[Rhodes22-list] Anne's Kentucky Race Season

[anima13]

Ed,
My race story was to my non-sailing friends and family.
I will try to piece together something more technical.


This weekend we took our first road trip with the old race boat "Dagnabit",
an S2 6.7.
Friday at 1700hrs we left Lighthouse Landing in Jimmy's nice new 4 seater
truck carrying Dagnabit behind. The truck is red and so is the boat's trim.
We looked quite spiffy, I'd say. We arrived at Harbor Island Yacht club
at 730pm. We set up the mast in the dark. However, John, my racing partner
owned this boat for years and I raced on this boat for 4 years so we knew
the parts and pieces very well. Jimmy bought the boat from John and got
another mast after the mast broke on us a year ago. He did all the cutouts
on
the mast himself and ordered all new line. He is a master in heating and
air, so
he had a cool light you wear on your head which freed our hands to place
screws
and O rings, etc. Did I mention that it was cold and windy and dark?
There were two other fellows there. They had tilted their boat hard on its
side
by stringing their halyard over to a dock about 35 ft away: a hard tilt.
They were
scrubbing the bottom for the race, of course! They had their station wagon's
lights
beaming onto the work area and had amazing irish-folk-country-dance type
music
blarin'. Made the chore all the more enjoyable. We were about to drop her in
the water
when we remembered the wind vane!!! One more time. We finally dropped
Dagnabit in the water,
tied her up to the dock and went to a Longhorn where Jimmy treated us to
steaks
and red wine. We were crashed in a motel by 1100pm.
I got up a little early to make sandwiches. I was on orders to wake the
fellows up.
So, at 6:15 I took coffee to their room and banged on the door. Turns out
that my
room's clocks had not been turned back, so it was really 5:15. Man did I
take some
grief, and I know that more will be comin at me for the next year. They will
not let me
forget this.
Nevertheless, we returned to the Yacht club and started rigging the boat.
Thank goodness
the sun was out, but it was pretty cold. I had top and bottom runner's
underwear, cashmere
sweater (old with holes), super fleece jacket and fleece pants on. Gloves
and hats were
also in order. Good thing is, we had wind!
We know several folks from that club, for they come to KY races quite often.
They were very
welcoming and gracious at the skipper's meeting. I got a chance to visit
briefly with Joy
Kimbrell with whom I worked at Donelson hospital. She has a masters in
nursing and teaches
via the internet. She is a very serious racer and was their race chairman
for two years.
Racing at Old Hickory lake in Nashville is tricky. I did it for two years on
J-24 in the mid 80's,
so it was cloudy in my memory until we got out there. It all came back in a
huge flash!
This is called a lake, but it is really a river. It is narrow, makes many
turns, and has multiple
bays with streams flowing into the river which makes for VERY shifty wind
conditions.
The starts of races in Nashville are very aggressive. These folks take their
racing SO
seriously. Many are the same who raced when I was there and have the same
boats. Most have
more of a race style boat, whereas, on KY lake, we are more of a cruising
community and folks
have much nicer condo-type boats. So few race on KY lake but when they do
come out, we are so
excited to get them to participate that we make it as comfortable as
possible.
At this start we had boats coming at us from every angle, Near misses were
occuring on every
direction to the boat. NOW I remember this!
We had a good upwind run to the first mark and set the spinnaker nicely for
the downwind leg.
Now we were warm and layers were shed. Man, it was tricky keeping the
spinnaker filled when
wind was coming outta those coves! We jibed the pole (my job, I do
foredeck). At 2/3 of
this leg, I could see that other boats were having very difficult times with
the spinnaker up.
They were having severe knockdowns!  We decided to douse the spinnaker early
and infact the
dogleg of the river at this point made the wind more on a beam, anyhow. This
was a good move.
We made up to the next mark and continued with hard concentration and lots
of muscle power
up wind. We made a great decision to reef the main which enabled us to get
more power out of
it rather than dumping it so much due to heavy gusting. Made the next mark
and set the spinnaker
once again. This time we were absolutely flying on the thing. Our boat was
planing! When we later
checked the GPS, we learned that we had hit over 8mph on that run.
HOWEVER, we had a sudden windshift at this speed and the wind came from
across the beam,
causing the boat to BROACH, severely!! I am on the bow of the boat on the
low side!! I am holding
on for dear life (guess that is why they call 'em the lifelines!) Mostly, I
did not want to go in
the lake. We rock and roll several times and each time we are perpendicular
a little longer. The bow
sinks in the water and my feet are planted firmly on the low side of the bow
but are covered with 8
inches of water for over 7 seconds. Such calesthenics! The non-sid is so
diamond on this boat that
you cannot get on your knees to wash it and I am COUNTING on that diamond
right now!
Meanwhile, they are having a time back in the cockpit. John nearly gets us
back on
the run but the wind tips us each time, so he lets the spinnaker halyard
down. The spinnaker sheet
is caught and now that huge sail is 20 feet out on the port side of the
boat. John gets out his little
swiss army knife finally cuts the thing and I haul in that monster, soaking
wet sail and pitch it in the
cabin. Lines are tangled everywhere and we quickly get them untangled so we
can stay in this race.
We succeed and make the next mark.
We point very well and make the finish line with final muscle effort. What a
glamorous day! The
sky was that wonderful autumn blue with a few stratta clouds. This lake has
very lovely homes at
the shore. The grass is very deep summer green, for Nashville got all that
hurricane rain and many
of the hardwood trees are hanging onto their colorful leaves. It was a fine
sailing day.
We drink a beer at the dock. The wind was so good that we are done at
3:30pm. We take the boat
apart, run it onto the trailer. We get the mast down and everything is
stowed. We are on the road
home in dusky daylight at 1715hrs). What an adventure. oh, we were 5th in
our class of
8 boats...not bad for a light boat and only 3 crew...we really need 4 on
that boat.
I am in bed at 2000 hrs!

Several other boats who came after us to that spot had the same problem and
took the spinny down
after 2-4 knock-downs.
Good friends of mine who have raced everywhere in the world on J boats wrote
the following to me
after receiving my story:


"I can't count the number of times we've been hammered by the "Drakes Creek
Blast"!!!  We went out for a while Saturday morning and it was really gusty,
probably up to 17 or so.  Sounds like you had a great time, we always
enjoyed sailing at Harbor Island, and belonged to their club for a lot of
years.  We're leaving Thursday for New Orleans, Chip is sailing a J160 in
JFest.  It's going to be tough to have to eat oysters, and crab and all that
stuff, but we'll do our best.  Also, the timing is perfect.  Crais is going
to start the trip down the river with Carmen and Larry, and we'll pick him
up on our way home.  See you soon"

Anne







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