Author: marcklim

This has definitively been the highlight as far as our racing adventures on Image go so far. We participated in the 101-mile-long Cape Flattery race.

Act 1 – The prep

This was probably the hardest part of the race. I just looked through the list I kept for prep work and counted more than one hundred individual items. The big buckets were – in a nutshell

• Do what’s needed in order to comply with the safety regulationsThis meant setting up clip in point and jacklines, emergency steering (we had both a spinnaker pole system and a drogue available), doing some NMEA 2000 installation so that our radio received GPS coordinates for DSC) and many other things. Especially complying with the regulations for securing the companionway turned out to be tricky. The rules call for a way to tie the washboards, keep them in place with the hatch open or closed and for a way to secure the hatch from the inside and outside.
• Setting up the boat for a shift system and overnight racingWe added lee cloths, stocked the galley with sufficient freeze dried food, installed a thermos for hot water (best thing since sliced bread) and made sure we had a way to store all our gear while still having 3 berths open for off watch crew.
• Doing the stuff you feel like doing ‘before the big race’For us this meant pulling unused hardware off the deck, replacing the old horn and jam cleats for the sheets with new cam cleats, putting on a new main halyard and getting new jib sheets as well as spin sheets and guys. We also tried to replace the old genoa foot blocks, but since we had trouble putting the new ones on (they need some wood in order for the line to clear the winches and we were not 100% satisfied with the pieces we made) we settled for just putting a pair of blocks on the toe rail. Needless to say, pulling off old hardware meant epoxying a bunch of old holes.

Act 2 – The delivery

We started our delivery Thursday evening out of Elliott Bay Marina. We left about 30 mins late since I forgot to buy fuel and the fuel dock had closed, so we got to put 10 gals of diesel into the boat using a jerry can. No fun at all.

We picked up some gear at Shilshole Bay Marina and off we went, heading for Victoria. The first couple of hours were calm but as soon as we entered the Strait or Juan de Fuca we were in for some nasty conditions with big chop and rain all during a nighttime delivery (I believe getting the snot kicked out of us is the technical term).

As it turns out, someone had forgotten to lock the forward hatch after one of the previous races and taped the fittings in order to protect kites coming down. As soon as we took the first wave over the bow, a got a couple gallons water over my feet and sleeping bag and the entire V-Berth was soaked. At that point in time I actually started wondering why we were doing all of this.

The conditions finally got better as we approached Victoria harbor Friday morning. We checked in with customs over the phone and an officer got sent down to inspect the boat. Before the trip we made fun that ‘two Germans, a Turk and an American sail a boat to Canada’ sound like the beginning of a great joke – and it turned out to become one. The officer checked our passports, stamped them but could not give us our confirmation number for the check in. He promised to call or bring the number to our dock at the Victoria inner harbor. Since we did not hear back in the late afternoon, I had the pleasure of doing the check in again via phone in a 40-min conversation with the Canadian authorities. Suffice it to say I got pretty decent at spelling using the phonetic alphabet after 3 rounds of going through the passports.

We met with our remaining crew, attended the skippers meeting, had dinner and fell asleep.

Act 3 – The race

The actual race day started with a little drama when the fleet decided it was go-time. Moored next to us in the second row was the Olson 30 ‘Beats per Minute’ without crew aboard. The boat inside of them decided to leave and we found ourselves with another boat tied to us temporarily. Luckily, with a lot of helping hands, we were able to figure this situation out quickly. Check out YouTube for a video of the fleet leaving inner harbor. The entire marina emptied out in less than half an hour. Super impressive considering the size of the fleet – about 200 boats. This video has some cool footage of the fleet leaving as well.

We had some breeze and significant chop on our way  to the start line.

The start was daunting but actually went well for us. Daunting because starting with 100 boats in the same start means you have to be on top of your game, especially when a port tack start is heavily favored. We stayed on starboard as long as possible and swung over to port as one of the last boats in the fleet, catching a decent line on the leeward side of the line. You can see us in this YouTube video at about 1:39. I admit, in retrospect the start was probably a bit on the conservative side, but considering that our crew had never raced together it seemed better to be safe than sorry.

After the start, we were able to hang with Peregine, another Catalina 38 for a while, even once they peeled from their #2 to #1 genoa, however, after about 30 mins they started walking away once the breeze got lighter. The breeze eventually shut off and we hoisted the windseeker which allowed us to make some ground on the fleet. After that, the asym went up and we were on a reach through race passage.

The rest of the day turned into light air upwind racing. We tried to play the currents, however, looking at the tracker I believe we sailed too much distance.

We rounded the Neah Bay mark at night. Identifying the mark boat was not trivial, but we managed it pretty well after looking at a parade of boats leaving the bay. We only had one boat rounding with us. I set up the asym for a bear away set, however, we decided we needed to jibe around the mark and then jibed back a couple minutes later and hoisted. I decided not to move gear since we were only 3 on deck at the time and the conditions allowed us to hoist without waking up more crew.

The run went well with the asym tacked to the bow and after sunrise on Sunday we decided to project the asym to windward using the spinnaker pole. Even though this was a first for us, it went really well and gave us more than 1kt of boat speed on the deep angles we were running. If only we had done this earlier :).

Later, we peeled to our symmetric kite in order to match the deeper angles of our competitors when the wind picked up. Going through race passage ended up being interesting. My guesstimate is that we had about 18kts of breeze and were running so deep that it looked like the main was by the lee and the spinnaker pole to leeward and incredibly high – 7ft off the deck. Since the kite got set up when we took the asymmetric down, we were also running with sheets only. I called for a jibe before race rocks in order to give us some more room. This did not quite work as expected, the kite started oscillating and we had to take it down. We managed to avoid a broach, rolled out the genoa and went through race passage. After race passage the kite went up again (sheets and guys this time). The wind picked up and we had a heck of a time getting it back down when we approached the finish line at the harbor entrance.

All in all I am super satisfied with the sailing we did. I’d say we probably have the biggest potential for improvement when it comes to navigation and tactics. However, considering that we raced with paper charts, mostly hand held GPS’es due to battery concerns and without wind instruments I think we did OK.

Act 4 – Going home

The delivery home was probably the best sailing of the entire trip. We left Victoria at 5am. After about an hour of motoring we hoisted the asym and crossed the Strait of Juan de Fuca with 6-7 knots of boat speed. My personal highlight of the trip was a hail on VHF from the mark boat of the Juan de Fuca race whose skipper ‘just wanted to call us and let us know we are looking good’. Needless to say we loved hearing that.

Later that day we hoisted our 1.5 oz symmetric for the first time and christened it ‘the mighty kite’ since it is a bit bigger than our regular .75 oz symmetric. It carried us all the way down to Shilshole Bay Marina where we checked in with US CBP. I did not know that before, but for the Swiftsure race allows you to check in in Seattle which is super convenient since it saved us from diverting to Port Angeles.

After the customs check in, the asym went back up and we sailed home to Elliott Bay Marina. Unfortunately we discovered a coolant leak when we tried to dock (the exhaust flange had come lose from the manifold) but we were able to dock the boat safely and the crew was glad to be home.

Thanks again to the awesome Image crew for making this an incredibly fun adventure. Also, thanks to the amazing folks at Ballard Sails who made us number boards and lee cloths on short notice. Also, thanks to Wayne and Patrick at J/World for training John and me in their Offshore Racing seminar last year and giving lots of advice in during the Swiftsure prep.

This was the first ’round the buoy’ regatta for Image. Two days of intense racing. Races were set up to last 60 mins and the goal was to sail 4-6 races a day.

We had a couple of crew changes for the two days. Image raced on the south course with 4 other boats in our class. Our PHRF rating was the fastest in the class.

It’s fair to say we learned a lot. It turns out Image is a handful to take around the buoys, especially downwind. Our spinnaker work needs quite a lot of improvement, but we made some good progress during the regatta.

Notable events:

• We had a couple of good upwind legs and were able to get ahead of the fleet
• John got us one really flawless start
• We need to label or color code lines. In one race, we dropped the jib halyard instead of the spinnaker halyard. The jib luff tape got stuck in the headfoil and we had to go back to the dock in order to fix it
• We skied the spinnaker topping lift, but were able to retrieve it by making a bosun’s chair out of a dock line and sending John aloft

Looks like I have neglected blogging for a while. Let’s catch up. There were 4 more races in the Snowbird series.

Race 2:

Finally some nice breeze. Since we don’t have wind instruments, I would guesstimate 15-20kts with gusts to 25. We went on the first upwind leg with a reef in the main and a partially furled genoa. We had a much easier time keeping the boat flat than Breeze who had their #2 up and the main in the first reef. We ended up rounding the upwind mark in front of Breeze and Akari II who had overstood. On the downwind we poled the full genoa out and were able to run very deep. Akari II kept their bow up and ended up beating us in corrected time. All in all a good race for us.

Race 3:

Somewhat of a drifter, similar to the first race. Ended up 3rd behind Breeze and Kittiwake. Let’s call this taking points home for showing up.

Race 4:

Can skippered the boat since I was in Germany for Christmas vacation. I hear it was another drifter. Looking at these pictures, I have no trouble believing it.

Race 5:

This is my favorite race of the series. Conditions were very light and the Race Committee decided to postpone. The race was kicked off when we saw a light patch of wind which turned out to be just enough to finish a race on the shortest course possible. We raced a really solid race. Sails were set up all powered up and we did a good job playing the shifts. We were able to keep Frog Prints behind us and take about a minute from them in the first upwind leg.

On the downwind leg we put in two extra gybes in order to stay in better pressure and more favorable breeze. This allowed us to put some distance between us and Backslider (our strongest competitor in this race) who parked in a lull. The final upwind leg went ‘just ok’, we made it over the line first with Backslider hot on our heels who beat us in corrected time.

Since Breeze did not show up, we actually ended up winning the Snowbird series. Showing up was a big part, but I would like to say we did some decent sailing as well.

Image raced the first race of the SBYC Snowbird Series on 11/15. This was only our second race and we were excited to try out the new sails and running rigging.

Competitors

We competed in the non flying sails class and shared the start with a group of cruising boats. Unfortunately, Boadicea did not make it to the race. Rating wise we were the second fastest boat, probably because of our PHRF credits for a smaller headsail and fixed prop.

Course and conditions

In the morning, light and variable winds were forecasted and the forecast proved accurate. We saw about 2 hours of 0-5 kts true wind speed.

The course was set outside of the Shilshole Bay Marina breakwater as  NENMN2, which is start line, C1 buoy at the south end of the marina, start line, Meadow Point buoy and back to start, 2 laps.

We recorded our track using the GPS and uploaded it to RaceQs.

Start

Started in class 1, 1^st warning at 10:55 for an 11:00 start. We had a really good start, crossed the line first only a couple seconds after the signal on a port tack, Breeze just to windward of us. Akari II crossed about 2 mins after the signal, Frog Prints was very late, and ended up crossing the line about 10 mins into the race.

1^st upwind leg

We stayed close to shore together with Breeze at similar speed and pointed about the same. Akari II went way off shore. Wind was flaky during the entire leg which lead to Akari II catching up and actually rounding the top mark between Breeze and us on a port tack. Kudos on a very nice maneuver.

1^st downwind leg

The wind got very light.  We tried poling out our genoa wing on wing but did not see lots of gains, wind was super light, we ended up being parked close to the downwind mark together with the rest of the fleet, including Frog Prints who had caught up by going way off shore. Akari II went about 2 miles off shore, found the breeze and got to the downwind mark first. They also caught the breeze first after rounding the downwind mark and started their upwind leg first, followed by breeze. We got stuck in a lull around the downwind mark. Frog Prints was fighting current and crossed the mark last.

2^nd upwind leg

Wind was still light and fluky, Akari II dropped out after crossing the finish line. Breeze had a solid upwind leg and got to the top mark first. Frog Prints made huge gains, rounded 2^nd. We had a good upwind leg, caught some lulls and ended up rounding the mark 3^rd and last in our class.

2^nd downwind leg

The wind came up to about 8tks and we ran down wing on wind with the genoa poled out. Breeze was clearly in the lead, however, we gained on Frog Prints.

Final upwind leg

When we rounded the bottom mark, the wind had come up to about 12kts, Breeze was already at the finish line. Frog Prints rounded and in front of us, we hardened up and hit our top speed for the day. Frog Prints finished in front up us by about 2 mins – however, we owed them time.

All in all we had a solid race. No close calls. We improved crew work setting the spinnaker pole as a whisker pole.

Here is what we learned:

• Early on we decided that the tides weren’t going to be that important.  However, looking back at the wind speeds that .5 knot could have been significant.  We might have gotten a better push from the tides further off shore.
• After our first rounding of the mark we chose a straight line to the leeward mark.  Sailed slower but a much shorter distance.  This makes sense helps when we can go wing-on-wind at similar speed as a broad reach but sail straight to the mark.  The advantage was that we arrived rather close to the leeward mark and did not have to battle the current coming out of the channel as much as some other boats.  The disadvantage was that we were at the mercy of the wind and lost steerage. A broad reach would have allowed us to chase the puffs a bit better and might have paid off even though it would have been a longer course
• We did not pay enough attention to where the breeze was filling in.  Despite rounding the leeward mark over 5 minutes ahead of Frog Prints, we lost the upwind leg because we sailed ourselves into a lull, granted we remembered we had to pass the start-finish line pretty late.
• Poling out the genoa using the spinnaker pole is nice when we have some breeze.  It worked much better on the second downwind leg.  In light air is seemed to limit our maneuverability, especially since the wind was very flakey.  Poling out also did not work when the angles get too high.  So it’s very situational.
• Keeping boat speed up seems especially important for Image as she packs a few pounds.  We pay dearly for tacks in light air.  Also our tacking angles get rather large in light air, this can be observed nicely on the RaceQs replay.  Crew work can help us a lot.
• Crew weight played a much more important role than expected given that Image displaces almost 16000 pounds.  At the very least we were able to point better when the crew was on the leeward side because the genoa would come off the shrouds and we could trim better.

Detailed results are available on the STYC Snowbird website. The next race of the series is on 12/12, we will be there and report back.

It’s been quite a summer for Image. We have tackled several projects in order to make Image a great charter boat.

Engine

Image is equipped with a 24hp Universal 5242 Diesel engine which had trouble starting earlier this year. In order to mitigate this problem, the engine was thoroughly inspected and the head gasket was identified as the culprit. The faulty gasket was replaced as well as the fresh water pump, heat exchanger, transmission linkage and levers and the engine control panel. As a result the engine now runs cool as ice and starts reliably. One less thing to worry about..

Dodger

Image has been equipped with a brand new dodger made by Iverson’s. The result is quite stunning as is the way Iverson builds their dodger: The design crew comes to the boat equipped with the tubing which then gets bent in shape and becomes the dodger frame. After that, a pattern for the canvas cover is created.

New Sails

After more than 2 decades of use, Images sails were pretty tired as you can easily tell from these pictures:

Ballard sails built a set beautiful sails for Image: A full batten mainsail and a 135% LP genoa. We decided to go for a 135% genoa with foam luff instead of a 150% which was the size of the old genoa. Even though the 135% has a little less horse power in light air, but it can be reefed to 100% in a blow while keeping decent shape. The sails are built in cross cut from Dacron and will both as cruising and racing sails for the time being.

Flying the kite

Once the engine was taken care of and the new sails were on the boat, we had a chance to go sailing. On a light air day, we couldn’t resist setting the spinnaker. Image is set up for dip pole, but since we only had one set of lines (they look like they were intended as spinnaker guys rather than sheets), we sailed with what we had while jury rigging a foreguy from an extra block and tackle assembly we had on the boat. It turns out the kite is very pretty, behaved well in 3-5 kts true wind and was a lot of fun to sail.

Sloop Tavern Fall Regatta

First race – yay! We entered into the Sloop Tavern Yacht Club Fall Regatta with no flying sails and did pretty well considering we were the new guys. The fall regatta was a 3-race event.

With our 6-person crew we were in a very good spot in the downwind leg of the first race. The rounding of the top mark was a challenge since the most of the fleet the conditions were light air and significant currents around West Point. The race was unfortunately abandoned while we were on our downwind leg since no boat finished within the time limit.

We kept up the good work in races 2 and 3 and finished within less than a minute (corrected time) of our closest competitor.

Floorboards

The wooden floorboard on Image were pretty old and worn and have therefore been replaced with new ones. Take a look.

Running Rigging

Typical of her age, Image was originally equipped with some wire / line halyards. We replaced most of the running rigging with new Samson Yacht Braid – 7/16″ for the halyard, 1/2″ for the main and genoa sheets. The new genoa sheets are also a bit longer than the old ones, making them more comfortable to use.

Image is a racer / cruiser. Since there is no Catalina 38 one design fleet in the Seattle area, the way to race image is under PHRF handicap.

PHRF stands for Pacific Handicap Racing Fleet and was established in Southern California as an alternative to the Cruising Club of America (CCA) and International Offshore Racing (IOR) rating systems. In order to allow different boats with different performance characteristics to race competitively, each boat gets assigned a handicap in seconds per mile. Image will most likely rate between 130 and 140 seconds a mile. This means that if Image is racing a J/35 (which rates 72 in One Design configuration), the J/35 needs to beat image by 58-68 seconds per mile in order to win. So on a 12 mile course you are looking at 11 to 13 minutes.

PHRF ratings are based on the dimensions of the boat and it’s sails such as Length over all, Length of the waterline, Beam, Displacement, Ballast, Length of the luff, leech and foot of the sails, etc. Some credits are given for not using spinnakers, propellers which induce additional drag, etc.

To my knowledge, Image has not participated in a bunch of races in the past. Therefore it is time to get her rated. Here is how that works on Puget Sound:

1. Join a yacht club that is member of PHRF NW. This is actually optional, one could get a boat rated by working directly with PHRF NW, however, for me it made a lot of sense to join STYC since they put on a lot of races and their membership dues are very affordable. Check out their website for details.
2. Join PHRF-NW.
3. Submit a rating form and get a rating from the handicapper. This is what I filled in for Image.

I hope to receive a rating by the end of this week along with an assignment for sail numbers. Once that is done, the new sails can go on the boat.