And On to the Americas Cup

Well, at least one of our competitors is off to the Americas Cup! Yes, team China used us as a practice dummy for the greatest yacht race.

Oh sure, we were rarely close, but at least we were in the hunt with them. They dd not take home a first in the regatta due, in no small part, to a BFD. That's a "Black Flag Disqualification" in the first race.

Remember that first race? General Recall, and then straight to the dreaded Black Flag. Well, boat 21, the Chinese AC team, got called over early and boy did they not care for that. We don't think there was a protest actually filed, and the result still stands.

We finished 12th (out of 30) in that race, and felt pretty darned good about it! In a sense, we beat an Americas Cup team, but in another sense, they beat us to the starting line, just a little too fast!

Final race

But first, some refllections. This was a fascinating international regatta in its fifth year. Very well officiated by the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, and accented by incredibly welcoming volunteers and elaborate, if a bit exotic (okay, strange) parties with excellent food and also Sol Mexican beer.

We greatly enjoyed interacting with the international teams from China, Germany, Israel, Australia, NZ, Russia, and Manhattan (only 1.5 American on board). Racing in Chinese waters was quite a thrill.

The last race of the last day. Good breezes kept up after a lull. The committee boat pulled up anchor to position for the 22 nm round the islands course.

On the radio, the call added a windward turning mark, leading to some confusion on our boat, as the course description made no allowance for such a mark. However, everybody else bought in to it so we went along...

We started at the pin end, just in case the true course was as set out in the instructions. A conservative start about a boatlength off the line, but even in disturbed air we were able to gain a good position, climbing to fourth or fifth once again. (Update: review of the race tracker shows we were closer to tenth. Did not see some boats from my vantage point)

At the windward mark, we rounded nicely for the close reach to the island that was the next mark. The roundind was quite satisfying as our tactics had gelled enough to let us fight off a couple of challengers for the inside spot

The reach was a bit too high to fly the asymm, but we kept a high angle and maintained a great speed, rolling a boat or two below and gaining on the Israelis in third.

By the time we reached a small island with a cute little lighthouse, we were only meters from their stern.

"Don't go between the lighthouse and the yellow mark" advised Ted. The low sloping island had us all worried that there might be a shallow bit. However, the clear navaids and the boat in front of us gave us some comfort.

Professional racers don't wave. This was the word from the afterguard, but sometimes we rail meat waved anyway.

It's hard, I think, to tell the difference between an expansive friendly wave from the Israelis in front of us and a wild gesticulation that means "we touched bottom; get out of here"

We touched bottom. Boat stopped entirely. Rocked forward and stopped.

Stopped. No injuries.

Okay, collision drill. Tom and Kevin check for leaks below. Brett and I drop the jib. Main sheeted in hard. Line check and motor hard back. More weight to leeward. Finally free, we motor to a cove and kevin dives in the keel, to the bemusument of the three sampans rafted there. All good.

A committee boat motors up to see if we are okay with an interrogatory thumbs up. I return a thumb meaning "we are ok but dont wanna talk about it"

They come over and say "you know there's a nuclear plant over there, right?"

Brilliant.

Back to the marina, where they think we are first to finish. We let them snap a few photos before telling them we had to drop out.

They don't care. They keep taking our pictures and posing with us while we clean up the boat. Either way, they are happy to see us

Yeah, we'll be back.

Crashing the Party at China Cup

Last day of racing with SF style winds! This is our day, baby!

A pretty good start thanks to david and some improved cockpit communication. Halfway up the first leg, we knew we owned this race, nicely placed around fifth and climbing. We rounded the windward mark in good position, waving at our friends from Australia.

Downwind we lost a place or two as the highly paid professionals on the other teams pulled their Jedi mind games on us like "false call for room" and "sailing faster."

We came in very tight to the leeward mark, spinnaker up as we selected from our dousing options. A few boatlengths off, as tactician Ted called for a douse and a gybe, the New Zealand boat rounded the mark ALL THE WAY around, and crossed right in front of us.

Which is her right, pretty much.

But just a beat off the pace, we were not able to avoid her and served up a portion of American T-bone to the kiwis.

No injuries. Modest damage to boats. Major damage to pride. The very gracious kiwis waved it off and carried on racing, telling us later they did not lose any places from this

We did our penalty turns, going on th a mid- fleet or so finish. Bummer. But there was one more race to show our stuff.

More to follow

Sent from my iPhone

Race day three

After a great seafood dinner away from the hotel we headed back for a good night's sleep and then up for more.

Race one for today was a splmple windward leeward race and we only hit the Australians once! Since we were used to it, and it was their fault, we just kept on.

We finished poorly due to a variety of factors, chief among them being slowness.

Race two took a long time to start. The light winds gave the race committee pause, but when the wind filled in, they called for a course around a nearby island.

Our fleet is bad. Several times there were so many mis-starts that the race officer got on the radio to scold us. Then he put up the black flag, meaning if you start early you are disqualified.

That did it, and we got a good start. Our performance improved on each leg of the course, and we did not hit anybody, but we still likely finished near the back. But we had fun!

Sent from my iPhone

Math is f@&king relentless

Ted is reading the instructions now. Two throwouts. That is good

Sent from my iPhone

Contacting new friends in interesting places

Day two was to be a set of round-the-buoys races.  The committee completed two out of the three.  Race one got us off to a modestly good start in delightful 12 knot breezes.  We surged out toward the top of the course, taking nearly the left-most track in the hopes of best wind.  This worked out fine, and the race committee had placed an offset mark at the top of the course, making for an orderly and leisurely gybe.

Our sets went up without too much difficulty and down we went toward the bottom of the course.  But what’s that behind us?  Australians!  Yes, the Australian team has decided they want to pass us.  This cannot be, these vegemite-eating, Fosters-swilling (really fun guys actually) must not pass.  So we take them up, turning our boat (gradually and in a seaman-like manner leaving plenty of room for them to avoid us) to defend our wind.

Their spinnaker touches us “Contact,” we shout, and fly the dreaded red protest flag.  “Rule 17” they reply and fly theirs.  Whilst we squabble other boats sail by, and we all get back to racing.  Australia finished about 15 minutes before we, it seems, so good on them for that.  We ended up 18^th in that race.

Race 2.  Well, what can we say.  David called a very nice start, placing us in the front rank of racers.  Over time, however, the professionals on some of the other boats (including the Chinese Americas Cup team) managed to outpace us a bit.

Then we got to the very crowded windward mark.  Coming in on port tack (which carries a few risks anyway), we tacked to round and lost our wind, and we missed the mark.  Oh, shoot.  I mean really, shoot.

So we complete a circle to get set up to build speed to turn around and try again.  We see a gap in the boats lined up to round the mark and go to squeeze ourselves into the crowd for our second turn.  We got into the crowd alright, but the boat had stopped moving.

Thunk.  A Korean boat gently bounces off us.  Thunk, another boat does the same, turning us and them before going off to sort of bonk another.  We get bonked lightly by a third and a fourth boat.  I cannot see Brett on the other side of the jib as he fends on his side and I fend on mine.  I hear shouts which are in another language and are not clearly “Ouch my leg” or “Yahoo isn’t this fun!”  It was more the Yahoo! NOBODY WAS INJURED and there were no damages to boats.

We calculated that we owed about 14 penalty turns and dropped out of the race.  Later, we were told that two would have been fine, but we’d have ended up in the mid 20s anyway.  Discretion, valor, etc.

On skippers orders, I dropped by the Aussie boat to make peace about the protests.  They were all about peace.  We sat on the boat for quite a while sharing stories and I even got to lead an “Aussie  Aussie  Aussie  Oi Oi OI” chant!

Day one of the regatta: The Passage Race

It’s good to get the issues out of the way early, and our engine overheating on the way to the start line was, I assumed, to be our only issue.  RHKYC and the organizers had been more than overwhelmingly welcoming and provided a good place to prepare and practice for the race, as we had done for the coupla days before, but nothing can overcome sucking up some harbor junk into the intake.

We throttled way back, put up the sail and got to the start in plenty of time.  Presumably the bag/shirt/fish that had been overheating the engine is gone.

Our start was good and we surged forward toward, uh, somewhere, vaguely defined by a gps point.  The first mark was “a windward mark if set.”  Um, okay, where and how far to windward and was it set?  No answer to any of these, so we followed the fleet leaders while scanning the horizon for this mythical mark.  Finally, we gave up on it and played a fun game of “which rock is basalt island?”

That was the other mark.  Again, the fleet leaders helped us out here.

At the end of a warm 6-hour race, mostly on starboard, to weather (except for a frustrating 15 minutes in a wind hole) we found ourselves drag-racing against a Russian boat for the finish.  Team Nord is very good.  We enjoyed the close competition, though they got away from us when we split tacks and they got the better wind.  A Chinese boat snuck in too, and we ended up about 12^th out of 29.  Still, not too bad.

A long long ride to the hotel, and our cheering section was there to cheer us, and then off to the event celebration!