ACE WYC Frostbite Race 3

Got together a crew

• me (bow)
• Michael (driver)
• Phil (main)
• Jenny (runners)
• Ashly (pit)
• Dave (jib)
• Walter (jib)

Forecast was for 15-27 knots from the east.

We rigged up the #4 jib and ran the spinnaker lines.

Discovered that ACE has been rubbing against a dock bollard and removed about a 6" section of gelcoat on the hull.  Nothing structural, will be an easy fix.  Dave and I had carefully tied up ACE on Sat night, (and again on Mon), but ACE was stuck in the slip.  The dock lines would keep her from rubbing on the dock. The winds shifted to the east, and tipped ACE to the North contacting the bollard.

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Ash was stuck in traffic from TO, so we didn't leave the dock until 5:35pm.  Took a while to get out of the slip because of dropping water levels.

Sailing out to the start, there was a dozen boats out there.
Many withdrew because of the strong winds.
We only had 5 boats out and 4 finished.

We had a problem in that the bottom batten in the main was coming out.  The 5 minute warning was on, and were are heading upwind to drop the main slightly and retrieve/fixed the protuding batten.  It fell out before we could get it.  Two minutes to start and raising the #4, we discovered it was wrapped around the spinnaker pole.  We were 3 minutes late to the start line.

We quickly caught up to RazorBill and Winston Churchill (C&C 99), but could not pass them.

Gybing downwind in 30+ knots of wind was a challenge.

We rounded up several times, and had water coming over the side of the boat, filling the cockpit!

YouTube video by Walter

The waves were unbelievable!

Razorbill shreaded their #3.

The bottom panel on our #4 delaminated and will have to be repaired.
Without the bottom batten, and luff of the main was flogging and ripped about 3ft down the leach, and will have to be repaired.

Everyone was soaked!

Trip Odometer: 10.91 knots
Avg Speed: 7.0
Max Speed: 16.1 knots!
Moving Time: 01:33:30

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ACE Donald Summerville Memorial Race

Donald Summerville was mayor of Toronto in 1963.  This race is put on by Ashbridges Bay Yacht Club in his memory.  It is the last race for the Toronto East Long Distance Series TELDS.

ACE and Razorbill were delivered to ABYC on Friday.

We all met at WYC at 9am and two cars drove down to ABYC.

• Me (Bow)
• Michael C (driver)
• Kris (driver)
• Micheal A (pit)
• Jenny  (runners)
• David (jib)
• Dave (jib)
• Phil (main)

Winds were forecast to be 10-12 knots from the east and lighten in the afternoon.
Course was from ABYC to a mark of Frenchman's Bay and back.

There was a really good field in IRC, and we were in the first start.

We left all our sails (#4, #3, #2, and heavy #1) on the dock and went out with just the light #1.

There was more than 12 knots at the start, but it did lighten as the race went on.  It was everyone on the rail pretty much the entire upwind leg.

Kewl shot of Phil through the window

Upwind the entire way

As we got toward Frenchman's Bay mark #4, the winds really lightened and shifted all around.
We had the two X35s and RazorBill right with us:

Spinnaker ready for a gybe set at the mark just ahead

We rounded the mark, and hoisted the spinnaker.  We noticed the two boats slightly ahead of us were struggling to fly theirs, so we immediately hoisted the #1 up and doused the spin.  We passed Razorbill and the the X35s very quickly.

Yellow circle is where we doused the spin

Weird, the winds had swung around to the SW about 7-9 knots.  Completely not in the forecast.

We started out sailing about 50 degrees of the wind directly at the mark.  Shortly after the winds moved right, and we were sailing close hauled trying to make the mark.

Jenny and Me on the rail

That's the Goodyear blimp

Kris, Dave, and Jenny with Razorbill below us

Alas, the winds swung further to the west and we could not make the mark, and had to tack out.  The X35s who immediately went close hauled ALMOST made it to the finish.  They pulled ahead when we tacked out to avoid landfall.  We found that the winds inshore were fluky and shifty, swinging as much as 45 degrees all over the place.  The boats (X35s) offshore had a more consistent wind.

We should have covered them early once we had a lead.

We finished 5th over the line and in corrected time out of 8 boats.

Taking the sails down with Toronto skyline in the background

What we forgot about here is that this is the final race of TELDS, and we should have been racing PHRF instead of IRC.  The PHRF boats sailed a shorter course and were done HOURS before us! The winds did NOT swing around for them, and they were able to fly a chute back to the finish.

Oh well, great day on the water!

Trip Odometer: 36.88 miles
Avg Speed: 5.5 knots
Moving Time: 06:17:00

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NOTE GPS batteries died on the upwind leg, but I was on the rail the entire time:

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We loaded the sails back on ACE, and went to the clubhouse for the dinner, before Dave and I headed out to deliver ACE back to Whitby.  Peter also went out the channel with us with the other David.

Dave and I put the main up and motor sailed as, there was only 5 knots of breeze from the SW, and we wanted to get home.  The breeze filled in from the NE to 11 knots, and we just motor sailed with the main up.

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Dave on the tiller

Trip Odometer: 22.65 miles
Avg Speed: 5.9 knots
Moving Time: 03:50:22

We arrived home at around 10pm, the same time as Razorbill.

ACE Delivery to ABYC

Tomorrow is the last major race of the season called the Donald Summerville memorial.  Named after a previous mayor of Toronto.  I had to get the boat the Ashbridges Bay Yacht Club (ABYC).

The field will see almost all the HOT boats on Lake Ontario.
I think its kewl that ACE and Razorbill are in this class.

I could not find someone to do the delivery with me, so I set out single handed at 13:00.

Rita was sick as a dog and went home from work, but didn't want to come out

The Lovely Rita waving goodbye

Without an autopilot, ACE is impossible to motor or sail single/double handed.  The tiller is just too sensitive.  Leave the tiller for 10 seconds, and the boat wanders all over the place.  Even lashing the tiller does not make a difference.  We have purchased a tiller pilot and will install it in the off season for deliveries such as this.

Waves were as 3-4 feet from the SE and the wind was only 6 knots from the NE.  Very uncomfortable to point directly at ABYC, so I head to shore.

Just before passing Cathedral Bluffs, I saw a search and rescue plant circling around Ashbridges Bay.  On the VHF they talked about a sunken floating sailboat; can you say oxymoron?  They gave out the lat/long and I put it in the chart plotter and headed over to check it out.

Note that there is a light attached on the bow.  I suspect that that it had be adrift for a while (confirmed by a friend on Facebook).  This little diversion was 1.2 miles from the entrance to ABYC.

CN Tower in the background

Going in the channel in 15 ft at water going 3 knots, I ran aground; depth meter when from 15ft to 6.5ft in a matter of a boat length.   Waves were pounding the keel into the bottom.  I heeled the boat over (as best I could) and powered off the hump.  Scary.

Circle is where ACE hit bottom

Michael greeted me at the dock and helped me tie her up, and drove me to union station for a GO Train ride to Whitby.

We will all meet tomorrow at 10am; first start is at 10:55.

Trip Odomter: 23.20 miles
Avg Speed: 6.0 knots
Max Speed: 8.3 knots
Moving Time: 03:50:23

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ACE WYC Frostbite Series

ACE is still in Whitby after the Whitby 100 race.

We got together a crew:

• Me (bow)
• Michael C (helm)
• Michael A (pit)
• David (main)
• Walter (runners)
• Alex and Dave (jib and spin) [brothers from the sailing school]

Winds were forecast to be light from the south 4-6 knots.

We rigged the light#1 and prepped the big white chute.

More like 8-10 knots out there, we were glad to see more!

Course was 5 short with the wind from the south.

We had a decent start on starboard tack, overshot the windard mark 5, as there were starboard boats coming in.  I didn't have the chute ready on the bow at the rounding, so we were a little late with it. 

On the 2nd upwind leg we overtook everyone.

Winston Churchill (C&C 99) would not let us roll them to windward, so we tacked away and got to the mark before them.  The next spin hoist was flawless.

We took line honours (got the gun), but lost to Winston Churchill in corrected time.

Obligatory sunset picture

Great crew work for three people who had never been on the boat before.

Our tacks,and spin hoists/gybes were excellent.

David,Michael Dave,Walter, and Alex

Great night on the water.

Trip Odometer: 11.19 miles

Avg Speed: 5.5 knots

Max Speed 8.1 knots

Moving Time: 02:02:36

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C22 Fall Singlehanded Race 2

In the Stonehaven Cup race two Sundays ago, I had the #1 genoa up in too much wind!  Chris and I were sailing upwind when a puff came up, and we heard a loud BANG.  Checked the shrouds, chainplates, and finally the stem fitting.  This is where the forestay attaches to the front of the boat.

Here is a picture from the internet:

The front of this fitting was being pulled from the deck and had pulled about 3/4" out of the deck.  The backing plate that I added several years ago is about the same outline as the base of the stem fitting.  The plywood core between the fitting and the backing plate was rotten and was compressing when the forestay applied pressure to it.

This is a design flaw in the Catalina 22.

https://www.catalinadirect.com/index.cfm/product/971/stem-reinforcement-assy-c-22.cfm

I got a piece of 1/4" aluminum and shaped it to fit the entire fromntsection of the bow.  Sorry no pictures as I was rushing to get it done and the mast up before racing.  Thanks Mark for helping me.

When I took the mast down last week, the two turnbuckles for the upper shrouds were seized, so I got two replacements from Nat's Marine

Open turnbuckles are easier to tune the mast.

Got the mast up just as the other racers were leaving the docks.

Going out the channel, I was tuning the rigging all the way to the race course.

Course was 1 short, and I was out with full main and #2 genoa.  Little too much sail, but I did what I could to keep the boat on its feet.

Got to the windward mark (#1) at the same time as the three Sharks, but alas, they pulled ahead on the downwind legs.  Finished within a couple minutes of them, probably caught them on corrected time.  UPDATE: fourth place, 7 seconds from a third and 31 seconds from a second.

Sunset coming in the harbour

I sailed right into the harbour tacking within feet of the harbour walls:

Hove to near the south breakwall and dropped the main.

Peter from RazorBill helped me fold my sails, and I went up the 60ft mast of Razorbill in a Bosun's chair to fix the masthead halyard that had jumped its shiv:

Great night on the water (and in the air!)

Trip Odometer: 7.1 knots
Avg Speed: 4.8 knots
Moving Time 01:28:00

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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

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ACE Delivery for Whitby 100

This weekend is the Whitby 100.  Starts on Friday night from Whitby to Toronto to Niagara, to Newcastle, and back to Whitby.

I was planning of delivering ACE on Thu morning with Andrew from the club, but Michael saw the forecast for Wed 11-13 knots from the north, vs 6-8 from the east on Thu.  Phil and I met it Whitby and we took the GO Train in to Toronto, and left the docks with Michael at 2:27pm

To our surprise, the wind was on just 6 knots from the south!

We motored sailed with main past Toronto Island where we saw an anchored NAVY frigate:

We popped a chute, turned the motor off and were sailing along between 6 and 7 knots.

Leslie Spit in the background

The winds were really light and all over the place.  Towards the bluffs, the winds moved forward and dropped the chute and started the motor.  I wanted to make it back to Whitby for race night which started at 6pm.

Michael and Phil

When we got near the Pickering Nuclear plant, we could see some boats in tons of wind on the opposite tack.  The north wind had filled in, but much later than forecasted.  We had 12-14 knots from the NE, so we hoisted the #2 and were flying along between 7 and 8.5 knots on a beam reach.

We heard the start of the race on the VHF at 18:00, but it took another 30 minutes to get there.  There were 9 boats out for the race, and we sailed below them at the windward mark and sailed around the course with them.

Kirby 25 Marauder

Track at the race course

We motored to the visitor dock and didn't hit bottom once, even though the depth meter sail 6.5ft and our draft is 7' 4".

Easy delivery at 4 hours for 26 miles.

Trip Odometer: 31.2 miles
Avg Speed: 6.5 knots
Moving Time: 04:45:00

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