June 12, 2009 Happy 33'rd Anniversary Carole . We started the leg about
one third of the way between the Port Hardy side of the line and the
other side of the bay. Worrying about over early resulted in a start not
quite aggressive enough resulting in a lot of dirt air. We worked our
way out of that and ended up leading our fleet after about an hour. The
winds started out very light an gradually increased up to about 10
knots. We worked the shifts and worked our boat speed very well as we
worked our way up Goletas Channel . Felix and I celebrated my
anniversary by patching up Felix's rain pants, they had two tears in the
seat where Felix works the deck. We had some Duck tape handy on the side
of the cabin so while Felix bent over , sexily I applied the tape to the
appropriate locations with all of the appropriate ribald comments. Near
the end of the process Mikey came out and said in the Mikey way, "happy
anniversary Mike". We all just about died with laughter. It was a
beautiful day with just enough wind and just enough lulls to keep us
very competitive right up to Nahwitti Bar. I guess I got a little cocky
about working through the current and that mixed with some last minute
wind changes resulted in spending about 20 minutes parked at the
entrance to the Bar and no bartender anywhere to be seen.
Nightrunner ran right up the Northern side of the channel while the rest
of the fleet worked the South shore. We started out in the middle and
then saw Nightrunner pick up a nice strong Northerly lift. We tacked to
the North and got into it on the Southern edge thinking that it would
continue to move to the South. It moved us up the ladder nicely but then
petered out to nothing. We sat and watched two other boats come into the
same breeze and pass us. We tacked over to get into the breeze to follow
it about a half a mile to the West where it connected with the
Northwesterly. We finally got across the dead spot to find Tryst
following the shore with a nice breeze and positive current. We fought
the current and finally put up the Asymetrical spinnaker to get down
into the favorable current. We were now behind Tryst by about a half a
mile. We took the chute down and had to beat hard in 3-4 knot breeze to
get above the rocks. Tryst can really point so eventually we at their
bad air and had to go low to get through it which put us into the kelp
fields. We went through a particularly dense patch and may have picked
up a major bull kelp at that point. The wind picked up to 12-14 for a
nice reach and I went down for a nap while Rudy and the crew ably worked
the boat across the tip of the island. We didn't know about the kelp
because we were just flying at 7-7.5 knots. They woke me up at Cape
Scott and we put up the Code 2S ("Big Balls") and began surfing. The
waves weren't very big and the wind dropped a little. We tried sailing
hot for a while and then put in a waypoint near the finish and found out
sailing deep gave us nearly 1-2 knots better VMG.
We had a beautiful run with winds increasing to probably 16-18 in the
puffs. Since we were surfing at 7.5-10 knots the boat was very
manageable but the boats ahead just seemed to get further and further
away. It was one of the best sails that I have ever had though. We
stayed tight to the point to get to the nearest part of the finish line
and ran into a wind hole with 0 to 5 knots of breeze from many different
directions. I checked the rudder for kelp at that point and saw a big
piece at about three feet deep. Leon got the boat hook out and went
after it. The boat hook had to be extended out to the full length in
order to get to it. When he started pulling it up and came to the root
ball I knew it was going to be a big one. It was about 30 feet long with
leaves and all totally wrapped around the keel.
We finished right behind Jazz the Beneteau 36.7 though they got quite a
bit ahead of us while we sat in the hole again. I hope that we have used
up all of our bad luck. We finished in the daylight at 2137 hrs. and had
a nice trip in to the Winter Harbor.
We seem to be really good a sailing the first half of the legs for the
last three legs, it doesn't matter though does it? This will put us out
of the top three for sure so were hoping to do well for the last three legs.
Back to the chores of the day, MK
