JANUARY 2, 2024
THE CALM BETWEEN
STORMS
The incessant national news for the last few weeks has been
the huge surf hitting the California coast.
Sailors do not even consider going out in such conditions, for good
reason. Even negotiating the currents
and eddies in the harbor in these conditions is hazardous. With this scene being predominant for the
last few weeks, I was surprised to see the swells subside just in time for our
Tuesday afternoon sail. Even the rain
had settled a little with predictions for the rain to start in Santa Cruz
around 7pm. With this encouraging
prospect, I put out the notice that I would set a course if boats came
out.
We left the harbor at around two o’clock and the wind was
existent but still very light, though we could see a wind-line way
outside. With the large swells we have
experienced, I was curious to see if our temporary “Schuyler mark” was still
there. We motored out to confirm that it
had been swept away. No Schuyler mark to
use! As we returned to the GOV start
area, the wind had increased to 15-20 knots directly from the south. We set the start line and called for a course
of start, Mile (to port) and finish at GOV.
We had five boats and an el Toro out for the fun. As the wind was building, it was making the “small”
five-foot waves a little more vertical. We
blew the 5 minute horn for a 3 pm, one fleet start.
We had a clean start as all boats beat their way to
Mile. The Perfect 36 was first around
Mile followed by Avatar, Simpatico, Pair a Dice and Kicks. It was a challenging down-wind run back to
GOV, with gusts of wind and waves to contend with, making it difficult to keep
the boat flat in the water. The first
to finish was Perfect 36 29:09, followed by Avatar (No track, no time)
Simpatico 32:41, Pair a Dice 32:50 and Kicks 35:37. All times are elapsed, and the course
distance was 2.23NM.
With the ocean conditions we have had recently, it was
awesome to get a sail in with the calm between storms.
PHRF ADJUSTED RESULTS:
PLACE BOAT PHRF CORRECTED TIME
1 PERFECT
36 144 23:42
2 AVATAR 132 ??
3 SAILING
PAIR A DICE 180 26:08
4 SIMPATICO 165 26:33
5 AND KICKS 180 28:55
RACE QS The track for this evening can be found at:
WIND AND WAVES:
This evening was an education for me
about wind and waves. We all know that
waves need to be taken perpendicular to the face to keep the boat from rolling
to the side. On the downwind run back to GOV, the temptation was to “keep the
sails full”, but sailing to keep the sails full was not taking the waves correctly.
The boat would be tossed to the side by the waves and the wind would accentuate
this motion. There was talk of using a whisker
pole but with the unusual motion of the boat, for safety reasons I nixed the
idea. Possibly a better strategy would have been to keep the sails full and
deviate when waves came to sail straight down the face.
DOCKING IN
CHALLENGING CONDITIONS:
In the last
blog, I wrote about docking in strong wind or currents and using speed to
counteract the deleterious conditions.
On this evening, as I entered my fairway there was a strong southerly
breeze apparent on the water surface on the north edge of the fairway. I noticed a predominant glassy area in the
“wind shadow” of the boats in their slip on the north side of the our dock, So I chose to avoid the heavy southerly
breeze on the north edge of the fairway and motored slowly closer to the docked
boats enjoying the less windy conditions there. As I approached my slip, I
swung wide using the south wind to propel me into an arc for a smooth
docking. The lesson is, if you can avoid
the wind, you do not need to speed up to compensate for the influence of the
wind.
Stay tuned
for next Tuesday. We will see what
conditions prevail and if the race will not be possible, I will notify by email
by noon on Tuesday if it is cancelled.
Barry Keeler
Sailing Pair
A Dice
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