Look what the cat dragged in...

OK, I am cheap.  And broke too, after the VanIsle application and all the other goodies we have added.  So we can't afford a ton of new sails right now.  But look at the wicked weapon we found in a quantum bag recently.  Thanks to Al and Stu who have been combing dumpsters across the country to help us go more quickly round the cans, round the county, and round the island in 2011!

A Disgusting Fit of Heroism

Happy Holidays!  Tis the season to be jolly, and while we haven't been sailing as much, there is still plenty happening.

Lots of improvements to the boat.  Improved steering, lots of weight gone, sails evaluated, re-measured, diagrammed for TWS/AWA (Graeme).  Then re-diagrammed accurately (Al).

Now we just need to find a time to go sailing.

Speaking of projects, the Hero of the Month for our crew has to be Al Hughes.

Just prior to last race, I managed to drop a full holding tank that we unwisely suspended from the topping lift on my hand.  Made a couple of pretty good sized holes, forced me to wander around with electrical tape on my paw for a few days, and still we failed to remove the fecal matter.  Made for good comedy though, and we somehow finished third in spite of our problems with bleeding and pooping.

Al decided enough is enough and took matters into his own hands.  On a sunny day in December he took Kotuku to the pump out station, jury rigged a feeder hose into the depths of her bowels, and gave the boat a much needed, um, enema.  Then in a fit of energy (or disgust) he ripped out the completely frozen macerator, the faulty Y-valves, and the other offensive bits.  Not sure he was happy about it, but I know that some members of our crew will be much happier knowing that their private business can be pumped out in a more normal fashion.

Thanks Al!  I am sure the old girl feels a little lighter on her feet as a result of your hard work.

Application for Van Isle 360 is in!

Met a major milestone yesterday by sending the application off for our biggest race in 2011.  If you don't enter, you can't race, and I am excited to get to work on being more competitive next year so that we can be in the hunt in Nanaimo.  We made great progress in the back half of 2010, but there is lots of hard work to do.  Sail inventory to build, training, seamanship courses, life rafts to certify, and logistics and planning required.  And sailing.  Lots of it.

Speaking of logistics, last night after climbing Eli and I designed a rack system to build over the 4x4 pick-up we will use to tow the trailer with all of our stuff.  We decided that a pick-up + trailer would be more flexible and greater load carrying capacity than the RV we had lined up.  After that, we sketched (on bar napkins) a few modular table systems to hold the appetizers and snacks that will await the boat at the end of each leg.  All aluminum, custom fabbed of course.  Still working on a kegalator for the tailgate, but I think Eli has a plan for this too.  He has been practicing with the welder, and he sure seems handy after a few beers!

Proposed Race Calendar 2011

Hot off the press, not final, but everybody is asking.  Here is a preview.  

12 races, 12 months.  We'll do the Ballard Cup Series again on Monday nights for our practice sessions.  We may do other races if we can make time for them, but the goal is to maximize our preparation while minimizing impact on family and work.  With that in mind, we cut down on the multi-day buoy races and the deliveries, except on those races that happen to be in Canada.  Or Anacortes.  Focus on distance/point-to-point, and getting ready to be competitive for the VanIsle 360.

So here is the current thinking.  Check your schedules and let me know.

1/8 Dumamish Head.  Cold.  Close.  Fun.

Nothing on the calendar in Feb, except skiing.  Possible practices TBD.

Mar is our busiest month so get you affairs sorted early.

3/5 Center Sound Series #1 (all CSS races are one day/Shilshole based)

3/12 CSS #2

3/26 CSS #3

4/22 Southern Strait (West Van)

5/28-29 Swiftsure (Victoria)

6/4-18 VanIsle 360 (Nanaimo)

Nothing in July--Go cruising!

8/28-29 Northern Century (Anacortes)

Nothing in September.  Go cruising some more!

10/8-9 PSSC (Shilshole)

10/21 Grand Prix (Shilshole)

11/12 Round The County (West Sound)

For those who want to do VanIsle, the spring calendar is particularly important.  Helping out with deliveries and boat prep will be important too, so volunteer if you can!

Winter Vashon: Battling all the way around the course

Nothing about this race was easy.  The delivery was against a big tide, and finished in the dark.  No parking for late arrivals at the yacht club, so we slept next to the ferry at the boat launch pier.  Got to the start a bit late as we didn't have tasks clearly assigned, were late getting the jib up, and got too far from the line at the start.

Had to battle through dirty air in chop and fight for skinny lanes.  Current and wind shifts are a bit difficult to detect in a washing machine.  Blew up a jib sheet.  Tacked.  Blew up the other.  Tacked again.  Swore.  Dodged a de-masted boat.  Felt really sorry.  Got nailed by a gust and a wave.  Swore again.

But battle we did.  John did a hell of a job keeping the boat on her feet.  Stu and Al fed us more of the shifts than most of the other boats caught, and kept us in the current lanes.  Tony called puffs, when they weren't continuous.  I had a frustrating battle at the helm, but snarled through the waves and grimaced through the round ups to keep us going.  Slowly we ground back, picking off one boat at a time on the long beat up Colvos passage.  Amazingly, as we reached across to the top mark we could see that we would round in first for our class.

Up went the green rainbow kite.  Down came the #3.  Out came the sun and dried up all the angst.

Off went the great white heron otherwise known as Kotuku.  Deep run down to Point Robinson followed by a tight reach to Commencement Bay.  Eventually the #1 went up, probably earlier that it needed to, but the spectacular broach that had been threatening us all the way up the Sound was averted.  And we crossed the line to the sound of the cannon.  First across the line.

We weren't quite fast enough to maintain our hold on first, as the Olson we passed at the top mark was hot on our heels and we owed them time.  The class winner, Wildflower, was with us tack for tack on the beat upwind.  And while we were able to extend our lead on the downwind leg, we couldn't save our time.

Still, 3rd place, 11th overall, with boats like Flash, Tantivity, Absolutely, and Neptune's Car behind us in the standings, we feel pretty good about the result.  89 boats including the cruising class and multi-hulls.  What a great race for this time of year in the Pacific Northwest!

The boat keeps us in the hunt.  The crew fought hard enough to get us on the podium in spite of our challenges.  And the neverending work, great attitude, and passion of this team continues to amaze me.

Thank you all for another great race!

More Race Photos

Thanks to everyone who has been chipping in on boat work.  Great progress, and I hope we'll be ready to get back to racing next week.  In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving.  Here are a few more photos courtesy of Brandon.

Happiness is pulling strings on a winning boat

going slowly in more or less the right direction

This is the right direction, eh Stu?

Photo Man, with a look of astonishment on his face as he is caught actually working.  (staged?)

Dazed and Confused

The trophy

The Beer

The Crew, or what was left of it after two days of racing and a hard night of celebrating...

Kotuku Grabs a Jug

Must have been all that boat prep.  Removed a ton of cruising gear, including the watermaker, SSB, tuner, weatherfax, and more.  Two weeks in a row we didn't even practice.  Just did boat work.  Maybe it was the walloping we took at the Grand Prix a couple of weekends ago.  Or the PSSC whupping that we took.  We were ready to win for a change.

The weekend started at 6AM with a long delivery by Eli and Al.  Good old boat banging along at 7 knots or more.  She went under the Highway 20 bridge right about when I went over it with the import from LA, Brandon, enroute to pick up our "competent Canadian" Terry.  Long story short, the 5 of us ended up at the party at Anacortes Yacht Club just before dinner shut down.  And just in time to hear that very little wind was forecast.  We had a few free beers (thanks Ballard Sails, for the keg that we drank) and then headed back to the boat.

Got up in the dark now with 10 other sailors, several of whom straggled in late and wedged themselves around the boat.  Then attempted to get everybody dressed, sorted, and back aboard by 6:30.  Didn't quite make it but did get enough coffee in us to put the hammer down and got to the line by 8:15, giving us enough time to figure out that there was very little wind and quite a bit of tide against us.

Al and Stu did some huddling and decided a pin end start on starboard followed by a jibe to port at the committee boat was the way to go.  I immediately tried to get us to head for the line, but Stu told me we'd be early (he knows I have a tendency to go over early if left unsupervised) so we waited.  And then got there a tad bit late, but in perfect position for a beat to weather, and as the weather boat we got to the wind first and seemed to have current advantage too.  Before long we were ahead of most of our competition except Reignmaker, who got to the wind first and legged out on the rest of the fleet.

We rounded Davidson Rock after testing our entire spinnaker inventory at least once.  Settled on our beloved Russian kite, which pulled us across Salmon Bank, crossing the halfway line in about 5th place behind a couple of J-109s and a couple of C&Cs, all of whom owed us time.  We carried it as long as we thought prudent, then switched back to the #1, then the A-sail (which is a terrible light air reacher, oops!) and then back to the #1.  We held the shore, and clawed back to third after a good tactical decision at the finish.  Not bad for day one.  15th overall, with lots of big boats behind us.

The party that followed lasted well into the night.  Spectacular food, and a decent result assured some late night drinking aboard after the bar closed at 10.  11 of us woke up on the same boat the next morning, which although it was 6AM, actually felt like 7.  A rainbow greeted us when we finally poked our heads out the companionway.

Day 2 also started really light.  We chose the correct end, and sailed a great line due to a fit of indecision followed by a little gut instinct and ended up with decent position at turn point.  Much better position than Jack Rabbit, who tried to cross inside of us while our depth gauge was protesting.  They bounced into a rock at about 9 knots, we think  The sound was memorable.  And the foredeck crew was launched, I hear, but I didn't notice because I was trying to dodge a 40 foot boat suddenly bouncing back at me while simultaneously questioning Stu about water depth.

The run, the Great Spinnaker Change, the Canadian shoreline duels with cats and dogs, and the romp up to Patos Island Light holding the kite up in a tight reach as long as we could while threading between the red freighter and the green all made for good fun.  Even better fun for me was watching the team dial the boat in once we started upwind.  Stu once again kept me off the rocks.  Al kept me from crowding the competition, and we gradually, painstakingly rolled over the bad guys (C&Cs, Shock 35s, and Beneteaus) by sailing higher and faster than they could.

The last phase of the race was grueling.  The wind got fluky, the tides were turning against us.  We were tired.  And we had a race to win.  This is where the crew came into its own.  Terry leading the crew in roll tacking.  Spider monkeys running from windward to leeward to keep the boat heel accurate and fast.  Al, Eli, John, and Matt sweating and questioning wind shifts, footing in the soft headers to maintain speed and then following the lifts as best we could.  Al finding the seam through the Pea Pods that led to golden, beautiful, constant wind.  Sailing into the final header and tacking over onto the last ripping good ride to the finish.  Watching the boats inside us struggle to get out to our line.  Only to get there too late to do anything but watch as Kotuku rode that breeze to victory.

It was a shame that the whole crew couldn't join us for the trophy presentation.  Dropped folks off at Orcas just as the ferry was coming in.  Headed to the Orcas Island Yacht Club for a funky BBQ with linen table cloths.  And big trophies, as you may have noticed.

My call home to Janna afterwards went something like this;  "Holy Shit, we won!  they gave us a trophy that you could fit a small child inside of.  We put beer in instead."   And that was not the end of the evening by any means.  Terry was dead to the world the next morning when we motored out in the dark.  And not much better off when we left him in Friday Harbor, with Kotuku bound for home across the Straits.

Thanks to everybody for their efforts.  It was an amazing race, with great weather, and a crew that came together and clicked.  The results speak to the effort we put in, and the success we achieved is due to everyone stepping up to do what needed doing.  To Trent helping Brandon get that kite up the last few feet.  To Al and Stu doing what they do.  And to the rest of us figuring out how to help each other, to get better with every tack, and to do what was necessary...to win.

Results are here: http://oiyc.org/race_book/race_book_2010/RTC/RTC2010results.html

Pictures of us

http://www.flickr.com/photos/38131227@N06/galleries/72157625218046461/
http://wallisphotography.photoshelter.com/image/I0000vcTX1psXedU
http://www.mattwallisphotography.com/image/I0000YJk7udj.pRY

Getting ready for Round The County

Just a note to say thanks to everybody who helped out with boat prep over the last couple of weeks.  We are nearly ready to go, just have to load up a few more bits and pieces.  The Cat II safety gear goes back on, a couple of sails (storm jib and back-up #2).  The boat leaves Friday morning at O dark thirty.

Should be lots of fun.  11 people, hundreds of islands, 2 days of racing.  Perhaps a wee bit of partying...

Grand Prix 2010

Class 4 of the Grand Prix looked like a mixed bag, to say the least.  11 boats, weighing from 1700 to 17000 lbs, a number of previous Grand Prix, Swiftsure (3) , Whidbey Island Race Week (2), RTC (2), and PSSC winners, plus us and a couple of other odd ball boats.  And then throw in 4 J-105s just for good measure.  We felt lucky to be in the fleet and weren't expecting to be on the podium, but we were determined to see if having our full crew aboard could level the field for us after the poor showing at PSSC.

The forecast was for moderate winds for first two days.  The wind failed to show, and we were forced back into light air mode.  We finished 7th on Friday, and dropped to 10th on Saturday, although we were only 10 points out of third.

Sunday was a different deal.  The wind piped up to the mid-twenties and stayed there.  We were 4th after the first race, 2nd after the 3rd, and ended up winning the final race by narrowly beating Different Drummer and saving our time over the J-105 Allegro Vivace, who was less than a minute behind us.

Overall, we finished mid-pack.  If this had been scored more normally, with the DNF or DNC boats who dropped out as the wind build scored as # entered +1, the final day's 4, 2, 1 might have gotten us on the podium.  Instead, the two days of light air hurt us, as one of the heaviest boats in the fleet, and the first 4 races outweighed the last three.

But we got progressively better, and did well against perennial winners Shoot the Moon, and against Different Drummer (helmed by Ullman's Chris Winnard).  So we felt good about the effort against respectable competition.  And we had a great time. Becca made lasagna that was the envy of the fleet too, thanks for that!

Photos are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/38131227@N06/galleries/72157625111549127/

Kotuku Gets Clobbered!

We had a great weekend of sailing, just not great results.   The weather was a bit of a mixed bag, but we learned a lot despite the adverse conditions (lots of rain, little breeze).  Results weren't pretty, but they are telling.  The little guys beat us up pretty good in the light stuff, but then we give away 4-5 tons to most of the fleet.  Occasionally we surprised them--beat most of the boats boat for boat at some point--and that was fun, at least.

Saturday, we had a lot of new faces in new places, and we had a tough time with boat speed and tactics.  Sunday, Bob brought leadership that we'd been lacking, helped us find the pointing groove with the new #1, and got us into the thick of it with some good tactical calls that put the fleet behind us.  Temporarily.  When we had breeze and room to stretch our legs, we made back some of the ground we lost by being OCS in 3 of 9 races.  Who was driving, anyway?  Apparently we thought it was better to be aggressive than good.

To win against good competition and overcome PHRF's rating challenges, we need to be consistent, and maybe consistently brilliant.  PSSC showed just how far we have to go as a boat, and as a team.  But we learned some things and we got better, even over the course of a 2 day regatta.

Consistency will come to us.  

Brad, Al, and Stu will eventually come back to the PNW, we hope...

The boat is a work in progress but she will get lighter and she will get faster.  

And she will race with a clean bottom next time too.

Kotuku 3rd in Star and Bar

Once again a decent finish, but not a regatta we were particularly proud of.  Short handed though, 6 each day, and light air to boot.  I think we are all satisfied with the result.


Review and photos here:


http://www.pressure-drop.us/forums/showthread.php?691-Star-amp-Bar-next-weekend-SYC-regatta-and-the-Moore-NW-fleet-Championship-trophy

Kotuku 3rd in Northern Century

Nice write-up and race review here from Stranger, who was close to us most of the way (but ended up blowing by us at Turn Point)

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=109816&view=findpost&p=2974172


Video and Photos here

http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=113246&st=0&p=2988384&hl=northern%20century&fromsearch=1&#entry2988384