CS34 Impromptu October Sail

Got down the club and it was sunny and warm.  I hoisted the two wet spinnakers to dry them out:

Also hooked up the de-humidifier.

Rita has been sick for the past couple of days, so I called her and we decided to go out for a sail on big Still Time.

Winds were 4-6 knots from the SE, and we sailed towards Ajax on a beam reach at between 2 and 3 knots of boat speed with the autopilot on.

Notice the colour of the trees on the shoreline

Much better than staying home when you are sick.

We BBQed some sausages we had in the fridge and cooked up the old standby KD (Kraft Dinner).

Close reach @4 knots

The winds started picking up, and we tacked around and were able to do between 4 and 5 knots on the way back.  There was 8 knots of breeze when we took the sails down.

Hello Mark 2

ACE and Razorbill "on the hard"

What a great sail!

Had to be back for a club board meeting.

Trip Odometer: 7.52 miles
Avg Speed: 3.6 knots
Moving Time: 02:05:16

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ACE WYC Frostbite Race 4

On my way to the club in the afternoon, I picked up some batten material from Port Whitby Marine Supplies.

Got the dacron delivery main attached at the tack and clew and fitted/cut the battens to it.

Tonight we had

• Mike (driver)
• Micheal (pit)
• Me (bow/jib)
• Ashley (bow)
• Walter (jib)
• Dave (main)
• Christine (runners)

We untied the lines at 5:20pm, but were stuck on the bottom, and could not back up.
We tried weight to starboard.
We tried weight to port.
We tried weight on the bow.
We hoisted the mainsail to heel us over.
We tied hoisting lines to fingers.
We had Nirvana tow our stern.
We had Nirvana tow our bow.

Finally, we got the boat back far enough that we could swing the bow around and we able to get out. The bulb keel on ACE is tapered back and makes backing up difficult:

Razorbill is a little more rounded at the back, but 4" deeper;

We got out of the channel at 17:53 (over half a hour!) and the race was already starting.

In our panic to get out, we had not even got a headsail on deck, or run sheets.  We brought the heavy #1 on deck, and found there was too much wind for it, so we swapped it out for the #2.

We sailed as fast as we could to the start, and followed the pack to windward mark 6 with winds 11-15 from the east.

First spin hoist was a little late because we were still rigging the spinnaker lines after the rounding. Once we got it up, we were flying toward the leeward mark, leaving the headsail up because we didn't need to gybe to the mark.

On the next upwind leg, we just brought another chute up on deck instead of packing the other one.  Ashley was on the port deck hooking up the spin lines, and I was on starboard deck rigging the pole, when a puff over powered us and the spinnaker came out of the bag half into the water with the sheets and guys attached.  Luckily we didn't have the halyard attached the head, or we would have had a boat stopping/spinnaker ripping shrimping situation.  It took Ashley, Walter, and I all our strength to get the sail back on the boat.  Surprisingly, the chute went up no problem!  All three of us were soaked!

On the upwind legs, we experimented with sail trim.  With the #2 sheeting in hard, we could do 6.8 knots into the waves.  We let the #2 sheet out about 2 ft, and sheeted in the main, and were able to do 7.5 knots upwind.

Only the Evelyn 32 saves us from scoring a DFL, but after handicap we DEFINATELY DFL!

I guess it could have been worst, we could have broken something, or hoisted the spinnaker upsidedown like Winston Churchill did:

Good thing they didn't have to gybe!

Coming in the channel, we left the main up to heel us over, as we saw Razorbill was grounded about 40ft from the end of dock 6.

We took their stern with speed and promptly grounded 25ft from the dock.  It took us about 20 minutes to get her to the dock.  Razorbill took another half an hour!

Needless to say, we beat Razorbill to the dock! LOL
The sailing season for us deep draft boats is done.
If the water drops further, we may have difficulty getting the boats to the mast/haulout crane.

Trip Odometer: 6.63 miles
Avg Speed: 6.6 knots!
Max Speed: 14.1 knots!
Moving Time: 01:18:49

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C22 Fall Singlehanded Race 4

Last week race 3 was scrubbed because we had 25+ knots of wind.

This week we had 11-15 knots from the east, and we had 5 boats out (4 Sharks).

I spent some time working on the mainsail reefing system on the 22.

I was never able to reef the racing main because the cheek block was too far forward on the boom and would not pull the clew of the sail aft for a proper reef (worked fine with the 24 year old original main).

I had installed an adjustable T track on the boom, but never used it this year.

This afternoon I installed a reefing hook on the gooseneck:

This is the first time I had reefed that racing main.  It is a fairly shallow single reef, but I was pleased how nice the sail shape was.

The wrinkle on the foot is because I didn't tighten the halyard enough

Went out singlehanded with this reefed main and #3 jib.  Was the perfect amount of sail.  Got the boat going hull speed (6 knots) upwind no trouble, and manageable heel.

The course was set to 6 short, but the waves were coming from a little more south as it had been blowing from the SSE all day.

On the upwind leg, I didn't want to over stand the mark, my VMG was negative, and I was getting knocked, so I tacked over the starboard towards the mark.  On the next tack on port to round the mark, the bow was directly into the waves, and speed dropped from almost 6 knots to under 3.  Foxtrot and Cheeky Monkey passed me here.

I am trying an online race analysis website called RaceQs.  Still Time and Foxtrot had their phones below with the app tracking us, and the 3D results are kewl:

http://raceqs.com/tv-beta/tv.htm#userId=1044014&divisionId=44195&updatedAt=2016-10-04T23:13:45Z&dt=2016-10-04T17:19:29-04:00..2016-10-04T19:12:44-04:00&boat=Still%20Time&model=J22

Bump the speed up and take a look.  It clearly showed that I lost TONS of ground in the extra tacks I took before the windward mark.

The next two reaching legs, I fell further behind because I didn't have as much sail area as the Sharks.

Finished 4 minutes behind the Sharks, not enough to catch them!

Heading back in 

Sunset at 18:45

Sailing in October: AWESOME

Trip Odometer: 7.65 miles
Avg Speed: 4.7 knots
Max Speed: 8.3 knots
Moving Time: 01:37:28

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ACE Main

Andrew helped me take the main off of ACE and we brought it upstairs in the clubhouse to have a look at it.

Last Wed we had ACE out is 25+ knots and lost the bottom batten, and sail flogged the leech just above where the batten was:

Leech is ripped about 2ft

2nd batten from the top will need a new batten pocket

This is the top full batten
Will need some repairs

Actually, the sail is in pretty good shape considering the abuse it took in the 300, the Freeman Cup, and last Wednesday.

We took out the battens and will transfer them to the dacron main to sail ACE tomorrow night.

I will have to get some batten stock tomorrow.

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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