Newport - San Diego Race


Race: Newport - San Diego Race (The Great One Night Stand!)

Distance: 70.1 nautical miles.

Wind: Mostly SSE, starting out light, then building through the afternoon, then going very light and shifty later in the evening. Wind essentially on the nose the entire distance.

Crew: Tom Bradley and myself.

Sleep: Essentially none.

Cut the chit-chat, Scott, and skip straight to the Results


This last weekend, the vernerable yacht "DeathMobile" won her division in the Newport-San Diego Race affectionately called "The Great One-Night Stand."

After agonizing all week trying to get a third crew member, I decided to go with just Tom Bradley and myself. I asked Tom on Saturday morning if that was OK with him and he gave his typical answer of, "Ain't no biggie... been there before." We knew it would be difficult to race with just two people against fully-crewed boats. The problem would not be boat handling as much as staying rested and alert. We're both 45 years old -- we could do this stuff twenty years ago without giving it a second thought, but I was aprehensive about our endurance levels.

So off we went. We had three sandwiches each, tons of cold drinks including plain cool water, a locker full of snacks, chips, cookies. We had the outboard on the cabin sole up by the mast and the gas tank with about a gallon in it in the lazarette. We got a tow out to the start so we wouldn't have deal with the outboard.

We were the smallest, slowest-rated boat in our class. Generally, in a light to moderate wind race, being the slowest boat is a disadvantage because the finish times are usually spread out and the first boats in often correct out on the slower boats. On the other hand, if you can stay out in front, there's no guessing where you stand on corrected time!

At our 10-minute signal we raised the #1 to get a feel for the boat. Being the smallest boat in our class, (a) every other boat could easily block our wind and (b) they were all faster than us so we would have to keep from getting driven over after the start.

At 2 minutes before the start I noticed that people were mostly setting up for the leeward end of the line. In the very light wind we were already on our final approach. We were a little early so I did a quick 360 which put us slightly behind schedule but with complete control over our destiny. We were up to speed and picked off a perfect start right at the committee boat even though we were about 15 seconds late. That didn't matter because in the lightening wind everybody else had misjudged their distance to the line. After sailing for about 2 minutes we were already picking off the back end of Class C (it was a reverse-order start.)

Earlier in the day I had been listening to the marine weather broadcasts and they had repeatedly said that the wind would stay SSE (i.e. not shift to the west as per normal.) So we pointed the boat straight down the course which was a slightly cracked-off close reach and trimmed the sails to go as fast as possible on this point of sail. Once we got the boat speed dialed in we sailed to the trim rather than trying to retrim for every little shift. I was in the zone and DeathMobile was just makin' tracks down the rhumb line. Most of the other boats were going higher in anticipation of a westerly shift that I believed would never come. So they were sailing a slightly longer course and going a little slower. I liked that just fine! The main exception to this was Joe Greenblatt in Michegaas who was sailing right on our transom until he saw that he was slipping farther behind, at which point he went very low into Dana Point. We led our class boat-for-boat until nightfall, at which time we more-or-less lost track of the other boats. The last we saw of Michegaas was miles away, right on the beach, south of the San Onofre nuclear power station.

We got headed into La Jolla around midnight and went in instead of tacking, thinking that if the wind was dying we would get thermals off the land. We were wrong about the wind dying and in the process we picked up kelp on the rudder a couple of times. We were able to sweep it off.

We worked back offshore into the fitful southerly. The puffs were warm and damp, from the south.

Around 4:00 AM we tacked for the layline for San Diego entrance bouy #3, the only mark of the course, about 6 miles distant. In no way did we really expect to make it in one tack.

At 5:30 AM we were overlapped to weather of the fastest boat in our class, the New York 36 Agitato, and keeping even with it. We were both aimed right at the mark which DeathMobile had tacked for 1.5 hours ago. We somehow avoided snagging any kelp in the infamous kelp beds of Pt. Loma. Then, all of a sudden, we picked up a big chunk of kelp on the rudder and the NY36 shot ahead.

At 6:00, I called up the race committee on VHF channel 69 to ask if any class B boats had finished and Shella Fuhrman on the SDYC Race Committee informed me that she loved DeathMobile's web page!! This took me by complete surprise and lifted my tired spirits.

The New York eeked ahead and finished 15 minutes ahead of us in extremely light (drifting) conditions. They were only 100 yards ahead and we heard them get the shotgun blast for first-to-finish in class.

DeathMobile finished at 6:30 AM, Sunday morning. With our handicap for being slowest-rated boat in our class, we won by a margin of over 24 minutes.

We beat four Class A boats (over half that fleet) boat-for-boat.

The third Class B finisher was an hour and a half behind. The NY36 congratulated us as we wrestled with our outboard to mount it on the transom bracket and hook up the fuel. 10 minutes later we were motoring towards SDYC.

Our spot was right at the main guest dock at SDYC, right in front of everybody. We cleaned the boat, put on fresh shirts, and went into the clubhouse for coffee and restroom stops.

SDYC has a GREAT Sunday brunch but we didn't want to spend the time or money. I was delighted to find a mini buffet in the bar with scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, cut fruit and melons, muffins, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and coffee... all you can eat for 3.99!! We couldn't have asked for better!

By 9:15 AM, less than 2 hours after getting to SDYC, we were at the fuel dock filling up our jerry jugs and getting sandwiches and Cokes.

By 10:00 AM, we were under under way, out the harbor entrance and on our way back up the coast. After clearing the worst of the kelp beds Tom went below to sleep while I took the first watch. By 12:30 I was having an incredibly difficult time keeping my eyes open. I started to hallucinate. The worst part was that time seemed to grind to a halt. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was 12:30, then I adjusted sail trim, adjusted the speed of the motor, shifted my weight to a softer part of the cushion, steered a while, then looked at my watch again -- 12:31! I did this several times and was getting very depressed that we still had 66 miles and 13 hours to go. :-( Eventually Tom came on deck and I was able to catch 10 or 15 minutes of sleep besides the hour of simply lying down and relaxing.

At 1:00 AM we tied up at BCYC, cleaned everything up as quick as we could and left at 1:30. I left the boat in the water until Monday evening when my dad will help me get it on the trailer.

At 2:15, after a quick shower, my head hit the pillow.

At 2:15:10 I was sound sound asleep!

At 9:00 AM Monday I was at work. What a life!! It will be nice to have a restful peacefull week at work...


What we learned this race:
  1. We continue to be amazed at how the game changes so dramatically once the sun goes down. Clearly we were not sailing our best since we could not see sail trim as well and we were very tired. I would really like to make an effort to optimize night sailing.

  2. The infamous kelp beds off Point Loma and, earlier, off La Jolla need to be handled in an efficient manner. When sailing in these areas, you will pick up some kelp. The sooner one recognizes that one may have kelp and the easier it is to clear the appendages of it, the better off you will be.

  3. A few weeks ago there was a thread on rec.boats.racing on "sympathetic" helmspersons versus "technical" helmspersons. I think that Tom and I are both "sympathetic" and that, coupled with a light and responsive boat with no instruments, really helped us keep our speed up during the light shifty winds at night. We even needed to use the flashlight to see the compasses (I'll have to track down that wiring problem!).

  4. I was really pleased to learn that Dan Prigmore and Rob Elliott had won 1st and 2nd in PHRF A. These two guys are great friends and I'm really happy and proud for them!


Results

ULDB

Sail # Yacht Make Skipper Club Margin
87337 Swiftsure N/M 68 Doug Mongeon DPYC 00:00:00
18970 Blondie SCZ 70 Fred Hammett SDYC 00:58:08


PHRF A

Sail # Yacht Make Skipper Club Margin
97700 Nehushtan And 44 Dan Prigmore BCYC 00:00:00
18373 Spirit Exp 37 Rob Elliott BCYC 02:52:31
46267 Windswept Swan 56 Max Phelps SDYC 03:06:02
57977 Pele Swan 43 Emmi BCYC 04:57:40
46060 Energy J/105 Davies BCYC 05:22:38
77838 Cutie Pie Hob 33 Holland NYC 06:27:50
77683 Eclipse Swan 42 Howden SDYC 06:32:35


PHRF B

Sail # Yacht Make Skipper Club Margin
37139 DeathMobile SCZ 27 Scott Truesdell BCYC 00:00:00
36050 Agitato NY 36 Don Strickland SWYC 00:24:32
67572 Michegaas Sov 30 Joe Greenblatt DPYC 01:45:20
67944 Campbell's Sloop Aph 101 Leon Campbell SDYC 01:58:35
67871 Juice San 35 Don Fulton SWYC 02:12:06
97479 Razzberries Ols 34 Nesbit RYC 02:23:37


PHRF C

Sail # Yacht Make Skipper Club Margin
67852 Obsession Cat 30-T Apps SBYRC 00:00:00
46378 Tristan Cat 320 Higgins SDYC 00:14:10
57553 Alta Mar Ran 33 Hernandez SGYC 00:26:38
57469 Paper Moon Erc 35-2 Mike Renneker SGYC DNF


CRUISING, SPINNAKER

Sail # Yacht Make Skipper Club Margin
7157 Sagacious Col 50 Chuck May SDYC 00:00:00
46388 Infinity CAT 38 Guiland CPBYC 03:15:26
46007 Mariah ODAY 34 Joe Brinker SWYC 04:52:28
8977 Viava COL 43 Lisaukas OYC 05:22:47
7028 Willow Wind CAL 40 Siegal SLYC 07:27:10


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