CHARIAD Update

Dear Friend of CHARIAD:

Sorry for my tardy updates. I am definitely a sailor with a working problem. Too much going on.

If you want to keep current, join the 50 or so members of the Friends of CHARIAD group on Facebook. There is where you will get the latest updates and pictures. I will soon be put out of business.

Buzzards Bay Regatta

This Friday is the beginning of the Buzzards Bay Regatta. This will be the most competitive regatta CHARIAD has done so far. The sailing conditions are very different that we typically see in Mass Bay with the big sea breeze and waves on the afternoon.

If you go to the BBR website, you will see two pictures of CHARIAD featured. One is the image above.

Situate Invitational Regatta

This past Saturday, we took the boat from Marblehead to Situate and competed in the Invitational Regatta.

The CHARIAD team outclassed the competition and got the gun not only for our class but the whole fleet. With only a 4 + mile race, we beat the 2nd place boat by over 35 minutes on corrected time. The course was terrible with one long beat to windward followed by a close reach to leeward, twice around. We did two jibe sets and tacked immediately after rounding the leeward mark. None of the other boats we could see did that. Wind was light with lumpy seas. We had difficulty getting to our target boat speed, but we did much better than the other boats.

We were so far in front of the entire fleet that we could not get a good picture of all the boats behind us.

In spite of being well in front, the crew sailed the boat really hard for the whole race. When we crossed the finish line, we sailed away from the course. We then spent at least a half hour training for the spin set, jibing and spin take down. The training gave us time to move crew members into positions that they had not done before.

In truth, we would have been better served if we had been racing against a couple of boats that were competitive with us. But we will take the win.

Sagamore Bridge on the way to BBR

Beringer Overnight to Provincetown

The previous weekend, we raced the overnight race from Marblehead to P’town. That was the Friday night with strong thunderstorms.

We raced from Marblehead to a mark off Boston Harbor – 8 miles upwind. 30 miles close reach to the SW tip of P’town followed by a 2 mile spin run to the finish.

The wind we saw was 19 – 23 all of the way over roughly from the SW. We saw lots of lightening but the thunderstorms did not come out on the water where we were. The moon shone brightly on the water directly in front of us for much of the long reach to P’town.

We finish 4th out of seven boats. We were 29 seconds out of 3rd place. This is after racing 6 ½ hours. We were the 2nd Class B boat around the windward mark – very good performance given that we were rated as the slowest boat in the fleet. We put the heavy #1 up for the 30 mile reach and drove the boat hard for the whole ride over. We set the .6 spin for the last 2 mile leg.

Our after action G-2 reports revealed that Rocket, winner, and the two J 109s that beat us were able to fly their asymmetrical spinnakers for the reach. Rocket was surfing at 14 knots for the last two mile leg. In the dark, we could not see that they were flying their spins.

Being on the boat, we were aware of a few small mistakes we made. But the big picture was that we did most of the big things right. The wind jumped from 12 knots to 22 knots in the five minutes before our start. The foredeck got the H #1 down and the #3 up by 15 seconds before the gun – enormous accomplishment. The jib and main trimmers drove the boat relentlessly for the long reaching leg in the dark. Could not have been done better. Superb Anticipation work on what sails to use and how to make the changes.

The decision not to try using the spinnaker on the long reach was mine. Thinking about this more, I still do not believe we could have flown the spin. The boats that beat us are set up for the close reaching and this was a perfect course for them. I talked to Jack Slattery at North after the race and he does not believe that we could have sailed the course with a spin. We probably would have blown out the shoot if we tried.

We finished at about 2:05 AM – probably the fastest I have done this race. By the time we cleaned everything up and had dinner, it was only 3:30 AM – an hour before the sun would start coming up. We crashed rather than wait for the sunrise.

Long Point leaving P’town for return to Marblehead.

CHARIAD was well represented at the Saturday night karaoke singing at the Bradford House in P’town. Four crew members and friends of the team performed and got the house dancing. We are more than just great sailors. See the videos on Facebook.

I will check in after BBR.

My best,

Rick