NW Riggers Goosebumps 2014, Race 3

 

The third race of the 2014 Goosebumps series featured sunny skies, a sailable 5-7kn of nor-westerly, and half cooked changes to the NOR that included provisions for a 2^nd start without any description of a flag sequence that otherwise accompanies the signals provided to 1^st start. C'est la vie!

 

At check-in time we read a course of Aurora-AGC, 2-laps which made good sense to us given the wind was very west/northwest, but after the 1^st starters got underway it became obvious that the course board simply hadn’t been completed when we long eyed it. We nailed a pin end port tack start in clear air but stayed high still thinking that the first mark wasAurora till J24 Fat Chance set us straight. The extra distance sailing away from freeway negated much of the advantage from our excellent start.

 

From freeway we were 3 tacks to the aurora mark and boats staying up closer to Gasworks were able to avoid much of the nasty header influencing boats who tacked immediately at freeway, so it was nice of Tuna 525 Full Moon to lead us up as they had snuck to weather and pinned us out of an earlier tack. The aurora mark was set near the Westlake shore in a painful westerly header which complicated and congested the rounding for boats not paying enough forward attention. On Cake or Death we squeezed by and managed another fine spinnaker set.

 

Much of the spinnaker traffic was moving off the Westlake shore per conventional wisdom so we took a bit of a risk and stayed higher, protecting what was at least clear air in a notoriously fluky and softer lane on the lake – there were more than a few big boats who cast big shadows that we were chasing down, despite some dramatic fumbling that was quite a show. Through some wild shifts and boat to boat battles for air we ended up sandwiched between Ranger 26 Rascal and Hunter 31 Friday fetching the AGC mark in a softening breeze. With Friday pinned to weather and Rascal too low on the buoy we were able to take point off their transom and sneak into clear air on the 2^nd fetch to freeway, leaving Friday in the dust.

 

While putting our pedal down and VMG’ing our way to the Freeway mark hot on Rascal’s tail, right behind us the Ranger 22 Anakena was on absolute rails and closing quick. At Freeway Rascal tacked while we hardened up for a repeat of the next triple tack beat to Aurora. Anakena stayed even higher than us, trading high-fives with gasworks observers and crossing ahead near the SPD lake union fuzz docks. While we let Anakena get by, we also managed to catch up with Rascal and big sister ship SJ28 Zephyr. Rascal tacked too early for the mark and was rolled over by both Zephyr and our boat which set them low. Rather than gybe around and re-run their approach to the mark the Rascal crew simply bore off and set for the run.

 

Although we had another quick and pretty spinnaker set we were blocked out to the west by Rascal and a Ranger 23 who seemed to come out of nowhere. The position of the AGC mark and the clear air beneath us allowed for two swift gybes to clear out a lane. Unfortunately all the fumbling about with the other two boats put Anakena out of reach for good, able to sail completely unobstructed by traffic. We did, however, manage to put Rascal and the R23 behind us with our excellent gybes and keen sail trim. In honor of our favorite Persian gangster Milad, we executed a textbook Mexican take-down and reached our way to what we hope is a top half 2^nd start finish.

 

Results are out and they’re confusing...We’d appear to be in 27^th place (It should be 26 as Blue Lullaby did not finish between us and Anakena) scoring all 53 boats together. If we extract the 1^st start boats, our placement is probably somewhere around 8-11 out of 35 boats. I will say this, however, we’re pretty satisfied with whatever the results of the day are – There was a lot of back-and-forth battling with natural competition and we definitely brought a good fight. Crewing for the mighty Cake or Death was Becker and Nicole on the pointy end, Caleb manning the pit, Christine on dogwatch, Brian and Fisch practicing overrides, and Kyle giving trim instructions by stringing random nouns, verbs, and adjectives together without thinking them through.

NW Riggers Goosebumps 2014, Race 2 Re-Cap

On a day where forecasts threatened placid conditions and the NFC Championship game threatened a low turn-out of race boats, sailors were treated to a full lake and a filling northerly 15 minutes before the scheduled start gun. This editions RC reverted racing back to 2012 instructions where only one start would be held so the line was notably busier and clear air was at a premium. One thing that never changes, the pin was so demonstrably favored that the ambient temperature was 35 degrees warmer and girls in bikinis were handing out jello shots within its vicinity.

 

On Cake or Death we had several issues time keeping and had to strategize on the fly.  At 1 min out we began running down the line on starboard protecting a hole to tack into. We timed our tack well and crossed near mid line at the gun with clear air and speed until the behemoths who began legging off the pin-end-cluster footed down and into our lane. After being gassed out by the J30 Slingshot we took a prompt clearing tack back to the middle of the lake. A few more hitches and we rounded middle of the pack behind H31 Friday, some Cal 40, and the T-Bird Poco Mas.

 

We got a bit lost on sail trim fetching the Auroramark failing to keep powered up and allowed several boats over the top of us, including the Ranger 26 Rascal, while we switched spin gear over to gybe set. Our self esteem picked back up when we executed a textbook gybe set on the mark and drawing into clean air well off theWestlake shore, picking off 4 or 5 boats including the T-bird and closing quickly on Friday, sporting new downwind nylon.

 

Approaching the AGC mark we had closed the distance between us and Friday to a boat length and Rascal was just to leeward. As we doused the kite and readied to turn hard inside the mark we observed Friday struggling with their sails and maneuvering unpredictably creating a large zone of disturbed air to overcome. Beneath us, Rascal was fighting to drop their kite and generally making a mess of their rounding as well. Unable to pinch above the chaos our only fighting option was to tack away and sail underneath a steady source of spinnaker traffic from the boats at the back of the pack. Surprisingly, this hitch paid tremendously well (apparently also used with success by the Santana 525 Full Moon) as the lifted board even with the occasional gas from the flying sails. We tacked off the Westlake docks crossing well ahead of Friday and Rascal, and finished just behind big sister-ship SJ28 Zephyr on our final approach to the line.

 

It was a satisfying return to Goosebumps racing where we had our struggles but managed to finish strong and smart amid a substantially diverse fleet. Over 40 boats participated (some unfortunately were not checked in, such as Poco Mas), and Cake or Death managed 19^th place for the day with plenty of time to make the Seahawks broadcast. Game-day crew included BK on the genoa trim, Nicole and Christine pulling kite strings, Becker drinking all the foredeck beer, Caleb cursing at the top batten, Calvin licking everything clean below decks, and Kyle on the extremely adjustable tiller extension…