Tag: Offshore Racing

Offshore sailboat racing.

This year the moonlight race at Fishing Bay Yacht Club was pushed back to August to coincide with the super moon blue moon occurring a few days afterward and giving us the most light to sail by (if it weren’t for the clouds).  We were sailing aboard the J99 Battle Rhythm with Todd, Jen, Terry, Kevin, April, David, Harry and myself.  As we left the dock shortly after 6 we could tell that it was blowing pretty good out of the south east. The white caps breaking over the bar at the entrance of Jackson Creek confirmed it as we ventured out into the Piankatank. 12-15 in the river near the start and we’d see as high as 26 when we were out in the bay and clear of Gwynn’s Island.

We were a little late timing the start and followed the fleet to the first mark at the tip of Gwynn’s Island and then we headed upwind southeast into a building current.  We had started with a double reef, but quickly went to a single reef when we felt vastly under powered. At times the waves crashed over the bow and soaked the crew on the rail. Kevin and April took the brunt of it and thankfully being August it wasn’t too chilly.

On this upwind leg with winds in the upper teens with gusts into the twenties and the single reef in we were definitely overpowered. We haven’t sailed the boat in these conditions very much and took a while to figure out the groove. After we found it we were doing 7.5-8 knots upwind and making up ground on the fleet. We also took a bit of a high line closer to the wind taking us further south that enabled us to fetch the mark in the current without pinching.  This would be clutch as several boats who didn’t fetch the mark would end up having to duck us on port as we came into the weather mark. It was spooky with several boats just behind us in the dark.

The next leg took us on a broad reach to the north west into the mouth of the Rappahannock river and with the prevailing current. None of the boats put up a spinnaker with winds still reaching 26knots. At times we were doing almost 10 knots through the water.

Once we reached the turning mark in the Rappahannock it was time to come back upwind to the mouth of the Piankatank. We went a short ways inshore to Stingray point and then tacked out into the Bay. Some of the boats just behind us went even further inshore and when we crossed them they were just ahead or at least much closer. So we decided to continue the leg by going inshore and away from the current and approach the next mark on the starboard layline. We entered the Piankatank and reached into the finish shaking out the reef as we got back behind Gwynn’s island. We finished 5 minutes behind Nanuq and 2 minutes ahead of Orion, but after the corrected times were calculated, we came out 5 seconds ahead of Excitation for 1st place.

PICTURES | RESULTS | VIDEO

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The Rescue Regatta is a one day regatta, party and charity benefit for the Middlesex County Rescue Squad. There’s racing for boats from 20 feet and up and a band and party Saturday night at the Deltaville Maritime Museum.

On the day of the race storms blanketed the area in the morning and start to clear just as we were leaving the dock. By the time the racers were starting there was even some blue sky poking out and the wind was 6-9 out of the south.

Shortly after the start with all but 1 boat ahead of us.
Shortly after the start with all but 1 boat ahead of us.

The format of this race is a progressive start so each boat gets its own start time and everyone sails the same course to the finish with the faster boats with lower handicaps starting last. First to finish wins. We were sailing the 2nd fastest and lowest rated boat in the fleet – the J99 Battle Rhythm. Only the J109 Afterthought was faster than us and started behind us. So in order for us to win, we’d have to pass every other boat in the fleet and we started 35 minutes behind the slowest boats. The course was a V with a close reach out of the mouth of the Piankatank into the Chesapeake Bay and a broad raeach back up into the mouth of the Rappahannock.

Aboard Battle Rhythm were Todd, Kevin, Jennifer V, Holly and myself. As we crossed the starting line at a our starting time we nailed the timing and quickly put up the A1 and settled into a rhythm sailing as high as we could to fetch the mark ~4 miles away. Afterthought was our closest competitor who started shortly behind us and slowly worked above us and started catching up to us. We quickly rolled past Tradition who started just before us and we continued to pick off a few boats on the way to mark G. It was challenging at times keeping the boat going with the high angle on the spinnaker as well as not sailing into the lee of another boat.

Afterthought and Corryvreckan just ahead of us approaching the turning mark.
Afterthought and Corryvreckan just ahead of us approaching the turning mark.

Afterthought and Corryvreckan stayed just ahead of us as we got to the turning mark. They rounded wide and we rounded inside of them to be upwind on the broad reach. From there we stayed just ahead of Afterhthought dodging traffic on a relatively high line while Corryvreckan went low and made some gains in clear air away from the pack. We learned a lot about how close we could get in the lee of the slower boats without having them affect our speed.

Towards the end of the race it became more downwind and we went to the left side of the course so we could come back across the course to the finish on starboard. As we converged at the finish there were two boats clear ahead that had already finished – Afterthought and Shehallion and it was close between us and Corryvreckan. They gybed at the last minute before we would have collided and we had to turn down to avoid them. We immediately protested them and crossed the finished line shortly there after. Shenanigan and Sting were all right behind us at the finish. We ultimately lost the protest on port-starboard, and I was a little disappointed that committee felt Corryvreckan kept clear even though we had to avoid them. Rather than ensuring fair sailing and safety, the protest committee set the precedent that we basically have to hit them to win the protest, which is not what we are going to ever do and not what the rules say. So as a result, the message we got is that we’ll have to give our competitors a wider berth as we can’t rely on the rules ensure fair sailing and we certainly can’t rely on the protest committee without there being contact.

Aside from the ending, it was a fun day of sailing and we finished 3rd overall. We learned a lot about sailing in traffic and had a great day on the water. Thanks Todd for having me along.

PICTURES | RESULTS | VIDEO

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We had a small fleet for a summer race to Wolf Trap Light House and back. There were 6 spinnaker boats and the two boats in the PHRF-A fleet were us on the J99 Battle Rhythm and the J109 Afterthought.

We started in the Piankatank just off Gwynns Island and had winds in the low teens out of the SSE and mostly sunny. There was a bit of traffic at the start with all of the boats piling up at the starboard end of the line which happened to be the government mark. We had to dodge a few boats and once we got clear we hung with Afterthought upwind on the way out of the Piankatank.

Once we cleared the river we continued upwind south to Wolf Trap light. With the current going out of the bay it was advantageous to continue on starboard all the way out into the bay. We got to the layline a couple miles from the lighthouse and tacked onto Port.  Afterthought had continued to inch further away from us and was about ½ mile ahead of us by the time we got to the light house.  And the wind out here was around 6-8 knots.

At Wolf Trap we rounded and set the A2 spinnaker and headed downwind. We sailed this spinnaker for a bit hoping the wind would build into its range, but it didn’t come and we decided to do a spinnaker change to the A1. While Kevin, Len and Carrie got the old spinnaker down, I grabbed the tack and halyard and got it hooked to the new spinnaker and after Kevin wrestled the chute into the hatch and Len hooked up the sheet I jumped the halyard on the mast and we had the new spinnaker flying in just over a minute.

Another new trick for this race was having the chart and instruments on the iPad. We also set up some time graphs with one of them being VMG and so after we changed spinnaker we were able to see from the chart that we were getting at least a tenth more VMG.

We continued North to the Piankatank, saw a huge pod of dolphins  and eventually rounded into the river where we went somewhat upwind to the finish off Gywnns Island. On corrected time we would be about 14 minutes behind Afterthought.

All in all it was a good day of racing. Learned a few more tricks on the boat and had fun racing with Kevin, April, Carrie, Todd, Len, and Ann.

RESULTS | PICTURES | VIDEO

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We had a very light air race for the Cut Channel Race at FBYC. With only 4 of us on the boat – Todd, April, Tony and Jon we managed the boat in the light air without too much difficulty.

At the start, we set the spinnaker for the mostly downwind leg in the bay while the wind switched on us a couple of times. We had some confusion about the course and didn’t end up too far off course, but got behind the rest of the fleet, and stayed to the north and up current. As a result of being behind the wind filled from the north west and carried us past most of the fleet. We reached back and forth in pressure trying not to get ahead of the puff to keep our momentum. We rounded in second right behind Corryvreckan to head mostly upwind for 4 miles into the Rappahannock.

Again we stayed north of Corryvreckan and Afterthought and made some good gains while the wind filled. Once it started to drop as we entered the Rappahannock, it got squirrelly with current and Afterthought and Corryvreckan slipped by us.

After 5 hours of sailing, as we were going by Stingray Point Light and re-entering the Piankatank, the time limit expired despite doing the shorter course. No boats finished the course and all headed back to the dock. It was a fun day of sailing and did pretty well with only 4 us. We learned some things about the boat and had some good stretches of actually sailing our targets where we really got the boat dialed in.

PICTURES | VIDEO

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The FBYC Offshore Spring Open consisted of 2 days of racing with the first on Saturday being buoy racing and a distance race on Sunday.

Saturday – Buoy Racing

We arrived to a light drizzle on Saturday. Goin’ couldn’t get the hoist to work, so a couple from their boat joined what was going to be a short-handed crew on Battle Rhythm. Winds were in the 15-17 knot range out of the east as it continued to drizzle.

In the first race we were about a minute late to the start as we thought the other fleets were starting first. We started with 1 reef and were at the first weather mark about the same time as Corryvreckan.

Downwind we didn’t fly the spinnaker and as we sailed down the course we saw the wind dropping and shook the reef out. We finished the race without the spinnaker and finished 6th of 7.

For the second race we had a terrific start right at the boat, right on time, with a nice lane to leeward and we managed to shut the door on two other boats trying to start at the boat-end of the line.

In the 10-13 knots of wind we worked on tuning the boat upwind and got a little more in the groove. We rigged the spinnaker and had to shuffle people around – Todd went from the helm to the bow and Dennis drove downwind while Jon stayed in the pit. We did pretty well and held our position with Afterthought ahead and Sting behind us. We did another lap of the same and although Sting got pretty close to us and we ended up correcting behind Nanuq by only 26 seconds. In the end we finished 6 and 4 putting us in 5 overall after the first day.

Sunday – Distance Race

Sunday was the distance race – which was basically east out of the Piankatank and then North up the bay and then the triangle back to where we started.

The start was from FBYC-A which meant that the boat was on the port end of the line and the starboard end was the government mark. We had a pretty good start on starboard while many of the other boats were on port. We carried starboard to the north to have a better angle on the next mark, while the boats that were already on port were pretty tight upwind to make the first mark.

We rounded the first mark with many of the faster boats very close to us. From there we stayed upwind while many other boats cracked off to a close reach on a coarse for the next mark. Only the current was streaming down the bay and the boats that cracked off quickly found themselves getting swept and having to sail upwind again. The wind was still pretty light and our angle and positioning to the North allowed us to carry much more speed and catch the new wind to the North and rounded the next mark in second with our entire fleet behind us. Mad Hatter in the B fleet played the current even better and beat us to the mark and the C fleet boat Wendas was just behind us.

The next leg took us roughly upwind and up current to the North. There wasn’t much relief from the current but we went to the west side of the course along with Mad Hatter. Afterthought had caught up to us, but split to the east and lost a couple minutes by the time we got to the north.

On what was the final rounding to the finish, we rounded and set the chute. In process of getting the sail set, we lost track of where we were to be heading and spent a few minutes going downwind further than we should have. Had we kept on a tight reach, we would have been able to sail longer on a straighter course to the finish. But because we went low, we had to douse the chute a little earlier and go back to an upwind mode to fetch the finish. At times the wind was barely nothing and the current continued to rip down the bay making it hard for us to get anything in the sails. Eventually the wind filled, but Afterthought would correct to almost 25 minutes ahead of us and Nanuq corrected to 5 minutes ahead of us. We managed to stay enough ahead of Corryvreckan to correct over them by 30-some seconds for 3rd place.

PICTURES | DAY 1 RESULTS | DAY 2 RESULTS | VIDEO

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As was the case in 2022, the club was short a PRO for the first spring series of the year and so I stepped in last minute to be the PRO. We had a small but mighty team and gave the racers the best we could given the weather, volunteers and equipment we had available.

PHRF-BC start with GOIN’ and Mad Hatter

While it wasn’t windy by windy standards- the conditions were still cool, the wind was up and the waves were a bit lumpy from this direction. We were able to set up a 1.5nm weather leg and ran two races for both fleets on that course. The cruising class intended to do a triangle derivative of this, but through some miscommunication to the RC, we sent them on a triangle that was way beyond what they were intending and weren’t finishing even the first lap of that until almost after the other fleets had done two laps and started their next race.

Paula and Jon doing flags at the back of the boat while Cathy calls time.

Thanks to Paula, Cathy, Mary and Paul for their help on RC.

This was also my first chance to try out a new insta360 X4 and here’s the 360 video in 8k of driving the boat out of the Jackson Creek Channel.

VIDEO | PICTURES | RESULTS | EVENT WEBSITE

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This weekend the Battle Rhythm crew joined the Race Committee for the Opening Day race. The 3 fleets did a middle distance race out into the Chesapeake Bay and back. The wind was light and took about 3 hours to do the ~15nm. We had a 4-6 knot breeze in the Piankatank the entire time. The boats out in the bay saw much less than that at times and many of them abandoned when the current started taking them faster than the wind.

Being on Race Committee this was a perfect opportunity to get some video of the boats and try out a borrowed 360 camera.

VIDEO | PICTURES | EVENT WEBSITE

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FBYC closed the regular season with the Closing Day Distance Race. The weather was absolutely gorgeous with beautiful fall foliage – it felt more like September than almost November. Except there wasn’t much wind. Knowing it was a distance race with little prospect of more wind later and oysters to be eaten this afternoon the RC chose to start us on time and let us make the most of what wind there was.

I was sailing on Battle Rhythm, we were the 3rd fastest boat and thus the 3rd to last boat to start. We were just behind Tradition as we came to the line and ended up underneath a bunch of boats who had parked up just above the line. It took us a long time to sail around them and after 35 minutes to the weather mark – we set a spinnaker and headed due east out of the river to the next mark of the course.

We soon passed a few boats that had rounded the first mark ahead of us. With the spinnaker up, we were a little low and eventually had to drop it and go back to a jib as the wind went a little south. By the time we reached the far mark we were around 7-8th place. On the way back to Stove Point we passed two cruising boats leaving only Afterthought, Nanuq and Goin’ ahead of us. We didn’t catch them, but had a good time to get at 4th and learned some things about how to make the light reaching spinnaker work in light wind and close reaching.

Following the race were oysters and we had a great time catching up with a lot of folks for possibly the last time of the year.

PICTURES | EVENT WEBSITE

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The second day of the FBYC Fall Open featured a distance race to mark located in the Chesapeake Bay just off Gwynn’s Island called 41a but otherwise known to FBYC Sailors as L. The course was an out and back following the same path back to the finish. 

In our fleet were 5  boats – Sting, Corryvreckan, Afterthought, Nanuq an Arcona 46 and us on J99 Battle Rhythm.  Aboard were Todd, Len, Ron, Anne and Jon.

We started in the mouth of the Piankatank and sailed out into the Bay on a close reach. Around us were the J109 Afterthought and the J105 Corryvreckan. Winds were 12 – 14 and we were sailing with the jib and full main. After rounding one of the entrance marks to the Piankatank we headed south on a broad reach down the bay. 

We arrived at Chesapeake 41a otherwise known as FBYC-L just off the southern end of Gwynns Island.  At the southern mark, we doused the spinnaker and came back upwind along the same course we had taken out there.  The wind had backed to the north north west making this an even more upwind slog back.

We took a few tacks inshore towards Gwynns island to stay out of the current.  Once we were back in the Piankatank we close reached to the finish just off Stove Point.

After the handicaps were calculated our race was good enough for 2nd place beating the J109 by just under a minute on corrected time though we were still 5 minutes behind the Acrona.

PICTURES | VIDEO | RESULTS

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After missing Saturday’s racing while helping Todd deliver the boat – day 2 at the Stingray Point Regatta would be the first race of 2023 for J99 Battle Rhythm. As we were heading out to the course we were seeing winds of 8-11 and we used it to practice some maneuvers with our short-handed 4-man crew of Todd, Len, Ron and myself.

The first race started on time – still in 8-10 knots and we had a fantastic start. Other boats in the A2 fleet had better first legs and we found ourselves deep in the fleet at the first mark. We picked up places as the race went on and as the wind continued to drop. By the last downwind leg to the finish it was pretty light. We had past most of the boats ahead of us except Afterthought and Voodoo 2 who were just ahead of us drifting to the finish. Just as we got close the RC abandoned the race with all 3 of us just a couple hundred yards from the finish. It was disappointing to come all of this way and race through all of that, but wasn’t going to be a fair race and was the right call. We definitely learned a lot, started to get the boat dialed in and worked on finding the sweet spot on the new spinnaker we were flying.

After some time postponed motoring around to make some wind and stay cool – the sea breeze eventually filled in out of the south. The RC reset the course and sent us racing again. We didn’t have quite as good of a start this time and had to tack out pretty early and get away. That wasn’t awful as it was the right way for current relief and it allowed us to go in clear air. As the breeze built we spent the race getting back in the grove and taking our time in the maneuvers to not mess anything up. Sometimes we were pulling away from other boats, and other times they were running up on us. We got a 4th in that one.

In the last race of the day – now in the late afternoon, we had another pretty good start. This time we did better to keep up with Afterthought and Voodoo and they were just ahead of us for most of the first lap. The wind had built to 9-11 and we had to adjust modes for the wind and adjust our maneuvers with only the 4 of us to raise and lower sails a little slower to keep things controlled. Voodoo 2 and Afterthought did get a bit more ahead of us, but we held off the boats behind and managed a 5th.

I had a great time sailing with Len, Todd and Ron and it was fun to show all of these other fully crewed boats what we could do short handed.

PICTURES | RESULTS | EVENT WEBSITE | FULL RESULTS

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