This was our third round the county in a row, which means
we’ve done it both directions, and were looking to leverage that experience. For the 2016 edition we made a major upgrade: after five years racing our J/36 Monekybones we acquired Hamachi, the
beautiful blue J/125 previously owned by Greg Slyngstad. The complicating
factor was that we did this the week before Round the County. As a result, prior to race day, we only had one full day of sailing it under our belts, which consisted of an
upwind ferry trip from Seattle to Cap Sante in Anacortes. Further, given Hamachi’s PHRF of -3, we had
to enter the ORC class, which meant our competition was four TP52s, a Santa
Cruz 70, a Farr 40, an Andrews 53, a J/145 and a J/160 – formidable competition with incredibly experienced crews – especially considering that all our previous experience had been buried down
in the fleet on a J/36 with a PHRF of 81.
Needless to say we were in over our heads, just the way we like it.
Hamachi came with a magnificent sail selection. We barely knew how to rig the boat and had
yet to fly half of the sail inventory, including ones we may have to use during
the course of the race. We opted to go
with the light and heavy #1, a #3, a handful of spinnakers (the A1.5, A2.5 and
A3.0) as well as the Code 0 and staysail and, because it’s the PNW, the
drifter. The eve of the race we debated
loading aboard the #4 and A4, but the last minute Predictwind forecast looked
like things were lightening up. And then
they didn’t…
The Saturday start was a
November classic where 15-20 kts flipped to 30 kts ten minutes before the
start as a cold front rolled across the San Juan Islands. Hamachi was not rigged with reefing gear and
suddenly we were flying around the start line with full main and no option but
to go with the #3. We jury rigged a
reefing system in case things got worse and started longing for the #4 (yes
Jason – I told you so!). We were focused
on not breaking the boat and started conservatively on the pin side. We pointed high to lighten the rig load and
did the only thing we could – sail it like the boat we knew: Monekeybones. Luckily they are both fractionally rigged
J-boats that have similar upwind characteristics, so this worked well. Downwind, they are complete opposites with
the J/36 being a fractionally rigged spinnaker on pole, while the J/125 is a
masthead rigged spinnaker on a sprit. The
J/125 excels downwind. However, this
year’s RTC was an upwind race.
Once racing we leveraged our knowledge of the San Juans to
ride the current relief up the east side of Blakely Island. We started near the end of the fleet but
quickly started passing boats, including ones in our class, using great
strategy and tacking skills. An hour
into the race we had worked our way to near the front of the fleet and were
locked into upwind sailing duals with the likes of Strait Marine (the Farr 40),
Terremoto, Jam and White Cloud. We
executed a few good sail changes and kept the boat motoring upwind at 7kts, but
got caught in towards James Island and got passed up by a few boats. On the beat towards the south tip of Lopez
the wind built against the ebbing tide creating steep waves. During a sail change we lost the jib halyard
overboard which cost us five minutes, but luckily recovered and pressed
on.
Rounding the south tip of Lopez Hamachi cracked off to a tight reach in 25kts of wind and accelerated up to 14 kts rocketing by several boats on a full plane. The forecast was for the wind to dissipate as we approached Salmon Bank, so our plan was to fly the Code 0 as soon as we could get the wind angle, and then downshift to a spinnaker. During this stretch the crew got caught up enjoying the ride so we were late to rig the Code 0, and by the time we were ready to fly it we needed to shift to the spinnaker. This cost us some time but eventually settled in to the A1.5, which was also our first time flying it. We ran with our fleet across the half way mark, crossing at 12:05 ahead of Strait Marine and right behind Jam. We knew that the wind would fade to a drifter, and could see it developing in front of us. Further, we knew that the ebb tide would be significant around Lime Kiln Pt, so we planned to hug the shore. Around Eagle Pt we decided to leave our fleet and jibe in, sensing better pressure and an opportunity for early current relief. In the end this did not pay off. As everything turned into a drifter, puffs would roll through and push groups of boats up the course, but few ever reached us. Our competition caught a wind line that we could not reach and we were forced to watch them sail off towards the finish. We fought for a few hours and eventually made our way out to the pressure and pressed on towards the finish with Madrona, only to stall out 200 yards from the line. We waited 30 minutes and eventually the wind shifted 180 degrees and we threw up our jib to cross the line around 4:50 pm. We parked Hamachi in Roche Harbor and enjoyed an amazing sunset before heading to Johns Island to spend the night.
Hamachi powering upwind near James Island (thanks Sean Drew!)
Rounding the south tip of Lopez Hamachi cracked off to a tight reach in 25kts of wind and accelerated up to 14 kts rocketing by several boats on a full plane. The forecast was for the wind to dissipate as we approached Salmon Bank, so our plan was to fly the Code 0 as soon as we could get the wind angle, and then downshift to a spinnaker. During this stretch the crew got caught up enjoying the ride so we were late to rig the Code 0, and by the time we were ready to fly it we needed to shift to the spinnaker. This cost us some time but eventually settled in to the A1.5, which was also our first time flying it. We ran with our fleet across the half way mark, crossing at 12:05 ahead of Strait Marine and right behind Jam. We knew that the wind would fade to a drifter, and could see it developing in front of us. Further, we knew that the ebb tide would be significant around Lime Kiln Pt, so we planned to hug the shore. Around Eagle Pt we decided to leave our fleet and jibe in, sensing better pressure and an opportunity for early current relief. In the end this did not pay off. As everything turned into a drifter, puffs would roll through and push groups of boats up the course, but few ever reached us. Our competition caught a wind line that we could not reach and we were forced to watch them sail off towards the finish. We fought for a few hours and eventually made our way out to the pressure and pressed on towards the finish with Madrona, only to stall out 200 yards from the line. We waited 30 minutes and eventually the wind shifted 180 degrees and we threw up our jib to cross the line around 4:50 pm. We parked Hamachi in Roche Harbor and enjoyed an amazing sunset before heading to Johns Island to spend the night.
Hamachi at rest in Roche Harbor
Sunday morning was beautiful and light. The first group of boats had major issues
with their start, and so we all waited while they were recalled – twice. It was a downwind start heading off to the
north and again we played it conservative flying the A1.5 and staysail. We quickly learned that in very light breeze
the staysail is a bad thing, since it would choke the spinnaker. We had no power. Once we figured that out we furled it up and
kept it on deck in case we needed it. We
got a little confused with the course and almost missed rounding Danger Shoal. We were already the last boat in the fleet so
hopefully no-one noticed us beating upwind with our spinnaker and staysail to
make the rounding. Having spotted the
fleet 5-10 minutes, we thought it would be a good time to catch up, and quickly
did that. With all of the boats jibing
up the coast of Stuart Island we stayed outside in good pressure and avoided
traffic, sailing deep lines and taking names.
By the time we hit Turn Pt and turned towards Patos Island we’d caught
up to and passed half of our fleet, and were within shouting distance of the
TPs.
On the run towards Patos we had the wind on our beam and sailed high, as we saw it was lighter to leeward. This allowed us to further gain on the few boats ahead of us. As the wind started to come around to 80 deg TWA we decided to go big and put up the Code 0 and staysail. This was a lot of fun until a wind hole developed in front of the fleet and we had to immediately furl the gear and re-launch the #1. We struggled through the wind hole, as did our local competition of Strait Marine and White Cloud. We finally got back on track but spotted these boats a half mile lead in the process. We rounded Patos with Madrona and Artemis around 12:20 and pointed high as we all turned east. At this point the wind started to build from 8-10 kts towards 20 and then 25 kts as we tacked east. We hugged the rhumb line and downshifted from the #1 to the #3. As the boat powered up (we only had a total of 6 crew on our 41 footer) we pointed higher and higher eventually cranking along at 7.0-7.5 kts at a TWA of 25-30 deg. It was a beautiful thing. The waves were large and the boat was pounding so we tacked into the lee of a few islands to get to calmer water. By pointing high and finding the flatter water we were slowly reeling in White Cloud and Strait Marine, eventually getting into a tacking dual with White Cloud as we rounded the tip of Orcas. Once we got our first look at the finish, we could see it lightening up and Jedi caught in a wind hole. We switched back to the #1 as the wind faded and several boats caught up to us. Our small fleet shifted east to sail out and around the wind hole and then tacked back west to reach across the finish line at 9 kts. We finished at 3:25.
After spotting the ENTIRE fleet a 5-10 minute head start, we started taking names (passing White Cloud here)
On the run towards Patos we had the wind on our beam and sailed high, as we saw it was lighter to leeward. This allowed us to further gain on the few boats ahead of us. As the wind started to come around to 80 deg TWA we decided to go big and put up the Code 0 and staysail. This was a lot of fun until a wind hole developed in front of the fleet and we had to immediately furl the gear and re-launch the #1. We struggled through the wind hole, as did our local competition of Strait Marine and White Cloud. We finally got back on track but spotted these boats a half mile lead in the process. We rounded Patos with Madrona and Artemis around 12:20 and pointed high as we all turned east. At this point the wind started to build from 8-10 kts towards 20 and then 25 kts as we tacked east. We hugged the rhumb line and downshifted from the #1 to the #3. As the boat powered up (we only had a total of 6 crew on our 41 footer) we pointed higher and higher eventually cranking along at 7.0-7.5 kts at a TWA of 25-30 deg. It was a beautiful thing. The waves were large and the boat was pounding so we tacked into the lee of a few islands to get to calmer water. By pointing high and finding the flatter water we were slowly reeling in White Cloud and Strait Marine, eventually getting into a tacking dual with White Cloud as we rounded the tip of Orcas. Once we got our first look at the finish, we could see it lightening up and Jedi caught in a wind hole. We switched back to the #1 as the wind faded and several boats caught up to us. Our small fleet shifted east to sail out and around the wind hole and then tacked back west to reach across the finish line at 9 kts. We finished at 3:25.
Some video highlights from the race
In the end the ORC class was fairly tightly grouped on day #2. Based on corrected time we finished at 7:03 (hr:min) behind Glory at 7:02 and Jam at 7:01 but ahead of Artemis, Jedi and Neptune’s Car. Overall we finished seventh out of ten boats (ahead of Jedi and Artemis) - these results were driven by who got wind and who didn’t on day one. Given our experience level with the boat, and the fact that we couldn’t really ever exploit its downwind strength (we spent all of 10 minutes planning all weekend), we were pleased with the outcome and really looking forward to the 2017 racing season.
Shawn and I would like to thank our great crew of Mike, Pete, Steve and Lucas. You guys worked your assess off all weekend, and we all had a blast!
From left to right: Shawn, Steve, Pete, Jason, Mike and Lucas
