about racing tips, and we could sure need some. They have all talked about aggressive starts and that if you don’t go over the line early then you aren’t pushing enough. For the past few races we have been trying to aggressively position ourselves in the race. Last night we succeeded. Since we were short handed – Yolande, Morgan, Joe and myself - we were not able to put anyone on the bow to count down the distance to the start line so we had to play a bit of a guessing game. We had been timing runs from different positions to the start and noticed that the rest of the boats were preparing for a long starboard tack run to the start line. Cunningly, or so we thought, we decided to circle near the committee boat, sail along the line on a beam reach and push up into the wind with about 15 seconds to go as the other boats approached. It worked perfectly except we should have waited to push up at 10 seconds.  The horn sounded twice, the second horn to say there was a false start, then over the radio we heard “sail 495”.

Now we had to get back behind the line and start again, we loosened the sails to slow down and had to wait for the other boats to pass before we could turn. Once we heard the radio call “Clear” we started over. The course was a simple three times around a windward leeward course.  We started near Battery Wharf and headed over to green Buoy #13 and back. Spinnaker deployment was excellent and it was clear we were even catching boats. We estimated that we lost 3 minutes with the false start so it will be interesting to see how the results come in. 

On our last lap we noticed that the fireboat was out by #13 with her water jets turned on. Luckily for us, they were turned off as we rounded the mark. We think that a captain of one of the ferry’s was retiring and that this is a traditional celebration that accompanies retirement.

This weekend off to Australia, Japan and Korea. However, Morgan is being trained in docking and he and Joe will be the core of the team for the next two weeks. If you see them take Prairie Gold out, don’t call the police, they have my permission.

Our best race of the season – Flip-Flop Regatta

Winds were predicted to be four knots out of the south and the predictions were holding firm for the three days running up to the race. This is a concern for Prairie Gold because of she is a heavy boat decked out for comfort and cruising, not racing. Our core crew of Morgan, Joe, Danielle and Chuck headed out with skipper Phil to the start line NNW of Red #2 in the Boston North Channel.

The race was a pursuit with staggered times based on PHRF handicap. The goal being that with equivalent sailing and effective handicapping all should finish at the same time. hmmm

We made a great downwind start passing several boats on the way to Nahant, the first mark. Doused the spinnaker, rounded the mark and headed close-hauled to Green #5 at The Graves. The winds grew from 6kts at the start to 10 kts giving us a nice sail to #5. We were in Group C and were assigned the 13.2nm course and thus we tacked around the green buoy and headed to the harbor. We were expecting to sail 60-90 degrees off the apparent wind so immediately raised the spinnaker. We were sailing fast ~6.5kts and catching boats in front of us. Joe was trimming feverishly and we were doing a great job. Chuck couldn’t believe that we could sail so close to the wind with the asymm spinnaker.

 YES - those are boats behind us

 Heading toward Boston from Green #5 - we are catching them

 Bummer - they passed us. But we did have fun trying to block them

Winds are getting lighter

Our routing

Sailing into the harbor the winds started dropping and we were against maximum current. By the time we got to Spectacle island the winds were only 2 kts true and now we were downwind – progress was slow. Now the boats we had overtaken and those behind us started catching. The racing boats are light with better sail/displacement ratios and can still work with light winds where we can’t. At the airport we had no wind, 0 kts speed over water 0.5kts speed over ground. The track on the GPS showed we were heading backwards – we were a victim of the current. We and others were in a horrible wind hole.

Somehow we clawed our way out of it – the crew were working feverishly, sail changes, jibing the spinnaker (we lost count of the number of jibes during the race, 20 plus), furling in the main, taking it out again. We could see boats 300yds ahead of us were close hauled, with wind coming from a direction 180 degrees different than us. We prepared to bring out the genoa. The winds switched, quick sail change and off to the races. Winds were up, we were catching and over taking again. Then by the Hyatt, ¼ mile from the finish line, no wind. Well there was about 1kt of wind. We could see wind across the channel. To get there I decided to sail away from the finish with the genoa in tight and tried to make a little apparent wind. We were going in the wrong direction but were making our way out to a location where we could see significant wind.

Now we got good 10kts of wind, tacked and were able to make it to the finish line and overtake Wings, a J24 at the finish line.

Sails in BBQ on, bacon and cheddar infused burgers cooking, beers all around. Smoke coming out of the BBQ and jealous boats coming by. We may not have won but we were feeling good. One came close (we thought they were going to ask for a burger). Instead they said “Are you the boat with the Union Jack kite?” “Nice sail”.

The results are in: 11^th out of 14 in our group C. Overall we placed 23^rd out of 38 boats that sailed our course.

PHRF rating, handicapping is an interesting beast. Clearly its not an exact science, maybe best described as a guessing game. Some boats always come first, or maybe second based on handicapping. Maybe there are some politics in getting the right rating. Maybe we are just awful sailors. It’s clear, however, that we are improving our sailing skills and enjoying it. Well there was a brief period where we were all tired, pissed off that there was no wind and getting a little cranky. But the IPA and burgers helped solve those problems.

Third across the line - wait a minute

Last night was the third and final rumble of the season. We made a poor start, but caught the others in our group quickly. Two times round the course and we crossed the line third. Wait a minute, confusion. Look at the charts, there are two different red #2 at Spectacle island. Mark M was announced and was told to be Red#2 at Spectacle. Later we checked the long list of marks - M is red #2 north of Thompson island, west of Spectacle. We weren't the only to screw up. Will pay more attention this weekend at the Flip-Flop Regatta.  Winds predicted to to be 2 kts - ouch

US Coastguard Cutter James, Long Island Bridge and Cuppa Coffee mate

Simple daysail for us on Saturday. As we were leaving the marina there was some chatter “What’s with all this coastguard security at the coastguard station?” An informative answer came “government stuff”. Actually it was the commissioning of the US Coastguard cutter James. She is the newest vessel in the fleet and because she is named after a famous sailor from MA, Joshua James (1826-1902) an AMerican Sea Captain credited with saving over 600 lives. We met one of the Cutter's crew last week and Yolande took her tour of of the vessel on Tuesday. Her homeport will be Charleston, SC.

We headed out through the islands to Peddocks Island where we anchored for a quick bbq on the back of Prairie Gold. 

Yolande sporting her new look at the helm

We then motored around Nut Island to Quincy Great Hill to meet our Aussie friend, Todd Moore, the owner of Cuppa Coffee. He sure can paddle as well as brew a mean flat white. Unfortunately we were out of beer on Prairie Gold and as a consequence I think we have gone way down in Todd's opinion. He paddled back to shore quickly and I am sure that he went straight to his fridge for a cold one.

Todd racing back in search of a beer

As we headed home we went through Long Island Bridge. It was demolished, because the bridge was unsafe, earlier in the year and so we no longer have the problem with clearance. Unfortunately this has displaced some homeless and people in the recovery program on Long Island.

It's always interesting when the spinnaker goes up

Not certain how to describe yesterday’s race – but one of the crew said at the end “its always interesting when the spinnaker goes up”

Winds were moving all over the place and varying from 4-20kts which made for difficult up wind sailing. The course was once around N2 (see beneath) with us starting in a windward direction. The best course was for a port tack start. We lined up ready to sweep round for a quick port start only to be blocked by a combination of Codzilla and one of the sailboats due to start later (they are supposed to stay away form the start line until their time is ready).  It was a minor inconvenience, but we headed to the port side of the start line and could see four or five boats coming towards us on a starboard tack. We had to give way, but we started well, and they then had to immediately tack on to port to head towards the windward mark. We could keep our momentum since we didn’t need to tack and were then able to catch the fleet.

The higher winds are better for us and we were even able to briefly overtake Charisma2,  Beneteau 36.7 with a PHRF rating of 84 compared to our 171. Of course they then put their foot down and screeched past us. We deployed the spinnaker sailed downwind with winds shifting in direction and speed – a lot. Eagle and Uncle Joe were following us (but they did start 6 minutes after us) and then at the leeward mark we managed to take down the spinnaker nicely and head back up wind. Chuck was having a workout on the mainsail responding to wind gusts to allow me to keep control at the helm. One of the boats had a serious spinnaker takedown problem (we think it was Uncle Joe) and dropped out of the race.

When we rounded the windward mark the crew on deck were raising the spinnaker as we were furling the genoa. We went too fast and should have left the genoa out a little longer because the wind gusted inflated the spinnaker and pulled Joe two feet off the deck while he was holding the halyard. The other crew member, Morgan, helped out and got a line caught around his finger. We are playing an interesting game of learning the limits. We found another one and will correct it next time we race. Good news – both Morgan and Joe reported that a drink or two fixed their injuries.

We headed off to the finish line without incident. We were last to cross the line, but one boat dropped out of the race so we didn’t come last. That’s four races in a row. Now awaiting the handicap corrected times.

Beer on dock was a good solution to the aches and pains of the race.  When we were sitting at the dock, Sean and Sandy, live aboards adjacent to us walked by and said they saw us out at the races as they were motoring by.  “We have some great pictures of you dropping the spinnaker in the water”.