Swiftsure, Our First

So many firsts this weekend.

Our first Swiftsure.  The first time we’ve raced with more than 4 people onboard.  The first time Oren & Rachel have sailed on Shearwater, and the first time they’ve raced in the PNW.  And happily, a first in class!

Really we couldn’t have asked for a better Swiftsure experience.  The delivery over was short & sweet, even if our fuel problems reared up again, and we almost had to sail into the Inner Harbor, which is a big no, no.  The fleet was packed into the harbor like sardines, and Shearwater was winning the race from the dock as we ended up med-moored on the end of a pier with an anchor out.

I woke up around 2am before the start thinking about race strategy and couldn’t wait for the clock to tick by and for it to be time to get up and get the show started.  The big dilemma for the race was this:  Race Passage would start to flood early and should be avoided.  There would be a big lift after the start, and we wanted to be on the inside of that lift (i.e. Race Passage).  So, which way to go?  We reconciled that being on the outside of the lift would also mean a bigger lift in this case and made our plan.  Could we pull it off and stick to it?

Heading out, we still had some prep to do.  Expecting big breeze later, we put the #4 up to verify car position and then put our brand spanking new #2 up and got the cars set for that.  Surprisingly, by the time we’d finished that we sailed at full speed around the RC boat and down the line before tacking to close-hauled just as the gun went off.  It was a good start in clean air, with no one close to leeward, and Shearwater started to rumble happily down the course.

We had 6 people onboard, all of 900 pounds, which is really, really light for a 40 footer in breeze, but we were making good tracks as boats in bad air started to tack away towards the Canadian shore.  A key decision point presented itself as the Bene 40.7, Bravo Zulu, slid up underneath us to leeward.  99 times out of 100 we would have tacked away in that situation, but instead, sticking to the plan, we took their stern and carried on.  An hour into the race, the breeze was 18-20, Shearwater was fully powered up, and we were punched out to leeward of the fleet, with only one boat to leeward of us.  And then the expected lift came, and everyone wound up on the inside of us.  Dire straits?  We monitored the boats on the inside carefully, and it became clear that our boat speed was much better, probably due to the early flood slowing the boats on the inside.  And so we pressed on, all the way to the US shore, a full 30 miles from the start.  That was a long, long starboard board.  I think we all were getting tired of it and ready for something new to happen.  I even commented, “This feels like the start of a race to Hawaii.”

When we did finally tack, it was time to take stock of the situation.  From the right came two boats, Firefly (Morris 454) and Joy Ride (J/122E).  And that was it.  The rest of the fleet was clear astern.  Our plan had clearly worked.  We tacked underneath Joy Ride, eager to just stay with the front of the fleet.  The last 20 miles out to Neah Bay were challenging.  Due to a small sail issue after our first tack we didn’t have the boat speed of those around us, and we started slipping back.  Riva (J/46) and 65 Red Roses II (J/111) crossed ahead of us just before the turning “mark” (ship).

After rounding and popping the A2, we took on a new strategy.  We were close enough to the 4 boats in front of us to correct out ahead of them.  All we needed to do was cover.  From behind.  That’s fairly easy.  It’s called follow the leader.  A pleasant 10-15 knots, a light swell, and full moon, with no clouds, made the first half of the run uneventful.  It was a glorious time to use the head that wasn’t trying to buck you off and have a lovely hot meal.  ‘Twas a happy place on the good ship Shearwater.

Getting close the Canadian shore, we picked up a little lift and decided to gybe on it.  I wonder now if that was the right thing to do.  When we gybed back next we were lifted even more and gybed back out to the middle pretty quickly.  Looking back at the tracker this was a mistake.  Riva sailed much closer to the shore and probably picked up a stronger flood approaching Race Rocks which catapulted them past Red Roses and Joy Ride.  We just focused on the layline for Race Passage, wary of possible 30 knot winds and wanting to have room to stay well clear of Race Rocks.

There was some fine reaching in up to 22 knots after passing Race Rocks, and we could hear the boats ahead calling in their 2 mile approaches.  The time and distance seemed very promising.  Just a little more focus time before we hit the line.  The last two miles ended being a little painful.  The winds dropped below 10 knots, and we started to crawl along.  At least it felt like crawling after the fast race to that point.

Finishing around 1:30am meant we had time for a celebratory beer and a nice nap before sunrise.  Spirits were high, but muted, as we didn’t know when results would be posted.  A random check of the Swiftsure site revealed the details.  Shearwater had finished 3rd overall on the Cape Flattery course and first in the Light 1 division.  We’d won our division by a scant 20 seconds.  Only 2 minutes ahead of 3rd place after 100 miles.  Had we been 4 minutes slower, we’d have been 8th overall.  Mighty close racing out there.

Super thanks to our crew.  Matt, Jaime, Oren, and Rachel, it was a pleasure sharing our first Swiftsure with y’all.  Thanks for coming along for the ride.

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