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Swiftsure-04

Winter Vashon 2001 or My Date With Gale

By Martyn & Linda Adams

Winter Vashon is a sailboat race around Vashon Island. Strait-forward, simple, start westerly in front of the Tacoma Yacht Club and proceed clockwise around Vashon Island to a buoy ½ mile north of the island, then south to pass thru the finish in a westerly direction in front of the clubhouse. This was our first real race last year and we were finally, at least sure where to go. Old hands at this, we were confident we would do well. 

The Friday night dinner and social was fun as we saw familiar faces and met some new. We heard some tales and even told a few. Heavy rain and a light breeze, lots of puddles on the long walk from our raft with Strider and Sibling Rivalry to the clubhouse. Strange that the parting comment from Pat and two of his Dragonfly crew was, "Reef early. They're calling for wind." Hmmm! 

A nice breakfast Saturday and we are ready to leave for the first 9:20 start. Rod from Strider says, "Hi! Be careful. They are calling for wind later in the day." Then John Markin pauses and quietly says, "I'm glad you have three, today. They 're calling for wind later. If it gets too bad we can always bail." Then Will came up with his eternal grin and said the same thing. Yea! I had dialed in the marine weather last night and at midnight the winds had picked up right on cue. I flinched at the morning report of a pressure of 28.86 in at Forks. In all my years of flying I have never heard one that low. 

A quick stop at the gas pump tops off my six-gallon tank and off we go to the start. I run up the main and set a single reef. At 20 + knots the wind is fresh. The tide was exceptionally high and the low pressure added another 2 feet in places. All the junk stored on the beaches? Yep. It's now in the water, and visions of Wayne's mishap a few years ago made me even more cautious. 

9:10, there is the first gun…9:15, the second…1 minute to go??? Where the heck is everybody? Dragonfly is checking out the downtown part of Tacoma and both Sibling and Strider are going in the opposite direction. BANG! Yep that is the 9:20 start gun. I'm confused until a monohull goes by and politely asks if that wasn't the 9:20 start???  How embarrassing! We finally start and good grief Will and John crank out their chute. See you later guys. We show the screecher and shake out the reef in the main and promptly get hit with the first gust. I glance at the wind speed and see 19 KN and a boat speed of 15 KN and crank in that reef again. I don't know how the Markins did it. We felt like we were driving the bows down and there is a 32 ft log 10 feet away from us. (Linda is looking over my shoulder as I write this. All she says is "Yup…Yup!") 

The trip up Colvos Passage was…impressive. I watched as Dragonfly went by and the only impression I had was how sleek and fast she moves. Pat, this is one thing you may never see. It is a beautiful sight! I saw three big boats broach, masts at 30 degrees above the water, rounding up violently as their rudders lost adhesion. Chutes let fly as gusts hit and actually saw one boat knocked down with the mast parallel to the water. Cuttlefish just didn't feel right. Linda knew I didn't have the main dialed in properly and the screecher wasn't filling right. As I fought the sails, reefing the main, swapping the jib and screecher as a squall came thru, Linda drove the boat thru a slalom course of flotsam. Actually, this was fun. A little hairy at times. Frustrating because the boat wasn't right but working it out. Sibling and Strider were both gone as was Dragonfly and we knew we were not going to catch them so we were sailing for the joy of the day and as well as we could. Ahead is the mark and I finally have us balanced. Linda grooves the boat by perfectly as I swap the screecher for the jib and we turn into the wind. It's about 11:30, the windspeed reads 32, I pull in a second reef in the main and we point toward…Look at those waves! We are making about 4 KN boat speed and when the windspeed goes past 34, I struggle forward and go to the third reef and shorten jib. We do this for about ½ a mile, making 1-2 KN. I look longingly at the lee area near the ferry dock and then ahead toward Three Tree Point. The waves are 3-4 feet and the tops are starting to break. Linda is the skipper and she said, "Too much! Let's get the sails down and motor back." Two men jumped to with no arguments. I had just had one of the strangest conversations with myself. Something like, "OK, time out! King's X. I don't want to be here! Yea! Well you ARE and now it is time to do something about it." 

4200 rpm gives me about 10 horses, which gave us about 1 ½ - 3 knots. Linda went below for a 1-hour nap. She awoke, looked out and said, "We haven't gone very far!" Duhhh! We struggle to creep past… I don't know what it is called…the point with the light on it on Vashon and the reflected waves are pretty intense. Several monos are still sailing and they have rights but if I fall15 degrees either way the windage of the furled jib pulls the bow around and it takes a 5000 rpm push to get back into the wind. Linda quietly asked if I had noticed what was on the beach just south of the light? I glanced back and saw the remains of a large power boat (involuntary throat restriction). Linda asked several times what the wind speed was and each time was during calm periods. "36 or 38 or 39, I can't tell." Linda commented that the feel of the rain drops change when the wind is at this speed. They sting like sand. They don't plop but rather hit and glance off. 

"How's the gas?" she asked and my "About ½ tank" brought a loud silence. "How far?"…"About halfway…" I don't think I fooled her. 

We motored about 4 hours and did about 7 to 8 miles. At this point I was thinking about some jib to stretch the remaining fuel. Linda pipes up with, "How about some sail?" The biggest waves are past although the wind has not let up and I eased a little jib out. Hmmm, boat speed went from 2 to 3+, a little more jib and speed is 4-5. I throttle back and boat speed is same. A little more jib and there is a solid 6 KN and the boat feels better, more solid. I kill the engine. Wind speed is still mid 30's but the 5-6 foot waves and 12 foot periods are not as common. I unfurled the jib 'till the window was exposed and Linda started driving the boat to the rhythm of the wind. We can see where the last bay on Vashon ends and somewhere up there is the TYC clubhouse and we know that we are downwind of where we need to go. 

The rain and driven spray obliterates any real landmarks and I can't see the ferry but those two lights on the hill guided us back last year and they will do it again. Pushing the nose up at each gust and easing in each lull, Linda works us to windward and yet it is apparent that we will have to beat straight into the wind to lay the clubhouse and we can see the yellow mark of the finish. "Start the motor and let's get in," she said. I fire it up and 30 seconds later it dies. The heel of the boat…low fuel…"Aw, let's just sail in," is my profound suggestion. 12 tacks with jib alone and we are above the finish line and we gave a cheer as we crossed and got THE HORN.

I won't talk about the docking, as it is a tale of its own. Mike our 3rd man announced he was going home. That he had never been so cold for so long, so totally exhausted and so mentally wrung out in his life. Linda and I went up to the clubhouse for dinner and a beer… the parking lot was deserted…as we walked inside it was deja vue. No one was there and the food was gone…just like last year. And just like last year we had a quiet beer. We had found a 'Race Guy', and told him that Cuttlefish had used her engine, so we DNF. He was puzzled because he watched us as we sailed to the finish. We grinned and said, "Out of gas!" We crossed about 1630 or so. We had sailed all but about 8 miles of the course and burned over 5 gallons of gas to do those 8 miles.

 Now, Linda is not prone to strong language but the day, the beer, no food…"Motoring sucks!" or maybe it was "Stinks!" or something similarly profound. I was thinking that breakfast was a long way away, the beer was bitter but good and that I had just had a date with my wife and Gale. I don't know which was tougher but I know which one I held close later. 

PROLOG: Maybe I'm too ignorant to know when to be scared. The winds were reported by one boat to be 50+ at one time. We saw 36 but that was not during any gust and was probably the average speed. The waves were driven to about 5-6 feet from bottom of trough to the top of the wave and the wave crests were about 12 feet apart. The waves were breaking like those at the beach. While crawling forward, I found myself a foot off the deck at one time so some of the motions were quite violent. I didn't notice much wind shift and my greatest concern was our proximity to a lee shore. I always felt we could peel off and run if the engine packed it in or ran out of fuel. The boat faired well although we have a new leak at the port forward aka/hull attach point and I left the forward hatch un-dogged for part of the trip (This was a serious error on my part and one I shall not do again!). Under reduced sail, 3rd reef and ½ jib, the boat had almost no heel but performed poorly but under jib alone sailed very well. I shall remember the jib only trick in future high wind scenarios. Would I do it again if I knew it would be like that?… No!…but then, who knows what it will be like? 

Congratulations to Pat and the crew of Dragonfly for First and Rod and gang on Strider for 2nd. Now, if only…but that is another story, too.

PS: I got two great e-mails from the Markins. I would like to share them if they don't

Linda & Martin Adams

Another Winter Vashon Report

By Will Markin

Well, that was a Winter Vashon for the history books. A wee bit more breeze than last year I'd say.

 We had a great run down Colvos Passage. Hit 19.9 at one point. The boat handled really well under the reefed main and spin. "Go Dog Go" was the only mono to pass us - but we passed them again before the mark. "Strider" passed just between us and the mark. They were apparently trying to reef the main as they went zooming past the mark. They went about 1/2 mile before finally getting things under control. Yikes!

After rounding, the fun really began. We were overpowered, even with a reef in the main. The mast had a bad kink right above the upper spreaders. I suspect the shroud tension wasn't enough for the wind strength. So rather quickly I decided to drop out and head for Shilshole. Just didn't seem to be worth the effort to bash all the way too Tacoma. Soon after we started towards Shilshole I noticed a bit of fuzz on the horizon to the south. It looked like the wavetops were getting blown off into spray. We got the main down in a hurry - for good reason. A bit later we were going over 16 knots under jib only. I suspect the wind was blowing at over 40 knots. The waves were as big as any I've seen on the Sound. It was a hoot though. We made it to Shilshole around 12:30. Not a bad run from Tacoma! We drove back and picked up the vehicles, and were back home (again) by 5.

I could do with about 10-15 knots for Duwamish.

Will

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