ACE Susan Hood Trophy Race

We arrived at Port Credit and met Mike and Nate at the dock:

We had the usual PCYC burger and beer in the tent by the clubhouse.

We listened to the skippers meeting and the weather briefing by Ron Bianchi.

Then off the dock to the race course.

Boats leaving the harbour for the race

Winds were 4-6 knots from the SE and fluky at the start.  We had a reasonable start on starboard in with all boats in the IRC classes (second start).  Knowing that the winds were going to be light all night, and pickup at 3 or 4 in morning, we wanted to stay close to the rhumb line.

We flew the new chute pretty much the entire way to the Burlington Mark.  Winds were very light, but we clawed slowly down the coast.  Winds died down to 2-3 knots, so we headed into shore to try and pickup some winds coming off the shore created by the difference in temperature between the land and water.  This helped us a lot, and we were passing boats left and right.  We seemed to be making gains on the boats that stayed offshore.

At about 3am near Oakville, the winds died completely, so we dropped the hanging spinnaker.  We still were doing 0.9 knots towards the mark.   At some point in the night, we had ripped the bottom panels on the new spinnaker on the pulpit during a gybe.  Will be an easy repair.

The new winds from the SW didn't come until 4:30am and we screamed under spinnaker and gybed around the Burlington weather buoy at 5am.  There were a couple dozen boats ahead of us who had stayed off shore and got the new breeze first.

It was now a rhumb line drag race to Niagara.  In 16-18 knots of breeze from the SW, with the apparent wind angle at 120 degrees, perfect for ACE.  We were screaming directly towards Niagara between 9 and 10 knots the entire time!

Great Photo
13 miles from Niagara
10 knots constant speed

We were passing all boats near us, except for a J120 that had a huge asymmetric kite.

We rounded Niagara buoy at 8:15am, and found ourselves on a close reach with #1 doing 9 knots comfortably.  Apparent wind was at 75 degree, so wee could not fly a symmetric chute.  We toyed with hoisting Still Time's asymmetric chute, but we had never tried it and were doing well with the genoa. passing many boats in front of us.



When we were 11 miles from the finish, we heard 515, an IMX 38 skippered by HYC's Jim McGinness radio in to the race committee that he was 5 miles from the finish.  Five Fifteen was the  winner of our class and 2nd overall in the IRC fleet.

Kewl shot from the cabin @9 knots

We were neck and neck with another IMX38 called IMXtreme.  The winds had shifted slightly to the west, allowing us to fly a chute with the winds 90 degrees off the bow.  We left IMXtreme well behind us.

Jenny flying the chute

The finish at PCYC is really messed up.  It is right at the entrance to habour, making coming in under spinnaker difficult.  There are boats coming out, boats that have finished, and a fleet of Optimist dingy junior sailors.  So we decided to drop the chute and do the last 1/2 miles under main and genoa.  The genoa jammed in the foil, and we couldn't get it hoisted.  We had a J/35 right on our tail anyways, so it was a good decision.  PCYC really has to think of a different finish.

We were elated with our finish.  We bore off away from the finish line, started the motor, and dropped the main.  Put the motor in gear and it stalled.  Tried it a couple of times.  Had to hoist the main again to take us away from the mouth of the harbour.  As we cleaned up the lines we realized that the spinnaker guy had wrapped itself around the prop,

We made the decision to sail back to the National, taking a mooring ball, and dive underneath to free the rope.

On the way to National, a couple of sailing training vessels came out of EYC under full sail.
We altered course to take their stern:

AWESOME

Once at National, we rafted up against Mike's Impromptu and I donned a wetsuit and mask:

Took two dives to free the line from the prop.

We spent about an hour cleaning up the boat.

We were pleased how we sailed the last two legs.  Our decision to go inshore on the first leg to find wind was the difference.  The boats who stayed offshore got the breeze first.



Click for larger version

Results: http://www.yachtscoring.com/event_results_detail.cfm?Race_Number=1&eID=1248

We were the 7th of 9 boats in our class to finish, 8th of 9 in corrected time.
12th of 14 in the IRC fleet overall.

Trip Odometer: 72.74 miles
Moving Average: 5.0 knots
Max Speed: 10.4 knots

Google Earth Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2015/20150529.kmz

ACE Susan Hood Trophy Race Delivery

Took the Friday off from work, as lots of prep to do, left for National around 11am.

Crew for the race:

• Mike (driver)
• Kris (driver)
• Me (bow)
• Jenny (runners)
• Michael (pit)
• Peter (jib)
• Mark (jib)
• Nathan (runners)

We met Michael and Nathan in Port Credit for the race.

We spent the afternoon getting the boat prepped:

• install life ring
• install jack lines
• install heaving line
• install line bags
• load food and drinks
• load and store gear
• fitting new oversized spinnaker pole
• cleaning and organizing below

Mike had left the boat plugged in overnight to charge the house battery and I was amazed how the de-humidifier had removed two gallons of water from the interior of the boat.

We left the dock a National a little after 4pm, arriving at 5:30pm

Toronto behind us

Winds were 10 knots from the SE, perfect for us to try the new spinnaker and pole.  We hoisted it as soon as we cleared the harbour.

The girth of the chute is carried very high

Oversized (longer) pole

Kris flying the new chute



On the way we discovered that the boat speed was not registering on the instruments.  Boat speed is calculated with a paddle wheel through the hull.  We still had the GPS that would give us speed over ground.  It is nice to have this as you can tell how much current you are sailing against or with.  Plus, the instruments can calculate the true wind from math from the apparent wind and boat speed.

Mark and I removed the transducer that holds the paddle wheel, and quickly put in the plug.  Only about a liter of water got into the boat.

One of the six paddles on the transducer had broken off.  The transducer works by counting using electromagnetism the paddles passing the inside of the transducer.  The paddle would stop spinning at the missing paddle.

I called FOG marine (Mason's The Store), and they said they may have one, but they close at 6pm.  As soon as I jumped off the boat, I found Jim Blaney from Whitby Yacht Club who was racing on WYC's Sandpiper skipped by Les Abrams.  He drove me into Port Credit.

Unfortunately, the replacement paddles they had were FOUR blade and would not work.

Too bad, ohh, well, I bought a new pair of sailing gloves.

Thanks Jim!

ACE Susan Hood Trophy Race Prep

On Tuesday I had replaced the wire that runs down the mast from the mast instruments.  A couple of weeks ago I had fixed the power wires using solder instead of crimp connectors.  The data wires had one open circuit and an intermittent circuit (jiggle the wire).  Wish I had replace it two weeks ago!

Gave it to Jenny for Wednesday race night. and to my surprise the mast tree didn't work, and to make matters worse, the processors would not power on.

I decided to head to National after work yesterday to figure it out.

Low and behold, it was wired wrong in the junction box behind the mast.  Once I wired it correctly, everything came to life:

I even hooked up the flaky B&G display on the chart table because you need it to control the mast displays.  Things like what data is displayed, and backlighting.  In the above example, we have boat speed twice.  Was able to re-configure for

• Boat Speed
• Apparent Wind Angle
• Linear 4 (forestay load)
• Heading

There are the four we have always used.

The forestay load sensor appears to be working also.

We are now ready for the first major race of the season, the Susan Hood Trophy Race

Looking forward to it!

Volvo Ocean Race Game Leg 7

Just completed leg 7 of the Volvo Ocean Race game from Newport RI to Lisbon Portugal

Out of 190k other gamers.

Could have done better, but I was busy at the start of the race, and also got caught a couple times sailing backwards because of wind shifts.

C22 Race Night

John is was on business in BC.

Melissa, Chris, and I.

Severe thunderstorm warnings issued by environment Canada.  Looked at the weather radar, and they were supposed to come through between 7:30pm and 8:00pm.  Got the race committee to make sure they start right at 6:30pm and do a short course so we all could get off the water before they hit.

Winds were forecast for 12 knots from SW with gusts to 20.  We went out with a reefed main and #3.

It was VERY wavy out there because it had been blowing from SW all day.

Melissa on tiller; course was set to 4 Short (4-6-8-9).

Going out to the race course, we could do between 3 and 4 knots close hauled, but the occasional wave would kill all our boat speed.  We got out to the start and winds had died to less than 8 knots. We quickly swapped out the #3 for the #2.

With one minute left, we were at the pin end of the start line on port tack.  We had to duck some starboard boats coming down the line.  We turned to starboard to follow their layline, and the wind dropped significantly.  We bobbed around with hardly any boat speed.  Took us about 5 minutes to cross the line. So BAD START.

As we got closer to the first mark, the winds were picking up and Melissa was having trouble keep the boat on its feet, so I took over on the tiller until we rounded the windward mark.  She did great on the downwind reaching legs, and excellent on the final upwind leg.  This was the first time Melissa had helmed upwind in 20+ knots of breeze.  With more time on the tiller, she will get better.

On the downwind legs, the Sharks pulled ahead as they always do.  This having a reef in the main is a severe disadvantage.

We finished strongly in last place of 5 boats only a minute behind the competitors in corrected time.

Tiller Time

We got a couple drops of rain, but the thunderstorms never really showed up.

Trip Odometer: 7.86 miles
Moving Average: 4.1 knots
Moving Time: 01:54:00

Google Earth Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2015/20150528.kmz

CS34 Sunday Afternoon Spin

Rita and I (and Bogart) headed out for a late afternoon sail. 

At the dock there was 2 knots of breeze.  Going out the harbour, we could see a wind line about a mile off shore, so we motored out to it.  Got into 6 knots of breeze from the ESE, so we hoisted the main up and headed out on a close reach at 2 knots and turned the motor off.

We turned to the east and hoisted to the new asymmetric spinnaker.  This was the first time Rita has seen it.  It was awesome!  Got the boat going between 4 and 5 knots on a beam reach in the 6 knot breeze.

There are many times when we are cruising that you have 6 knot breeze off the beam or aft of the beam, and you just end up motoring because with a main and poled out 135% genoa, you can only make 2 knots of boat speed.  We will use this new spinnaker a LOT.

After about half a hour, the winds died down again, and the spinnaker was collapsing, so we doused it and motored back in.  Rita did well flying and dousing the chute.

Looks like someone has put a marker "stick" to show the start of the Whitby Shoals.  Put a waypoint in the GPS.  You can see on the track were we made a dip to mark the waypoint.

Autopilot performed flawlessly.

Sorry no photos.

Trip Odometer: 5.06 miles
Moving Average: 3.7 knots
Moving Time: 01:22:00

Google Earth Track: Click Here

ACE Folding Prop

Met Mike and Kris at National after work for 4pm; surprising the traffic wasn't too bad!

On the delivery from WYC to NYC last week, they had a couple of problems:

1. having trouble putting the transmission in gear
2. lack of power from the motor and spewing white smoke and black stuff out exhaust.
3. severe vibrations when in gear

We hired Tony, a marine diesel mechanic based on recommendations from Tal Wolf.

Mike met with him earlier in the week. 

The problem with the shifting was a missing cotter pin in the shift linkage.  Tony also adjusted the shift and throttle cables.

The problem with the motor was one of the decompression levers were on, meaning the motor was only running on one of two cylinders.  Could have been bumped when we were cleaning.

The vibration problem has to do with the folding prop.  Tony could see through the keel viewing window that only one blade of the prop was deploying.  We had to haul the boat out to see.

Last year we purchased a lifting shackle and strap to allow us to haul ACE using National's 9,000 lb capacity crane (ACE weighs 8,150 lbs):


Lifting shackle on keel bolts

Lifting strap

The keel bolt attachment point is forward of the companionway, so you have to run a line back to the winches to move the strap and crane back (see above photo).

Waiting for Tony to arrive, we hooked up the lines on the backstay to move the lazy running backstay blocks out of the way.

We hauled Kris up in a bosun's chair using the crane:

Kris up the mast attaching runner block tensioners

We installed a radar reflector for the Susan Hood NEXT WEEKEND. 

Also retrieved the spin pole topping lift that made its way to the top of the mast.

Kris attaching radar reflector

Tony came and we lifted the boat

Start of lift

We lifted it enough to get access to the prop.  Tony climbed underneath:

I DEFINATELY WOULD NOT DO THAT!
What if the lifting strap or crane failed?
We would have TWO TONYs!

Sail Drive and folding prop

You can see the pin and prop blades here

 

The problem is that the folding prop is original from 1994 and has been in salt water.

The pins holding it in are stainless steel and the prop blade is bronze.  The blades have worn out around the stainless pin, and the gear that open/close the prop will not mesh as they should.

 

We need new prop blades.

 

Back in the water, and we wait for a quote for replacements.

 

We can use the motor, but just can't rev it too much because of the vibrations.

 



CS34 Race Night

Now that the CS34 is ready to sail, and I want to get some new sailors out on the race course to get them interested in sailing, racing, and potentially buy a boat and join the club.

This week I took WYC's newest member Todd out and Sue from the crew bank.  I work with Todd and Sue works at OPG Darlington.

I put Todd on the helm;  he did well. 

Sue worked the jib and main sheets with me; she is keen and quickly learned.

The winds were forecast for 12 knots from the NW, so a course was set for 3 medium.  When we got out there, it certainly was much less.

I wanted to stay away from other boats with the new sailors, so we started well back of the start line.  The wind had died further, and it took us another 15 minutes to cross the start line!

Winds were shifty and variable: at one point, the wind shifted almost 180 degrees!

After two hours, we had completed two legs and had 3 more to go. 

"Whitby Race Fleet"
"Whitby Race Fleet"
"Whitby Race Fleet"
"This is Still Time, Still Time, Still Time"
"We are withdrawing from the race"

Chris on little Still Time quickly jumped on the radio to make sure the race committee knew it was big Still Time withdrawing.

We turned away from the race course and hoisted the new never flown  asymmetric spinnaker going home:

Full hoist

Notice the ATN Tacker on the furled jib

The initial hoist was no problem.  In 3 knots of breeze we go the boat going close to 3 knots on a broad reach.

Of course the winds piped up when we went to take it down.

I got Todd to put the auto pilot on and man the halyard to drop the spinnaker, I unclipped the tack of the spinnaker, and feed the sheet to Sue in the v-birth who pulled it into the boat.  It went in the water a bit, but no issues.

Was a fun night on the water.

Trip Odometer: 8.68 miles
Moving Average: 3.2 knots
Moving Time: 02:44:00

Google Earth Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2015/20150520-2.kmz

C22 Race Night

Melissa, John, and Chris as I went out on the CS34 with some new sailors from the crew bank.

They went out with a reefed main and heavy #1, as the forecast was for 12 knots from the NW.

Out on the race course, there was little to no wind and it was shifty and swirly!
They quickly shook the reef out.

Little Still Time looked great out there, and were near the lead in front of the two red Sharks after two legs, but then the wind died, and compressed the fleet.

Trip Odometer: 9.24 miles
Moving Average: 3.8 knots
Moving Time: 03:03:00

Google Earth Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2015/20150520-1.kmz

ACE Toronto Round the Island Race

Worked on the CS34 in the morning with Rita and I headed to National for the annual Round Toronto Island Race.  Being the holiday Monday, I was concerned about traffic, but it was light, and I basically did the speed limit all the way to National; THAT NEVER HAPPENS.

We quickly hooked up the refurbished mast instruments and shoved off.

The B&G processors for some reason would not come on while the motor was going (uh oh).
They started working when the motor was off.

We could not figure out why the B&G display at the chart table the new B&G mast head displays would not work.  The one at the chart table would not even power on, and the mast head units powered on, but were not getting data.

Need a work party to clean up the wiring.

On the boat

• me (bow)
• Kris (driver)
• Jenny (runners)
• Mike (runners)
• Michael (pit)
• Peter (main)
• Christine (jib)
• Barb (jib)

Winds were 6-10 knots from the SE, we had a great day on the water.  The forecast was for rain and it held off, and the sun even came out.

We had a great race, but can't keep up downwind in light airs to the boats that beat us.  Our new oversized spinnaker should help, but we didn't have the new oversized pole to fly her.

We got pretty good at gybing the spinnaker on the downwind leg.

We finish 3rd of about 20 boats in the race

Trip Odometer: 12.00 miles
Moving Average: 5.1 knots
Moving Time: 02:30:00

GPS batteries died half way through the race. so this is a guestimate.

Google Earth Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2015/20150518.kmz

CS34 Ready for Sailing

Rita and I spent all day Sat/Sun working on getting Still Time ready for the sailing season.  We were hoping to make it to the WYC club cruise to CBYC, but we were NOT ready.

Sat morning I got the oil changed and water heater hooked up and working.

851.5 hours on Engine Hour meter

Spent some time running all the lines from the mast back to the cabintop.

• main halyard
• main sheet
• main topping lift
• outhaul
• boom vang
• jib halyard
• spinnaker halyard
• pole topping lift
• reef 1 line
• reef 2 line

Had to go up the mast in a bosun's chair:

Hooking up lazy jacks

Also worked on:

new mast turning blocks (purchased at Toronto boat show)
stack pack sail cover
lazy jacks
flag halyard
boom vang
new spin halyard
furling line
foresail
mainsail with battens

Also tuned the rigging; I had tightened the intermediates first (bad idea), giving the mast a pronounced bend:

Was easily corrected by backing them off and starting with the upper shrouds first.

Sunday spent all day cleaning the boat inside and out.  Last year we decided to leave all the cushions on board.  BAD IDEA.  They got dirty with flies and spiders.  Plus we had to be constantly moving them about as we cleaned.  Neat year, we take them home, only to bring them to the boat after she has been cleaned.

What a mess: I had left a quart bottle of Tom Green beer in the locker under the port settee.  It had frozen and leaked all over the place!

The two house batteries each took over a liter of distilled water; bad! 
The tops of the plates were exposed.

We were hoping to get out for a sail on Sunday, but too much to do.  We picked up Rita's mom in the late afternoon for a club BBQ that was very well attended.

It was nice sleeping on the boat on Sat and Sun nights.

Still a couple of things to do:

• clean out he cockpit lockers
• fix the showerhead
• fix the dining table (some screws missing)
• attached the bimini frame and canvas

ACE Delivery to National Yacht Club

Holiday Monday is ACE's first race; NYC's "Round the Island" race.
Regular Wednesday night racing starts next week.

Barb drove Mike and Michael out to Whitby for the delivery.  Unfortunately, I have too much on the go to go for the ride.  Winds were forecast for very light all night, so it would be a motor.

The new shift level mechanism seemed to be working fine.  The boys pushed off the dock in forward to pickup a table that Mike had left across the bay.

When they got the table by the pump out shack above, the boat went into reverse no problem, but would not go back into forward.  They limped back to the end of dock 4 and rafted up off a Whitby 42 to troubleshoot.  I went and got the CS34 Still Time and rafted off them.

GPS track from the slip:

Click for larger version

Turns out the shift and throttle cables need adjustment.  Mike got the shift cable tightened and we could easily shift from neutral to forward and reverse.  However, the throttle cable was more troublesome. 

They pushed off and could only be the motor up to 1,100 RPM and make about 3 knots of speed.  Not enough power to unfold the prop, so some severe vibrations.  Plus the engine was severely smoking:

Cough Cough

Going out Whitby Habour:

Cough Cough Cough
Shake Shake Shake

I followed them in Still Time for a bit.  Out on Lake Ontario, Mike was able to tighten the throttle cable and the motor came to life, propelling the boat over 6 knots and no smoking:

Like the storm jib/table on the bow!

Reports are that they made it to National safely.

Trip Odometer: 26.86 miles
Moving Average: 6.1 knots
Moving Time: 04:24:00

Google Earth Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2015/20150514.kmz

The handheld GPS had them leaving WYC at 3:45pm and arriving at NYC a little after 8pm.

C22 Whitby First Race

First race of the season, and Melissa was sick, so Chris, John, and I.

Winds were forecast for 12 knots from the NW with gusts to 18.

Since this was our first time racing, decided to be conservative and rig a reefed main and #2.

Chris and I spent some time getting the shrouds a little tighter.  The starboard forward turnbuckle is bottomed out, so we have to remove it and start the threads again.  However, we didn't have enough time to do it.

Went to rig the reef in the main, and reefing ring on the boom is missing; was there last week.  Cheated and used the Cunningham (clever pig) with long shackle and line around the mast.

Lastly, the battery was dead because I left some things on from Saturday; no wind instrument!

We motor sailed out to the course, much more wind out there!

We killed the motor and sailed comfortably at 5.5 knots close hauled; perfect amount of sail.  On the way back to the start, on a beam reach, we hit 7.0 knots of speed.

Chris was on the tiller, John and I on the sheets.  This year, we are going to get Melissa and Chris on the tiller, so everyone is proficient at it.

Four boats in our class; course was 2 medium.

We had a great start on starboard tack near the committee boat in clear air.  We had Bananas to leeward of us; they wanted us to move up, but we couldn't, nor could we tack because our stern/motor would have hit them!  Chris pinched up a little, which dropped our speed slightly and let them pass below us.

John on the tiller on the way back in

Neat shot from inside the cabin

At the windward mark, we were about a minute behind the three Sharks.

Chris was having some trouble in the puffs; the rudder would lose its bite in the water, and the boat would round up into the wind.  I explained to him how to drive with one hand on the tiller, and the other on the mainsheet.  When a puff comes up and you feel pressure on the tiller (called weather helm), you let the mainsheet out, to bring the boat under control.  He got it.

We finished about 5 minutes behind the three Sharks, not enough to catch them on corrected time.

After we finished, we tacked to head back to dock, and I heard some weird sounds from the front of the boat.   I went forward and saw the our #2 headsail had de-laminated and a panel had ripped out:



Chris folding the ripped sail

I don't think it can be repaired.  The sail is from 2008, and typically laminated sails only last 4 or 5 years.

Great night on the water, and great start to the 2015 racing season!
 
Trip Odometer: 10.14 miles
Moving Average: 4.9 knots
Moving Time: 02:02:00

Max Speed: 7.0 knots

Google Earth Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2015/20150513.kmz

ACE Sails Delivered

Mark Backman met me at my house and loaded all of ACE's sails in to his van and delivered them to ACE.

• Racing Main
• Delivery Main
• Heavy #1
• Light #1
• #2
• #3
• Five Spinnakers
• New Oversized Spinnaker

Took five dock carts loads to bring to the boat.

Spinnakers in the bow