Van Isle – Day 7: So close, yet so far

After a much appreciated rest day in Port Hardy, where we took the opportunity to do a lot of walking, it was time to head over the top of Vancouver Island to Winter Harbour.  A lot of apprehension could be had on this leg, and it is the first truly offshore leg, taking us over Nahwitti Bar, which can be very rough in the certain conditions, and then past Cape Scott to the North Pacific swells.

The Port Hardy start was right off a pier, so we gave all the cameras a good show by sticking our bow out front and being over early.  Oops.  It was a bit comical though as we heard the call and returned back through the start line, sailed behind the fleet, tacked over to starboard on the right side, picked up some nice breeze filling in from the right and were right back in the mix with our Div. 2 groupies.

The sail out to Goleta Channel to the Nahwitti Bar was a nice upwind ride in 10-18 knots.  We put in 48 tacks trying to put time into the J/109’s only to have the fleet compress as the flood started just before we cleared the bar, and most of the Div. 1 and Div. 2 boat found themselves short tacking within inches of the beach and rocks, trying to stay out of ripping adverse current.  Our track shows us going backwards a few times, but then we found a little back eddy and shot through into calmer waters.  We trailed Mojo, but were well ahead of the rest of Div. 2 and most of Div.1.  A good place to be.

Across the top of Vancouver Island, the breeze lightened to around 10 knots, and we did our best to grind down Mojo.  We were mostly successful and very pleased with our boat speed until we got a bit close to shore, slowed and watched all our competition close down most of what we gained over the last several hours.  We still rounded Cape Scott just behind Mojo, hoisted our A2 spinnaker and managed to sail a little lower and faster.  So far so good.  We made a beeline offshore where we expected better breeze and smoother waves in the deeper water.  We were dead wrong.  We ended being the most offshore boat and suffered in lighter winds and adverse current.  By the time we got back in contact 3 Div. 1 boats had passed us along with Zulu and Mojo.  Sigh.  This racing stuff is tricky.  We go really good in a straight line when there is wind.  The rest can be a toss up.

We spent the last 10 miles of the leg repassing Mojo for the 3^rd time and crossed the line second in our division, behind Zulu for the 3^rd straight time.  Unfortunately, the corrected results weren’t the same.  We missed out on a podium spot, getting 4^th.  That leaves us solidly in 3^rd place in our division, 4 points out of 2^nd and 7 points out of 1^st.  There are 3 legs left.  Time to rise to the challenge onboard Shearwater.

The rest day in Winter Harbour has been really good.  Great weather, convenient location to everything and fantastic scenery.  A nice spot to ponder the next leg, the longest of all, 138nm to Ucluelet, far down the west side of the island.

Unfortunately the internet connection in this remote part of the world is too slow to upload any photos, so just text for now.

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