This report chronicles the favorite race of Outatime, a Columbia 9.6, in Commencement Bay on 3 May 2006. By favorite, the author means most fun. Despite what you’ll read later, this race was fun!
The Cap’n was Mr. Muri. The crew was Curtis Sea Scouts: Ben, Eddie, Jay, Zach; inexperienced but very eager. The wind was Northerly 15 – 25 knots, small craft advisories, with clear skies, wind waves 2 – 4 feet. The course was from the Tyee barge line, to the CYCT ball off Brown’s Point, across the bay to the third white ball from the left in front of the Harbor Lights restaurant, to the Blair Waterway buoy, back to the CYCT ball, then back to the start: 7.4 nautical miles. Outatime raced in No Spinnaker.
Outatime was second over the starting line, in a class of 12 boats. She started near the lee end, close hauled on starboard tack and reefed: the main and had only about a third of the jib unfurled for the start in 25 knot winds. The Cap’n thought that would be enough. “The boat will only go so fast, no matter how much sail it carries,” he sagely informed the crew in an attempt to explain away the pending question “Why are the other boats carrying all their sails?”
He went on to point out that most other boats were considerably heeled, some rounded up and others knocked down, while Outatime had yet to achieve 15 degrees for more than a moment or two. And, he observed, “no one seems to be passing us. Isn’t this more comfortable?” The crew, salt-water spattered eyes blinking trustingly, nodded in agreement.
His wisdom was vindicated as they lumbered up the course toward their first mark, pointing as high as their ragged, baggy reefed rags would allow. After five minutes or so, as they approached the CYCT ball off Brown’s Point, it became obvious that Outatime’s lee end start dictated a couple quick tacks to be able to take the mark to port, as required. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do,” the Cap’n began to explain, then went on to outline his short tack strategy. All heads nodded knowingly. The Cap’n felt the warm glow of confidence in his belly.
“Tacking,” he bellowed just as he’d explained he would, then threw the helm over. The Cap’n’s cell phone rang. Being merciful, the author will omit the colorful description of ensuing events so as to spare the reader the agony. It’s enough to imagine flying sheets and lines, snagged lines, crew scampering all over the boat jerking on the wrong lines, sails flapping decoratively in the wind, and flotillas, nay, entire fleets, of competitors sailing serenely by.
A minute passed. Two. Finally Outatime gathered way and approached the mark. Time to tack again. “Tacking,” the Cap’n trepidatiously whimpered, hiding his anxiety. Yet another scene that is best left to the reader’s imagination.
Finally, having nosed around the mark, Outatime settled onto a broad reach toward the next mark, across the bay. The Cap’n cleverly decided that a broad reach was a perfect opportunity to carry all sail and show her heels to the few unfortunates remaining in her wake. “Unfurl the jib,” he commanded. The crew accomplished that in less than a minute, bringing the one third jib to full 150 size. The Cap’n oversaw the trimming, and when satisfied, shouted “I’m shaking out the reef in the main. When I tell you, haul it up.”
Meanwhile Outatime, even with its shortened sail, did not lose ground to the fleet. The Cap’n decided to telephone his friend, only to discover that his cell phone battery had expired. An omen?
The Cap’n put one of the crew, who shall remain nameless so as to not taint his future, at the helm. “Follow that red boat,” he instructed, pointing. The new helmsman nodded in understanding. The Cap’n went forward and untied the reef.
“Haul away,” he sang out saltily, eagerly anticipating the sight of full main snagging most of the passing wind. The helmsman managed to keep the boat’s course within ninety degrees or so of the desired course. The Cap’n, during all the crew’s halyard heaving, instructed him in proper course holding. “Think of the rudder as a brake,” he told the helmsman. “Don’t over control.” The helmsman nodded. The boat slewed off course another ten degrees. The Cap’n decided to get the main up and take over the helm as soon as possible.
Grunts. Complaints. “It won’t go up, sir!” two of the crew whine in frustration over trying to raise the main. The Cap’n decided to show them how it’s done. “Here, let me have the halyard,” he instructed, taking it from their feeble hands. He gave a hearty heave, and nothing happened. “What the heck?” He heaved again, and again, inciting his incipient hernia to ready itself for a venture into the outer world. He looked up in suspicion.
“What the heck?” he asked again. “What’s that halyard doing wrapped around that spreader? No wonder the main won’t go up!” And it was so. The main halyard had somehow passed behind the starboard spreader, which increased friction and made hoisting the main, already under pressure from broad reaching, impossible.
“To heck with it,” he announced cavalierly to the crew while taking the helm. “We’re holding our own.” And so it was. Despite a nearly useless main, despite brutal weather helm, Outatime gained on the fleet.
As expected, the wind nearly died at the mark near Harbor Lights. The boat immediately ahead of Outatime had rounded a buoy north of the proper one, and was scooting fast southward toward the correct buoy. The Cap’n sensed an opportunity. “We’re gybing now,” he announced to the crew, and talked them through the gybe, which went surprisingly well, with only a few moments of flogging sails and so on. The mark lay just off the port bow. The boat ahead suddenly became the boat behind, or at least the boat abeam.
The boat immediately following Outatime, a cream and tan San Juan 7.7, had already jibed and scooted by just under Outatime, taking her wind for a moment. But that boat passed the mark deeply before coming about slowly to round it. The Cap’n eased the helm over and took the mark inside the San Juan, then hardened up onto port tack. The San Juan floundered helplessly, its wind stolen for a moment, then set off after Outatime.
A drag race ensued. Slowly, slowly, with its sail complement of full Genoa and useless main, Outatime pulled away from the San Juan and gained to windward of a red Catalina 27 equipped with properly deployed fancy sails. A mile later the improperly trimmed Outatime ran it down, subjecting it to blocked wind, and put a hundred yards between them.
The Blair Waterway buoy, the next mark, remained hidden behind an anchored freighter. “Someone tell me when they see the buoy,” the Cap’n shouted out. Debate ensued as to whether to go behind the freighter to find the mark, as many boats did, or pass its bow and find the mark, as others had. “Going behind the freighter means we lose wind for a few moments,” the Cap’n explained. “It’ll block our wind. So we’re going to pass that freighter by its bow and stay in the wind.”
That happened. Outatime continued to pull away from the other boats behind her: the Catalina 27, the San Juan 7.7, a Columbia 26, and one or two others. The crew did all they were asked, and the buoy hove into view as mighty, majestic, shamefully draped Outatime cleared the bow of the freighter. She took the mark to port, then tacked. The legend of that tack belongs mercifully composted in the trash heap of history. It’s only necessary to report that Outatime found herself in last place.
The good news, however, was that since she was in last place anyway, a moment or two with the wind on the nose couldn’t hurt much worse. “Haul away on the main halyard,” the Cap’n shouted, fingers crossed. Sure enough, with the pressure on the main eased, the combined grunting efforts of the crew was enough to get the main all the way up. Outatime fell off to close hauled and sprang ahead like a goosed elephant in the still 15 – 20 knots of wind.
“All the boats that were formerly behind us elected to stretch out their roundings by footing off toward Hyelbos a quarter mile or so, before tacking toward the next mark,” the Cap’n explained to the crew. He pointed, “They’re sailing the short side of a right triangle to reach a point where they can sail the long side to the mark and avoid tacking at that buoy. We’re going to try to sail the hypotenuse. If that works, we’ll gain back some of the ground we just gave up on that awful tack.”
Sails filled, wind still at 15 or more knots, rail in the water, Outatime beat toward the mark, trying to get to the lay line. The Cap’n craftily exploited every lift, stretched out every near round-up, to bring Outatime closer to the lay line. Inch by inch, minute by minute, Outatime sneaked closer to that magical line.
The San Juan 7.7 passed. But either it couldn’t point as high as Outatime could, or it elected to bear off a few points to pick up speed. Either way, it sailed out toward center bay while Outatime continued pinching closer and closer to the lay line. As the CYCT buoy mark neared, the Cap’n looked around. Three of the boats who’d passed at the last mark and footed out toward Hyelbos were now behind! “Look at that!” the Cap’n pointed out to the crew. “We’ve passed them!” The crew cheered.
A quarter mile away off the port rail, the San Juan 7.7 had tacked over and was heading toward Outatime, its bow wave a white bow tie. The Cap’n smiled. “That boat has a long way to go to the mark and it’ll have to pass us astern,” he pointed out. “We, though, are only about a hundred yards from the lay line. We’ll continue on this course until they pass our stern, and then we’ll tack above them and take their air. We should beat them to the mark that way for sure.”
The San Juan 7.7 sailed by, fifty feet off our stern, at ninety degrees to Outatime’s course. Her skipper must not have expected to be treated so foully as the Cap’n intended. The San Juan continued, the Cap’n held off tacking. He ignored the San Juan and watched the approaching buoy, judging its angle to the wind, then commanded “Tacking!”
This tack, while not a good one, wasn’t a disaster, unless you call rope burned palms a disaster. Outatime lost only about thirty seconds, then accelerated. The wind disappeared from the San Juan’s sails. She bobbed helplessly in the water, for the second time a victim to having its wind blanketed.
The ensuing tack and jibe around that last mark, that CYCT buoy, went smoothly for some reason. Maybe it was just time for something to go right. Maybe Neptune decided to reward the crew’s good spirits and persistence and rope burns and a properly hoisted mainsail. Whatever the reason, Outatime reached all the way to the finish line, the trailing boats straining their rigging to try to catch her, without success. The committee boat horn was sweet music. “We finished!” the crew joyously shouted for the benefit of the Cap’n, holding up their rope-burned hands in elation. Object lesson to crew: bring and wear gloves. Duh.
It boggles the Cap’n’s mind to wonder what might have happened if a main halyard hadn’t gotten wrapped and three tacks had gone well. Elapsed time: 1 hr, 20 minutes. Average speed about 6 knots. Big kudos to the Curtis crew. What a terrific race!
Jim Muri, Outatime