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March 7, 2009
By Peggy Johnson and Matthew Wood
The Slam Center Sound Series sponsored by Fisheries Supply started off with a great Blakeley Rocks Race Saturday, March 7, 2009. The boats in our fleet, Class 09, started in a southeasterly of 10 to 15 knots. Halfway down the Sound off Eagle Harbor, the wind went crazy.
The breeze moved to a southerly and backed off to 4 to 14 knots, but it became very shifty. We saw huge wind shifts, up to 50 degrees, as we approached Blakeley Rocks. As we made the rounding, it settled down to a solid 195-degrees.
Heading north, off West Point, the breeze moved to the east. Just after rounding the mark at President's Point, a cold front with associated instability swept through the fleet, with gusts up to 30 knots before stabilizing at 20 knots from 0 degrees.
The nine boats of Class 09 finished within 08:04 of each other, the tightest grouping of all the monohulls. Stuart Farrell sailed Tryst to a first place win in Class 09, followed by Xcentric in second, and Here & Now and Wings tied for third.
Charles Hill sailed his boat Different Drummer to a first place victory in Class 05. "We won I think because we sailed a good clean race, didn't make any mistakes, watched our VMG, didn't go on any fliers, and worked hard to keep the boat going through those light patches – not easy when you have to work with 19,000 pounds of displacement!" He continued:
"My crew were great, and very efficient on sail changes, etc. Our margin of victory would probably have been bigger had not the boats behind us come up so fast with that terrific wall of wind that we got close to the finish. It did get awfully dicey at the end – we almost did two Chinese broaches.
"We took the spin down before the line, rather than gybe a light air sail in 25 knots of wind, and crossed under main alone doing over nine knots! Fun! Now we need to repeat."
Near the end, for a time, it was neck and neck with Intuition, but the finish finally came with Different Drummer in first by 1:28 and Intuition, Andiamo and Shoot the Moon within 17 seconds of each other, in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.
In Class 01, Braveheart, Flash, and Roxanne took first, second, and third. Steve Travis, who sailed Flash to 2nd place victories in both class and overall, said, "What do you mean? We lost!"
This veteran of racing began sailing Penguins, an east coast boat, as a boy. For Steve, the Blakeley Rocks Race strategy was simple. "Stay ahead of the boats behind and try to catch the boat ahead." We had to push him for more details. "We watched the wind, the patterns in the clouds. We watched the boats behind us, downwind, to see what was coming for us."
Class 01 missed the cold front instability near President's Point. "We started in an easterly and finished with a dying easterly," Travis said. "The next race will be much more interesting, because with ebbing until 1:30 and the northerly course, there will be two ebbs (due to local geography) to play."
The authors, Peggy Johnson and Matthew Wood, sailed on Wings, Class 09.