NOVEMBER 7, 2023
WATCH OUT FOR
HITCH-HIKERS
It was an interesting day on the bay. Rumors were that there were whitecaps on the
bay in the morning, but when I got to the harbor around 1 o’clock there was an
Easterly trying to build. I watched as
the wind kept changing direction but Predict Wind was calling for 18 knot winds
in the afternoon. When we left the
harbor around 2:15, the wind was still very light from the North. Since the SCYC marks have been removed for
the winter, we needed to start from GOV and set a line square to the North wind
and set the penant mark toward the beach as the weather mark. As boats left the harbor to race, we
announced the course: Start, temporary mark to port, Mile to port and finish
with Gov to port. Finish line was the
extension of the line from wharf end through Gov.
We blew the “10 minute horn” at 2:50 for a 2:55 start for A
fleet and a 3pm start for B Fleet.
As if on cue, the wind started blowing stronger at about 2:45. What I thought was going to be an ambitious
course in light breeze turned into a
short course for the 15-18 knot breeze that occurred. We had 9 boats out for the fun with 2 boats
in A Fleet and 6 boats in B Fleet.
As B Fleet charged off the line, the question was “where is the windward mark?” I know that this mark can be hard to see
sometimes, but it certainly had disappeared.
We all sailed in to where we thought the mark was and then made our way
out to Mile. It was an interesting
evening with the wind starting from the North toward the beach and changing to
a northwesterly breeze out by Mile. But
at least we had wind!
At Mile, the first A Fleet boat to round was Aboriginal
followed closely by Aquavit. B Fleet was
led by Interlude around Mile followed by Perfect 36, Pair a Dice, Big Mac,
Simpatico and Pacific Spirit. The first
A fleet boat to finish was Aboriginal
26:25 then Aquavit 28:21. B fleet
finished with Perfect 36 first 31:00(?) Interlude second 32:04 followed by Pair
A Dice 32:13, Big Mac 33:31, Simpatico 34:03, and Pacific Spirit 36:25.
All times are elapsed and the course distance was 2.51 NM.
It was a great afternoon for a sail, but we could not figure
out where the windward mark went. We
sailed closer to the beach to look for the mark but it was not there. Since Aboriginal was the last boat to see and
round the mark, we talked to Bret and he said he did not snag it.
So what happened to the mark? We use a second temporary mark
less than 10% of the time and I had not used this pennant buoy for over 6
months. I moved it to the boat just in
case we needed it, but the rode was tangled.
When it was apparent we were going to use it there was a frantic effort
to untangle the rode. Once it was untangled, we deployed the mark. I did not consider the lightness of the line
used for the rode and the length of the rode.
We had over 50 feet of rode and the water was less than 20 feet deep.
Normally a mark will float down wind and use the deployed rode. We had wind
blowing from the north (offshore) and a swell pushing the mark toward the
beach. The effect of the wind and waves
balanced and the excess rode floated in the water around the mark, like a
hitch-hiker trying to snag a ride.
It was a mystery until the next morning when I got a texted
photo of the mark from Paul Tara. The rode and mark were laid out on a dock and the text read “look
familiar”? He noticed the mark floating
in the middle of the channel retrieved the mark and rode. From the bottom paint on the rode, the mark
was trailing 13 feet behind the front of the keel thus not visible to the
crew. The one pound fishing weights were
trailing forty feet below as they finished the race. Bret said he felt the boat was slower but
thought it was due to kelp. It is a
mystery to me how he was able to make the hard turn around Mile without
snagging the buoy chain. Maybe the close
proximity of Aquavit at that rounding helped get the rode clear around the chain.
You always have to watch out for hitch-hikers, even on the water!
 |
| HITCH-HIKERS COME IN ALL FORMS! |
PHRF ADJUSTED RESULTS:
PLACE BOAT PHRF ADJUSTED TIME
FLEET A:
1 ABORIGINAL 33 25:02
2 AQUAVIT 72 25:20
FLEET B:
1 BIG MAC 222 24:13
2 PAIR A
DICE 180 24:41
3 PERFECT
36 (?) 144 24:58
4 INTERLUDE 141 26:10
5 SIMPATICO 162 27:08
6 PACIFIC
SPIRIT 162 29:30
RACE QS:
Race QS worked for most boats and the track can be viewed
at:
For this
evening, there was no track for Perfect 36, so his time is estimated from the
fact that they finished well before Pair A Dice. With a proper race QS track, they could
well have corrected out ahead of us.
So what
happens that causes race QS to not work?
It is recommended that the phone be mounted face up with the top of the
phone toward the bow. I also like to
plug my phone in to be sure it is powered.
One week that my track would not upload, I had left the phone on top of
the chart table and with the movement of
the boat and things being tossed around, maybe a button got pushed that
cancelled the track. I do not know what
happens if you get a call or text to your phone when a track is being recorded.
It is not recommended to keep the phone in your pocket while recording a track.
MIDWINTER
SERIES:
The Midwinter
series is coming up and there is a Jib and Main division that will be perfect
for our group. Be sure to sign up and
participate. The races are on the third
Saturday of each month through the winter.
Barry Keeler
Sailing Pair
A Dice
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