ACE Whitby 100

The 2nd annual Whitby 100 ran this weekend.  We only had four boats.  I wondered why we didn't get as many boats out as last year: I had changed the weekend for the race and it was in conflict with a LOSHRS race from PCYC to Port Dalhousie.

Didn't matter, we were in a match race with Peter Smith's 1D35 Razorbill.

In white sail, Frank LaRocque's Galaxsea was racing BPYC's Sangaela.

If there are two boats on the water, you have a race!

I spent much of Friday prepaing ACE

• charging the batteries
• vacuuming water from the bilges
• fixing fluxgate compass
• adding diesel fuel
• checking the oil (added some)
• fixing emergency bildge hose
• replacing spinnaker pole up/down cam cleats
• general clean up

We also hoisted Michael up in a bosun's chair using the mast crane to fix the running back stay shock chord:

It was only a 15ft lift to fix it and took 5 minutes.

BBQ for all races upstairs in the clubhouse, then Skipper's meeting at 6pm, then off to the boats.

Razorbill was stuck in their slip and took a while to get out there, The white sail boats went off at 19:00, while us/Razorbill started at 19:30.

Five of us on the boat:

• me
• Michael
• Jenny
• Steve
• Terry

Steve and Terry had sailed with us before on the Whitby 50.

Jenny on the helm heading out

Michael and Terry

Winds were forecast for 12-19 from the east, and then swing to the south 14-23 around midnight.

There definately wasn't that much wind at the start, we beat to the windward mark and popped the white chute and were on our way to Toronto doing between 6 and 7 knots of boat speed.  We only saw between 6 and 8 knots of wind with lots of waves left over from the wind that had been blowing from the east for the last day.  We were able to point at the mark, while Razorbill with her asym had to sail hot angles and zig zag behind us.

The full moon was bright; we didn't have to use flashlights to trim the sail!

At one point, I had to throw a halyard over the spinnaker pole.  The shackle caught me in the eyebrow and I bled like a pig!  Jenny fixed me up with some "absorbant pads" to stop the bleeding:

When we got the other side of Cathedral Bluffs, the winds completely died, and we felt a shore breeze of 6-8 knots from the North, so we gybed  the spin and headed past the Leslie Spit and rounded the Toronto Gibraltar mark at 23:51, hoisting the #1 and dousing the spin.

By then the weather system had brought in the expected south wind with 12-16 knots of breeze.  To much for the #1, as we were healed over big time.  We did a hoist, tack and peel to the #2 and were much more comfortable.  You can see where we did this on the track.

The new wind was warm, and so was the water; I didn't even both with foul weather gear!

As we blasted upwind to Niagara at 7+ knots, the waves were building.  At about half way across, we thought about changing sails to the #3, but decided we need the power to get though the waves and just stuck it out, as the waves would diminish as we got to the south shore.  And they did.

We were 30 degrees low of the mark and had to tack 3 miles from it.  We were actually sailing away from the mark, but had to take the hitch over to get around it.  We rounded at 03:32.

We were pretty beaten up after the 22 mile pound, so we just sailed comfortably with the #2 for a little over an hour while Michael went below for a sleep.  Our speed was still between 8 and  9 knots. RazorBill was gaining on us and winds had dropped from 18 knots to under 11, so popped a chute and got the boat going regularly over 9 knots.  When a puff came, we would just dump the main and point the boat down and our max speed here was 12.6 knots!

After about 20 miles heading directly at Newcastle, the wind lightened and RazorBill passed us to the east when we sailed into a hole.  We changed to the bigger blue cute:

Time on the photo was 04:04

We gybed the spin and caught the new breeze from the SW first and re-gained the lead rounding Newcastle at 10:21

We hoisted the heavy #1 and headed toward Whitby at close to 8 knots on a close reach 55 degrees off the wind.   I had rigged for a spinnaker set just in case.

Near Whitby, the winds did swing right from the S to SW; no spinnaker for us, but it also mean no spinnaker for Razorbill.

Jenny finished the race on the helm:

Funny shot of Jenny showing how big Razorbill was on the horizon near the finish:

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We finished FIRST at 12:41:03 about 20 minutes ahead of RazorBill.

Great crew work, and the boat performed perfectly.

Crashed in the V-berth on Still Time for the afternoon:

Trip Odometer: 119 miles

Avg Speed: 6.5 knots

Max Speed 12.6 knots

Moving Time: 17:22:03

Google Earth Track

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