The 2017 racing season kicked off March 4th with beautiful but
cold weather in Seattle. Sixty two (62) boats had assembled for the CYC
Blakely Rock Race. A week of storms dissipated leaving patchy blue skies,
sun and the remnants of a southerly. This was forecast to fade over the
course of the race leaving everyone potentially in a drifter. Our crew of
Mikki, Alyosha, Steve, Lucas, Chris and Max (along with Jason and Shawn)
assembled early to entertain the camera crew making Max famous over in China.
We were off the dock, cameras and drones in tow, and after the cameos set
about to racing. We hoisted the heavy #1 in the stiff morning breeze and
quickly dialed the boat in. Based on the pressure we decided to return
quickly to the dock to pick up some heavier air sails in case things did not
settle down as planned. Back on the water we quickly entered the start
box for our start sequence (#8), which had the highest performing PHRF boats.
We started amongst the usual suspects and PNW power houses including:
Absolutely (Farr 39), Terremoto (Riptide 35), White Cloud (Cookson 12.5),
Wicket Wahine (Melges 32), Madrona (Custom 40ft), and Freja (Aerodyne 43).
Team Hamachi - Pre-Start
We had an average start and ended up behind traffic in bad air so
we quickly tacked out and back to set up our lanes. We worked up the east
side along the Shilshole breakwater and then worked back west, making several
tactical tacts to gain on our fleet, eventually moving out front with White
Cloud. The upwind beat in 8-10 kts left everyone fairly bunched as we
approached Blakely Rock. As predicted the wind began to fade causing
people to make extra tacts as they rounded the mark. We rounded abeam
Terremoto and immediately behind White Cloud and Absolutely. Once around
most of the fleet hugged the western shore searching for puffs of wind.
We moved out towards the middle of the channel seeking the benefit of the
ebb tide. A group of four boats including Hamachi, Terremoto, Absolutely
and Dos started separating to the east chasing our own pockets of wind. After a half mile Terremoto and Dos jibed back west towards the fleet,
while we continued on with Absolutely on our stern. Surveying the course
we clearly saw more ripples in Elliott Bay and along the eastern shore, but
apparently only Absolutely and us had this assessment, because no one followed
us.
As we continued east the breeze slowly built. We jibed to
lay West Point as well as the northern mark and carried this breeze steadily north. At this point only Absolutely and Hamachi
were in the wind and we put serious distance on the entire fleet. In
fact, we were reeling in the two lead boats: Crossfire (R/P 55) and Smoke
(TP52); which were several miles ahead at the time we rounded Blakely Rock.
Over the course of two hours we pushed north following the wind line that
was clearly only on the east side of the course. The wind was directly
out of the west so we were in a very tight reach and Absolutely eventually had
to fly a jib, while we had our A1.5 cranked tight. This allowed us to put
additional distance on them, and we somehow kept gaining on Smoke, watching
them round the windward mark about 0.3 miles ahead of us. As we
approached the mark we put up our #1 jib and reached in and around. In the
process we struck the A1.5 and put up the A3, which was now serving as our Code
0. We were the third boat to round the windward mark (behind Corssfire
and Smoke) and, with the exception of Absolutely and Wicked Wahine, the rest of
the fleet could hardly be seen.
We now pushed south towards the finish making good time, as
Absolutely worked north. After 20 minutes we came across the race
committee boat heading north. They hailed us on the VHF and asked us to
call their cell. They relayed that they had a conundrum as they were
moving to shorten the course, with the goal of making the northern mark the
finish. However, now that we were around it (by this time so was
Absolutely), they could not do that without giving us some consideration, or
making the entire fleet sail the complete course. Over the next 10
minutes a weird phone dialogue/negotiation ensued as they worked to figure out
what they were going to do. The wind was fading and we had good boat
speed, while Absolutely was parked behind us. It was also clear that we
would finish with plenty of time on Absolutely to take the overall PHRF win.
The race committee was not at the windward mark and did not have
clear timing between the boats. Absolutely claimed that they had the time
they rounded and also timed how far behind they were from our rounding - they
said around five minutes. We did not have times for either. In this
scenario, even with the shortened course, the race committee said that
Absolutely could have won. We pointed out that we were now 0.5 miles in
front of Absolutely, with 1.5 miles to sail, heading towards the finish at 3
kts while they were parked - in our opinion we were clearly going to win (we
were). We were happy to finish the full course to prove our point, but
this would mean everyone else would have to as well, and most would not. After
a final discussion with the race committee and then our crew, we decided that
the best thing to do for the fleet was to shorten the course. Further, in the theme of sportsmanship, we agreed
to "share" the victory with Absolutely. We were putting good karma (and good will) in
the bank for future occasions.
Team Hamachi - We Know Our Finish Place
When the results were tallied only 28 boats of 56 in PHRF finished
the course. On corrected time we (and Absolutely) finished 45 minutes ahead of 3rd place
and an hour and 15 minutes ahead of the 4th place finishers. We were all
pleased with the overall outcome, especially given this was only our second
race and fifth day sailing Hamachi. Race results can be found here:
Some great shots of Hamachi from Jan:
Mikki on Bow: Mikki on bow
Hamachi going to weather: Team Hamachi in the office, Hamachi powering uphill
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