(From left to right: Mark Reed, Jonathan McKee, Libby McKee, and Erik Kristen keep Dark Star moving fast...after MR and EK fixed our DC issues - photo © David Schmidt
Dear Recipient Name
Mea Culpa: I didn't take any pictures on Saturday's Possession Point Race. That's because both of my hands were either busy either dealing with bow and foredeck duties or holding on tight to the lifelines of Jonathan and Libby McKee's Riptide 44, Dark Star. While photo evidence may not exist, at least aboard my iPhone, I can assure you that it was a heck of a ride.
The race was hosted by the Corinthian Yacht Club of Seattle and took the fleet on a (ballpark) 25 nautical mile north-south roundtrip run from the starting line just off of Seattle's Shilshole Marina to a mark off the southern end of Whidbey Island and back home.
The day began in about 14 knots of true wind that was piping out of the south, at times with a bit of westerly mixed in, and occasionally spitting leaden-grey skies. The tide was ebbing, meaning that we'd have a quick ride out to Possession Point. Mercifully, it also meant that the gathering southerly wouldn't kick up truly nasty square waves on the ride home.
The RC's stopwatch neared the end of its countdown, and we approached the downwind start on starboard with a full mainsail and a J3. We rolled into a jibe just as the gun went off and hoisted our A2+. All seemed to go well until Leif, who trimming the kite, yelled that we had a generous-size tear in the sailcloth, someplace around the sail's mid-belly (likely the victim of a less-than-perfect hoist and the J3's battens).
Everyone kept a cool head, and Jonathan immediately called for a peel. We quickly but smoothly got a second A2 on deck, hooked up the new gear, hoisted the new kite, and then pulled off a pretty decent peel in the freshening breeze.
We pulled off a few smooth outside jibes as the fronts rolled up Puget Sound, each with a bit more kick than the last. I often struggle to keep a good accounting of time during races, as minutes and hours have funny ways of elongating and contracting when things are happening fast, but we certainly seemed to find Edmonds (roughly the halfway mark) pretty darn quickly.
Puget Sound widens as its saline wends north of Edmonds, and its underlaying seafloor steps up as it runs into Whidbey Island, sometimes generating bigger and rougher seas than in other parts of the sound. Such was our experience as the true wind kept registering higher metrics, and as Fritz worked harder to keep the bow from going down the coal mine.
Dark Star carries water ballast tanks, and its common to get a lap full of saline—courtesy of an overflow pipe—as the tanks top off. At one point, I remember calling out that the tank was full, only to hear laughter all around me. That's when I realized that the water on my bibs was rolling down the length of the deck, rather than making the much shorter commute from the pipe.
Our true windspeed kept creeping higher and higher, and we saw sustained TWS of around 27 knots, with higher puffs, and boatspeeds that were pushing the 20-knot barrier.
As I said, my hands were busy holding on tight.
Off to the west, I could see a TP52 with a kite trailing astern of its masthead, but mostly I was looking at Whidbey Island's rapidly approaching bluffs and a pair of TP52 rigs nearing the turning mark.
I was expecting another jibe—this time in bigger seas and stronger airs—when JM announced an early takedown. Unfortunately, in my haste to hook up the tack line during the peel at the start, we lost our martin breaker, meaning that this would be a fully manual operation.
The call rang out, the halyard and tack line eased, and a fight commenced to get the sail's foot contained quickly. We muscled it aboard, stashing it below deck in a growing melee of spinnaker cloth and tangled sheets, and then prepared to jibe the J3 and mainsail.
While I knew the seas had kicked up a lot during our run, the evidence of its forces became apparent as we started slamming uphill. Nearby, a TP52 struggled with a broken headsail that had ripped out of its forestay track, leaving about the top one third of the sail trailing astern of the boat's rig.
Worse, we knew from radio chatter that there was an unfurling MOB emergency some miles ahead.
We soon tucked a reef into the mainsail and aimed towards Puget Sound's eastern shores to get some tide and wave-train relief, and to stay in the best breeze. A big final front blew through, and we happily discovered lower winds and calmer seas on its backside.
We eventually shook out our reef and then peeled to a J2.5 as the washing machine motion gave way to flatter water and really nice upwind sailing.
A round of handshakes ensued after we crossed the finishing line, and we enjoyed a debrief back at the dock.
While our day was one of adventure, teamwork, and seamanship, the same wasn't true across the fleet. There's often a fine line between windspeed, conditions, and control. For some boats, crews, and equipment, this threshold arrives with 18 knots of TWS, while others it's 20, 25, or more.
Either way, the equation can shift in a hurry. While our boat, equipment, and crew were in the black on this, plenty of other boats found the red.
All distance races are the sum of all decisions, but one of the best things that we did on Saturday was to keep our J3 hoisted, rather than going to our staysail, on the run out to Possession Point. This gave us an easy out when it was time to lose the kite, as we had a rock-solid upwind sail flying when the call came to tackle the takedown. There's no question that furling a staysail, hoisting the J3, and then dealing with the takedown would have been more fraught, and would have required the foredeck crew (including yours truly) to spend much more time on deck (read: vulnerability).
The enormity of this last detail registered about two hours later, while I was driving home. Jonathan called with the news that two sailors from another well-sailed boat were swept overboard when their boat found the steep side of a mine shaft. According to my buddy who was on the boat, and from a local newspaper report, these two sailors spent about 45 minutes in the water before they were rescued and brought to the hospital.
Fortunately, they were both OK and were released later than evening, but it was a good reminder that heavy-air fun can turn to disaster fast, especially when sailing on water that rarely gets warmer than 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
May the four winds blow you safely home.
David Schmidt
Sail-World.com North American Editor
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