ACE Lake Ontario 300

This is the first Lake Ontario 300 we were able to do on ACE since getting her in 2014.

I was so looking forward to it.

• Michael (driver/bow)
• Kris (driver/bow)
• Me (bow/driver)
• Jenn (jib/runners/spin)
• Ashley (jib/runners/spin)
• Brent (grinder)

ACE was delivered to PCYC on the Friday (I forget who did it).

I arrived at PCYC at 8am, where everyone was having the Sperry breakfast:

With Sumac's cew

We got the boat organized, and Kris put on the logo on the bow

Port

Starboard

Here is a shot of the bow during the race:

Great shot!

We got put in the top IRC class with the top dogs:

• Relentless (Farr 40)
• Gaucho (Farr 44)
• Beneteau First 40

On the way out we saw Derek Hatfield's Open 60 at the start:

We had a great start, pushing a couple boats over early.  With the PAN AM games on , they changed the course to an offshore mark about 4 miles offshore from PCYC.  This was done to avoid the sailing venues from the games that were happening off Toronto Island.

The above shot shows the Toronto skyline and a PAN AM racing fleet.

Winds were light, <8 knots; using the light #1, we were a close reach to the turning mark.  At the turning mark, we were neck and neck with all our competitors.  The point of sail was at 75 degrees on a starboard tack; too close for the big symmetric spinnaker, so we hoisted Still Time's asymmetric spinnaker:

Got us going nicely around 7.5 knots for a couple of hours.

Off Toronto Island, we passed Peter Smith on Sumac (Jenny's boyfriend):

Sumac

Champagne Sailing:

Jenny and Kris

I was on the helm for a beautiful sunset:

Our game plan was to stay north of the rhumb line between Toronto and the Ford Shoal mark at Oswego.    Shifts were setup Michael/Ashley/Brent and Kris/Jenny/Me.

The winds from the west 10-12 knots, we had the symmetric spinnaker up all the way to Oswego

In the 3am-6am shift Michael was on the helm, and the winds had shifted a little north, causing his to drive down a little into Rochester Bay to keep our boat speed up.  Unfortunately, the wind ALWAYS is less in Rochester Bay!

We were able to get a cell signal and realized that the boats that stayed offshore above the rhumb line had much more wind and boat speed.

Still under spinnaker, we gybed around the Oswego mark just before 10am.  We stayed under spinnaker all the way to Main Duck Island (30 miles) arriving a little after 2pm.

Approaching Main Duck
Bearing 028
Speed 5.92 knots
AWA 142

Coming around Main Duck, we doused the spinnaker and hoisted the light #1.  There was much more wind than we had thought (12-15 knots).  Close hauled, we could not get around Prince Edward Point.

We tacked in 11ft of water!

We got a cell signal and found that lots of boats who went in shore in front of us were parked.  We made the decision to head offshore where there was more wind and boats were moving.

This payed off; from the race tracker, we could see that the Beneteau First 40 was parked inshore for hours and decided to withdraw from the race.

On the bottom left of the above graphic, you can see were we were the winds died off and our boat speed dropped below 2 knots.  We never really stopped, just slow moving. 

Another nice sunset

The wind completely died to nothing.  Michael got out his ghost sail; it is a light nylon drifter with a wireluff.  We were able to hoist it inside the drooping spinnaker, and get the boat moving between 1 and 2 knots.   What a great weapon.  As soon as we generated apparent wind, the spinnaker would fill behind. it!

We spent the night again under spinnaker doing between 3 and 4 knots.

We did hit another dead spot, and a bunch of us went for a swim:

Kris swimming

I did a quick tour around the hull, and found it was FILTHY; got a dish rag and wipped down the water line.  Only got about 3/4 done, when the winds picked up and back to sailing!

We had to gybe several times along the south shore, crossing all kinds of boats.

Winds were building toward the Niagara Mark, and coming forward, so it was very difficult to fly the chute at 75 degrees to the wind.  

We passed the Niagara Mark at 6:30pm  There was a helicopter filming us, and we had one of the worst gybes around that mark.  We got the chute stuck in the rigging, it was a mess!  Hopeful the video of us never sees the light of day! 

Once we got the chute up and running, we were BLASTING toward the finish at close to 10 knots!

AWESOME

Me on the helm

Moving weight to rear quarter sped us up 3/4 of a knot!

You don't realize how quick this is until you see a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UStC2CmTYdA

Complete control

Toronto appeared out of the haze:

Click for bigger

We don't need no sticking wine glasses!

8.45 miles from the finish
5.8 knots of speed
9.8 knots of wind from 112 degrees

Winds were dropping as we got closer to the Port Credit Hole, also known as the finish line.

Just before 10pm, we were 3 miles from the finish doing 6 knots.
I called Rita on the cell to tell her we would be done in maybe half an hour.
Michael says "NOOOOOO, DON"T JINX US"

Shortly after that, the wind completely died.

It had been blowing 12-15 knots all day from the east, so it was a little lumpy out there, we could NOT set a sail in the waves.  FRUSTRATING; Tried the #1, tried the spinnaker, gybe, tack, high side, low side, uggghhhh!  It took us almost another TWO HOURS to sail the final 2.9 miles to the finish.

We crossed the line just before midnight.  We were tired and frustrated.  Took us 20 minutes to flake the main on the boom in the waves!

Post race analysis showed that the Farr 40 Relentless stayed out in the middle of the lake the entire race, and finished 9 hours before us.

In corrected time, we finished 2nd, beating the Farr 44 Gaucho!

This is the first racing flag for ACE!

Trip Odometer: 318.47 miles
Moving Average: 5.3 knots
Moving Time: 59:57:00
Stopped Time:00:46:58

Track: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12535935/Still%20Time/2015/20150711.kmz

Click for larger