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Swiftsure-04

Sloop Tavern Iceberg Regatta - 2001

By George Lefler

With a lot of snow on the ground today, I've got some time, so I thought I'd send you a little note about how Stardancer did in the Sloop Tavern Iceberg Regatta last week.

All the week before the race, the forecast was calling for a lot of wind, possible small craft warnings, and snow for Saturday. Then, Friday night, they changed it to wind from the southeast at ten knots with snow only possible. Tom Oldfin was able to crew with me, and at the last minute, Martyn & Linda Adams. Tom did the captain's meeting duties at Sloop Tavern on Saturday morning. They told him that since we were the only ones in the multihull division, they weren't going to give us a trophy, but we'd get 'something' anyway.

Saturday morning, it was nice and sunny at the dock with winds about eight. Then, just as we were about to leave, the forecast changed to 10 to 20 knots from the EAST! I think the RC used that forecast to base the decision to use the long course (North end of Shilshole to West Point to Skiff Point to Spring Beach then back to Shilshole). As always, we were to be the last start at 11:20.

So, guess what happened? You got it! ... very little wind and a lot of wind holes. Before the start, we went off to the right for about ten minutes to do some last-minute tuning then heard the first start gun and turned around. It took us twenty-five minutes to get back to the start line. Needless to say, we were late for the start. Not that it really mattered, since the rest of the fleet were trying desperately to wind they're way up to West Point.

What wind there was was from the southeast ... uphill to West Point. The tide was against us, but it was near slack anyway. Still, it took us two hours to get there. We were last in a group of about 6 boats to make it around, while the rest of the fleet had made it around before the wind shift to southwest. So when we finally rounded, we were still going uphill. Again, nothing more than about 3-4 knots of wind. We watched the leaders trying to wing-on-wing after making the Skiff Point turn (nearly running down a freighter coming in), while we caught up ground on the other six. Still, we were still the last to round Skiff Point. The best part of the whole day was the last 100 yard beat to the mark when we caught a williwaw of 11 knots. After we rounded, it wandered off someplace and left us. Too bad.

Then it was dead downwind to Spring Beach. The other boats went wing on wing, but we wanted to try the spinnaker (apparently, only multihulls are allowed to use 'chutes' on these ST NFS races). After fooling around for a couple of minutes, we got the sock up, and were about to open the sail, when it all came crashing down ... the snap shackle opened and let go. We hemmed and hawed arranging the b'osun's chair on the halyard, and had it all in place when the wind finally picked up to 9+ knots. At this point, it got bumpy and I began to think the winds would finally fill in. So, I killed the chair idea and brought all the spinnaker gear down and in.

Of course, the wind died again. We spent a leisurely two hours getting across the sound (again). At 4:30, we were still nearly an hour from the mark and I figured the wind would die completely when the sun went down at 5:30. Two of our six companions had already turned back south, so I called it a day and we turned too. One last time, the wind shifted again, this time from the west, so we had a nice beam reach back to West Point, when it folded up completely.

Anyway, it was a nice, somewhat sunny day out on the Sound. Good food, good company, but lousy racing.

Hope you (and the wind) can make it next time.

Geo.

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