Montague Harbour Race

Sunday September 5, 2010

The race morning dawned with the wind blowing out of the harbour, briskly but with signs that it would not last. The Fleet Captain set a short windward leg to the Grace Point mark so that we would not have to start under spinnakers and the fleet of six boats cast off and headed to the line. The wind was oscillating through about 25 degrees and it was hard to decide on which end was favoured. I watched Greg go through his pre race manoeuvres of going head to wind at each end of the line and saw him get wildly different results as the wind was swinging in the time it took him to sail to the opposite mark. At about one minute 50 seconds to go it looked to favour the starboard end and at about one minute it was still the starboard end and the fleet was lining up and there were calls of "NO ROOM". At 30 seconds to go I finalized my plans and wound up my boat speed and dashed down the line, hoping to start in clear wind and get the shift that would allow me to tack across the bows of the fleet.

At about a minute after the start the shift came and I threw the Kay D over onto Port Tack and cleared Soul Thyme by ten feet, Electra by four and Caliente by three feet and three inches (but who's counting). Two more shift sequences happened on the short beat to Grace Point and Greg Slakov on Imp called them both and also nailed the lay line to round first and bore off and set the spinnaker. The Kay D rounded close behind and did a gybe set heading for the club house shore, where some extra breeze shot her temporarily into the lead. There followed a little dance of gybing to the oscillating shifts and hunting for gusts that was eventually won by Caliente who found a good line and extra gas to leeward by the First Sister and stormed into the lead.

The next test was the gybe and rounding of the Second Sister and negotiating the dead spot in her lee.There was no perfect choice but each boat seemed to find the choice that worked at the time of rounding and no one was left in a hole. Close reaching to Nose Point, spinnakers sheeted in hard it was Caliente, Imp, Kay D, Electra, Soul Thyme and Empezar. Caliente and Imp charged through Captains passage and found good breeze that took them right into the opening between Julia and Galiano on one tack. Kay D found a hole just under Scott Point and waited for Electra. Soul Thyme gained much by staying wide and none of the rest of the fleet was able to lay the gap and had to short tack up the Galiano shore to get in behind Parker.

Once in we were greeted by a complete lack of wind and the site of Caliente and Imp parked up by the Montague entrance gap. Hope springs eternal, only to be doused by powerboat wakes and a gust of wind that sent the leaders out of site again. Lunch while going backwards followed by a decent bit of air and a great joust between Electra and the Kay D which saw the lead change four times before the wind spit them out from Sphinx Island into Trincomali Channel for the race home.

Caliente and Imp were again in view, having elected to head across to the Salt Spring shore to try and beat the tide. Kay D followed by Electra chose to close reach up the Parker shore in a line of wind that looked promising while Soul Thyme crossed over. The boats on the Saltspring side looked like they were going into a hole and then they dropped spinnakers and started beating up against a new wind. About ten minutes later the Parker Island boats also had to drop spinnakers and start beating. A header and a gust convinced the Kay D to tack and head over and things that looked good looked less so with every tide line crossed. Electra elected to keep going up the shore, postponing that flushing feeling that the Kay D was experiencing as Soul Thyme was being swept visually to windward, ouch. Finally the tide relief of the Saltspring shore and some more wind brought on some excitement as the Kay D started to reel in Soul Thyme. By the time they had close tacked up to Nose Point the gap was very small but the wily Keith Simpson delivered the coup de grace by braving the tide and reaching the Prevost shore leaving the Kay D in the non existent back eddy.

The end game of the race was the tight reach to the Sisters followed by the run down to the finish line. Caliente, with a lead in excess of ten minutes used this time to do extensive gybe practise, or so I was told, not being able to see due to being stuck in the non existent back eddy at Nose point.

All in all a great day of racing and some valuable lessons learned and stored away for another day.

Martin Herbert on the Kay D