SYSCO Thursday Nights Summer Series 2019

The SYSCO Thursday Night Summer Series has been different from the Spring Series. The first race was cancelled due to first lack of winds. Then as they RC was cancelling the races, the wind came in and knocked down a Venture 21, which promptly sank. It sank leaving about 3 feet of the bow pointing to the sky above water. What I know about what happened is they had a spinnaker up when the wind was very light and before the races were cancelled. The wind developed rather quickly. The spinnaker knocked the boat on its beam. The boat has a swing keel that may be self rights with a normal genoa and mainsail. The spinnaker is known as the only sail that will sink a boat. The crew and skipper were dunked in the water, but all were wearing PFD's. Poncho got them out of the water. 911 was called and the Port Authority Fire and Rescue along with the Sheriff's boat with sirens and flashing lights. It was quite a spectacle.

The second race was much better attended, the wind showed up. Crew tonight was Eric, Jon, and John. The course was "T" (S-1(Buoy 2)-3-Finish). The wind was from the west at about 8 knots. We had a great start, but rounded the windward mark third. We decided to go around the finish line to 3. The rest of our fleet was staying in the main channel. We had clear air and was catching the rest of the fleet. By the leeward mark, we had a 4 boat length lead. As we were taking down the whisker pole, the sheet wrapped the pole and knocked it out of Jon's hands. It went over board. We rounded the mark, barely. We missed the mark by inches according to the crew. We stayed on port close haul tack for a bit and then headed to the finish. We came in first.

We went back to pick up the whisker pole, but could not find it. I am in the process of making my third pole. The first two broke in half under heavy loads. This one will be almost the same as the last one, but I have made both ends this time on my 3D printer, as the only Forespar end I had left, went with the last pole. Cost of the replacement tubing is about $100. I looked at poles at Sextons Chandlary. The pole I would need cost $465.

Third Race Track

The third race of the season was another typical summer race, S-2-14-F. This time we stayed in the channel and came in third. I have decided not to play with the rest of the fleet. We managed to get a late start. We made up time at the windward mark even getting into second, but Blew Streak was just to tuned in. He finished first, we finished third.

The fourth race was something else. The wind was from the South South West. The course was S-C-14-F. The wind was light. On close hauled port tack we could go straight up river. On close hauled starboard tack we could go across the river, but could not go directly across, but went diagonally down river. This made getting to "C" a voyage a long way up river, almost to 14, then going to starboard tack to drift down to "C". We were third around "C". But the boat was not sailing well. Wildheart crept passed up, putting us in last place. Then I discovered I had been a butt cleat on the lazy sheet putting a hook in the head sail. Once I moved off the line, we maintained out position.

SYSCO Spring Series, Thursday Nights,
Cruising Fleet C

I am back. After quite a time not blogging. I have tracks. I have crew. Aventura has a new bottom job. We are ready to race. We are assigned to Cruising Fleet C. The boats in this fleet are: La Dolce Vita, Wildheart, Blew Streak, and us.

I did not get a track on the first race with my new crew, Jon, John, Marv. Marv is only on the crew for this race, but he is an experienced and helped a lot with the strategy and educating the new crew member, Jon. We finish 1st. Everyone carried their weight. It was a Start, 1, 3, 1, 3, Finish race. We sent Jon up to the bow to set the pole. We had verbally gone through the routine before we did this, but verbal is a lot different from actually doing it. He missed setting to pole and had the presence to lay down on the deck to stay on the boat with the sail flapping and all the chaos of the first rounding of the windward mark for the season. I handed the tiller to Marv and went forward to help Jon. We got the pole up and settled in for a great run down to 3. We rounded three and set to port tack and headed back to 1. This time Jon set the pole with alacrity. We rounded the leeward mark 3rd in the entire cruising fleets and finished 1st for the C Fleet.

Race #2

May 2nd is the second of the race series. This was the "standard" Start, 2, 14, Finish race. The crew this time was Jon, John, and Eric. Eric was new to the crew, but had some experience and lessons on sailing. We refreshed his memory of how to use self-tailing winches. We had a good start. We went to port tack just after passing the starting mark to get away from the other boats. We rounded 2 first in our fleet. Jon set the pole to starboard this time. The wind had a little more westerly than the previous race. This gave us the ability to head straight for 14. The wind shifted north once we passed Ryan Point. We swapped the pole to port. We had a substantial lead by that time and I was not worried about loosing time. You can locate the swap in the small red section of the track. We rounded 14 and stayed on port tack for a little so that we would not have to tack again to make the finish line. We finished first.

Race #3

May 16 race was called due to lack of wind. All the crew showed except to John. He had duties as head waiter for the Rose City Yacht Club's Lady's Dinner. Just as well. No wind. The tack is us motoring around except for a small bit of sailing at less than a knot upstream. That's when the RC call the race.

Race #4

May 23 race was the "standard" race, Start, 2, 14, Finish. This is the first time La Dolce Vita (LDV) has shown. The boat was in an accident this winter and had been on the hard until now. It was good to see her out. We had a so-so start. But we continued on starboard tack for a while until the traffic got too dense. Then we tacked to port until we were in the channel. Tacked back to starboard and found we had to duck boats. We were second around 2. Set the pole to port and caught up to LDV about half way to the leeward mark. It was fun playing with LDV. I should have steered clear of her, but didn't. About 3/4 to the leeward mark the wind again had shifted north. We were going so fast that the head sail was getting back winded. I tried to get to windward of LDV. Got there. But the point of the wind was too far forward for good speed. There is a yellow portion of the track that shows where we were at the time. We went from 4 knots over the ground to 2. We dropped the pole and set a broad to beam reach, but by then LDV had dropped us. We rounded the leeward mark well after LDV and in second place. Again we stayed on port for a little while and tacked to starboard. We finished second.



May 30 race was a short one with 6-8 knot winds. The course was "T", Start-1(which was actually buoy 2)-3-Finish. The crew this week was Jon, Bill, and Liv. We stayed on starboard tack for a chang,. since we started over one minute after the rest of the fleet. I still don't know where that last minute went. But I distinctly remember hearing the Prep Flag horn for the next race as we went over the start line. We stayed on starboard tack since we had clear air. The rest of the fleet was already halfway to the windward mark. We did round the windward mark last, duh. But with Jon's expert pole handlng we managed to catch up quite a bit. LDV and Blew Streak were a few boat lengths ahead of us. We ended up catching LDV, but could not catch Blew Streak. We again had a little problem taking the pole down, but it was better than last week. We rounded the leeward mark third and stayed on port tack until we could get a straight line to the finish. We finished third. We were 1st place for the series. Thanks to all the crew.

SYSCO Thursday Night Summer Series Race #4 but actually #5

We had a full crew tonight, Aaron, John, Justin, and me. Good thing, the wind was rip-roaring tonight, 10 to 12 with gusts to 14. We chose not to reef. The course was Start-2-14-Finish.

We also chose not to be first on the line. We did not want to get in the big boys who go much faster than Aventura. We were about 10 seconds behind the horn while most of the fleet was ahead of us, Breakaway was to windward and a few boat lengths behind us. We waited until we could clear to tack to port. I just wanted to get over into the channel and get its current to help us keep up with the others. We tacked back to port early and continued to the mark. The only boat that had to duck us was Wildheart. La Dolce Vita and Blew Streak both passed in front of us. We tacked to port off the east entrance to Tomahawk Marina. We tacked to starboard at condominiums. We tacked too soon to fetch the mark and had to do two quick tacks letting Wildheart pass us. We rounded the mark and set the pole to port. We went to the center of the river and gained on the fleet. The knot meter hit 7 knots once in a while. The track shows were averaging 5.3 knots. Hull speed for Aventura is theoretically 6.23 knots. There were grins all around the crew. About 200 to 300 feet from the leeward mark the whisker pole buckled and broke in two pieces. That's the second pole Aventura's 135% furling head sail has destroyed. We were lucky and both pieces remained aboard. The crew quickly brought the head sail across and set a broad reach. John went forward and secured the two pieces of pole. We were able to maintain most of our speed but was loosing ground to the fleet. Blew Streak and Le Dolce Vita rounded the mark first and second respectively. Wildheart had gone wide and we were able to duck inside and round the mark third. We tacked to starboard heading directly to the finish line. La Dolce Vita had tacked to port and went a ways on that tack before tacking to starboard. By going directly to starboard we were able to obtain second. Blew Streak finished first.

The course plot is below:

SYSCO Thursday Night Summer Series Race #4, June 28, 2018

Crew was Justin and John. Course was Start-2-14-Finish. Wind was light, but 4-6 knots with gusts to 7. Only two boats showed up for the race, Blew Streak and Aventura. That is probably why we got second.

We had a good start but again in the middle of the line. Starboard tack with all the big boats coming up on us very strongly. We were quickly in bad air, but could not go to port until Candoo caught up to us. Once that happened we tacked to port. Blew Streak was late across the line,but had clear air and continued on starboard tack. We did not go to starboard until very close to the Washington shore. We waited until the edge of the wind line to tack. Blew Streak had to duck behind us on port tack. We tacked to starboard and ducked behind Blew Streak on the lay line to the mark. We set the pole to port and since the wind seemed to be coming from the northwest we stayed near the Washington shore. MISTAKE. The wind was not kind and we got shadowed by the buildings. The track below shows the red. The map does not line up the shore properly. We seemed a lot closer than the plot shows. Anyway, Blew Steak took to the middle and we never saw here again. But we did have clear air once we cleared the buildings, but it was too late. Everyone else had left us behind. Enough said about that "race".

The track is below:

SYSCO Thursday Night Summer Series Class C Cruising Class Race June 21, 2018

Crew tonight were Justin and Aaron. John was under the weather and did not come out. The wind started out very light and built to a good 6 knots by the end of the night, typical summer wind. The course was "V", Start-1-4-1-3-Finish. The initial call was to use Buoy 2 as number 1, but was revised over the radio to a mark. We did not receive the notice, but I did hear the four horns and saw RC on the radio. Did not know what the announcement was about and forgot about it until we noticed the fleet using the mark instead of Buoy 2. I need to set the handheld on the RC's hailing frequency, channel 72.

This race started off badly. We were almost becalmed on port tack just trying to get above the starting mark when La Dolce Vita came at us on starboard tack. La Dolce Vita yelled at us a protest because she had to alter course to avoid us. La Dolce Vita was sailing on the current's wind and what little breeze we had. I estimated the breeze to be 3-4 knots. We had little maneuvering room because we were windward of Upstart and had to give her rights. La Dolce Vita displayed a red protest flag and made sure we knew we were under protest and had to do a 360 turn to exonerate ourselves. We did it later. We made it around the start line and went to port close hauled tack. We had Blew Streak on our starboard and she went to port tack also. We rounded the windward mark. The crew did a great whisker pole set to port. The wind died and we drifted back a little until finally it built back in and we got going again. The wind was very light, but we were able to grab the lead half way back to the committee boat. I wanted to stay in the middle of the river because earlier we noted that the wind was very light on the Oregon side. We managed to get by the committee boat but the wind was just barely keeping us up with the current and we almost drifted backwards over the finish line. We got to the mark 4 with a line of six boats. There was a little boat on starboard tack on our port two boats over. The rest of the fleet was on port tack so had to give the starboard tack rights. When the first boat got within 3 boat lengths of the mark, we all were overlapped, thus had to provide mark room. That's when Upstart shows up from starboard on an almost beam reach port tack on the starboard of Blew Streak. Upstart yells mark room believing he had mark room from the angle he was approaching the mark. He was well outside the 3 boat lengths from the mark. But the rest of the fleet was under the obligation to provide mark room to the boats inside. Upstart was lifting Blew Streak believing he had rights. Thus I was watching the boat I had to clear while Blew Streak was watching Upstart who was leeward of him. The next thing I know is Blew Streak came over and landed on Aventura. Our gunwale was under hers and we was stuck. Blew Streak and Aventura pivot so that all Aventura's wind was shadowed by Blew Streak. The current kept me plastered against Blew Streak. The wind kept Blew Streak plastered to Aventura. Upstart gets entangled with us. I have no power due to not having any wind. It took us a while to disentangle. Thanks to Blew Streak who started his motor and back out of the mess. You can see what happened to our course at mark 4 below. We rounded the mark and hardened our sails on port tack. Blew Streak was on port tack up to Ryan's Point ahead of us. We tacked earlier than Blew Streak. We did our 360 turn also shown in the track below. We had to do a quick tack to port and back to starboard near the mark as we could not make the mark on our first starboard tack. We rounded the mark fourth and maintained our position until the finish. Again we had a few boats at the leeward mark to give mark room.

The crew did very well. Aaron was on the boat for the first time while Justin was returning to the boat from the spring series.

SYSCO Thursday Cruising Class Race, 5-14-2018

Last week, no wind no race. One crew, Aaron. John misread the calendar and thought this was a by week.

Wind tonight was 6 to 8 knots from the west northwest. River level was 8 feet and dropping. This week we had only one crew and myself. Aaron got stuck in traffic and could not make it in time for the race. The course was "TT", Start-1-3-1-3-Finish. We used buoy 2 as number 1 mark. We were a little late to the start line, but by design this time. I really did not want to be in the crowd at the start. There are 15 boats starting at our pennant. We tacked to port once across the line and made our way to the Washington side. Tacked to starboard and continued till we tacked to port to make our starboard approach to the mark. We tacked to starboard in front of Wildheart and joined the line of boats to the mark. I went forward and handled the whisker pole while John took the helm and managed the sheets. At times on this downwind leg we were 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in our class. We rounded the leeward mark with 4 other boats. We were on the outside because we were leeward of three boats coming into the mark. We had to give mark room to the 3 boats.

We tacked to port and again went to the Washington side of the river. We did not go as far as Blew Streak who was a good 6 to 10 boat lengths ahead of us and to windward. I did not want to press too close to the shore with the crew we had. We continued on starboard tack and basically mimicked the first leg of the race. We had trouble with jibbing after the windward mark and lost ground to most of our class boats. We managed to make of time and get ahead of a few of them, but Blew Streak was way ahead of us. We rounded the second leeward mark having to give mark room to two other boats this time. John went forward at this mark to take down the whisker pole. We managed to dodge Vaporware's whisker pole going into the mark. Somehow it ended up in the water at the mark. We ran into problems with the head sail wrapping around the forestay. I had to go forward to free it. Meanwhile John got mixed up as to where the finish line was and started to head upriver to the I-205 bridge. I was able to get back to him before we got there and turned the boat around and finished before Vaporware who had to give way because we were on starboard tack while he was on port tack.

We returned to the slip about 8:35.

To see a full size plot go to https://www.cad2cam.com/tracks.html

SYSCO THURSDAY NIGHT SPRING SERIES, MAY 4, 2017

We were down to one crew, Bill. The course was "W", Start, Mark 1 (which was actually Buoy 2), Mark 4 (by Rose City Yacht Club), Finish. Wind was out of the west at 8 knots. Thunderstorms were all around us. We saw lightening strikes over the west hills and north Portland, none around us, thankfully.

We started on starboard tack. Walked the line and then hardened up. We had a good start, but La Dolce Vita was two boat lengths behind us and two boat lengths to windward. This made tacking to port not an option right away. We went as far as we could until we had to tack to port. We passed behind La Dolce Vita and Blew Streak just passing a few feet aft of them. But we managed to get ahead of them to the windward mark. We were feeling pretty good. Bill set the pole to starboard with little trouble. All the boats were pretty close together starting away from the windward mark. We edged our way over to the middle of the river. Blew Streak was further over. We managed to shadow them and get further over toward the Oregon side, but still in the middle of the river in deeper water. Blew Streak decided to join the other boats going up the main channel which left us in clear air. We were keeping up and gaining on River Weasel for a while. River Weasel go a good puff of wind upstream of Ryan Point and pulled ahead by 5 boat lengths. We rounded the leeward mark in second place. We noticed River Weasel having problems tacking and gained on her a bit. But when we rounded the mark, Bill was still up front with the pole. I pulled in the main, but the head sail was left to fend for itself. This proved to be trouble. The sail wrapped around the forestay. I put the boat in irons to relieve the wind pressure while Bill untangled the sail. Meanwhile La Dolce Vita passed us. We finished third.

No pictures, no track.

SYSCO THURSDAY NIGHT SPRING SERIES, RACE #2, APRIL 29, 2017

We had a full crew, Bill and Liv. The race was course T, Start, Mark 1, Mark3, Finish. Wind was out of the west at a good clip.

We had a good start. We were back on starboard near the mark side of the line. La Dolce Vita was leeward, but she did not challenge us. We were all early to the line, but walked the line until the start. We could not see the committee boat as La Dolce Vita blocked the view. When she hardened up, we did too and crossed the line to windward and slightly ahead of her. We did our tack to port and sailed to the Washington side as long as we could. Then tacked to starboard. We went that way until we tacked back to port. Then it got interesting. Jubilee. a C&C 35, started yelling at us that they were starboard. We were close to our line to the mark, so we tacked to starboard, lee bowing them. They got real quiet after that. We rounded the mark and set the boom to port and tried to set the pole to starboard. Bill and Liv had some coordination problems and it took us a while. We got that straightened out, but not after being left behind by La Dolce Vita. We mostly caught up to her by the windward mark. We rounded the mark behind La Dolce Vita and went to port tack until we could make the finish mark. We finished second.

The race committee boat was Free Bowl of Soup. They took some very nice pictures during the evening and got two of Aventura.

SYSCO SPRING THRSDAY NIGHT SERIES

The first race of the SYSCO SPRING Thursday Series was last night. I have a new crew member this year. She is the wife of a long time crew member.

We placed third in our Pennant. Four boats are in our group, La Dolce Vita, River Weasel, Blew Streak, and Aventura.

The wind was out of the WSW at about 8 knots. The course, 'T', was set up with mark one across from Tomahawk and mark three was off of Salty's. The start was tucked in at 'C'. The wind when we first got out there was from the SSW. I wondered why the set the course as they did, but mine is not to reason why but the race or die.

We figured with the wind as it was, a port tack near the committee boat would be a good way to start. The start started well, but quickly turned against us. Boats on starboard tack have the right of way over boats on port tack. We followed La Dolce Vita on port across the starting line. he beat the boats on starboard, but we did not. We were forced to tack to starboard to give the right of way to the starboard boats. It took us some time to recover. Meanwhile the boat that we followed went blissfully ahead of everyone. He was in clear air. We was in messed up air with all these boats around us. We managed to tack to port and discovered we were in third place. Blew Streak was in worse shape than we were.

We rounded the windward mark third. Set our wing on wind with the boom to starboard, which we had to change because of the wind being in the wrong quadrant. We were second place for a while until another boat spoiled our wind. River Weasel chose to run down the middle of the river. For a while we were easily ahead of him. But We tried to get away from Vaporware, but could not shake him. We rounded the leeward mark third and finished third. The wind was great. The water was smooth. There is another race next week.

No plot of our race. The start of first race of the season is always hectic.

SYSCO Twilight Summer Series, Race #5, August 25, 2016

We came in first. Wow. Crew was Bill O. Just the two of us. The course was W, S-1-4-F. The wind was 8 knots out of the west with a slight northerly direction.

We had a decent start. We were second right behind Vaporware. But we had River Weasel, La Dolce Vita, and Blew Streak to windward behind us and two boat lengths upwind. We were stuck for a while behind Vaporware in dirty air. I wanted to go to port to get into the channel for the downstream push. We were on the Oregon side and in shallow water. We could get a better push in the channel. I had to slow down enough to pass behind both River Weasel and La Dolca Vita. We did and tacked to port. We passed closely behind La Dolce Vita. I did not like doing that, but we were not winning the race where we were.

We tacked to starboard at the wind line near the Washington shore. The only boat to pass us in front was La Dolce Vita. They did a great job moving upwind. We had to tack twice more to make the mark. We were right behind La Dolce Vita on the line to the mark when Blew Streak tried to barge in. She came up on port tack and went to starboard tack right under us. She had no rights after doing that. I did avoid her a little bit, but nothing to protest. She did slow down and follow us around the mark. We set the pole to port and headed sort of toward the Oregon side keeping the wind on our port stern quarter. The fleet stayed in the channel and headed straight up river. We kept meandering over to the 20 foot depth and followed that to the leeward mark. The fleet being in the channel lost ground to us and by the mark, we were a good quarter mile ahead of them.

We rounded the mark and came to a port close hauled tack. Went out toward the channel and tacked to follow Barcode to the finish line. First place is sweet for the last race of the season.

Thank you Bill.

On our way back to the marina, we ran aground. You can see where we were by the bright read line at the end of the track. Aventura draws 4.5 feet. The Columbia should never be that shallow, at least, not there. We got off by my grabbing a shroud and leaning out over the toe rail with the engine in full reverse.

SYSCO Twilight Summer Series, Race 4, August 18, 2016

Nice wind that night. Crew was Bill O. and David H. David was new to the boat, but experienced crew. Bill and he worked well together. We had a few ragged tacks but for the most part they did well. The course was #10, C-2-X-C.

We did as I wanted and did not get far away from the start line. We ran it twice to get an idea of how the boat went and to figure how the wind would be. We let out only about 50 per cent of the head sail. That balanced the boat quite well for the wind conditions at the start. We started about 15 seconds late, but was first across the starting line. Blew Streak (BS) was second with La Dolce Vita (LDV) way back. We were second around the windward mark right behind BS. We tacked to port right after the start and tried to keep in the channel for the current boost. The track shows I tacked soon, but I was worried by the northing of the wind and the shadow of the buildings on shore. So I tacked soon, but kept us in the channel. We were second around the windward mark. We set the whisker pole to port. and kept up with BS. LDV and the rest of the fleet was well behind us. We rounded the leeward mark with BS and followed her to the finish line.

One thing I am thinking of at the Friday morning quarterbacking is that instead of following BS to the finish line, we could have gambled and tacked at the same time she did and maybe would have gained a little on her. But that is moot, now.

What a good experienced crew can do

SYSCO RACE Summer Twilight Series, 2016 I am in awe of my crew. They are the difference between finishing fourth and second. I did have experienced crew last week, but he was by himself and did not have assistance of our other experienced crew. When the two get together, they combine to form a team that just makes Aventura go.

The race course was new to us. The RC chose windward leeward course V, S-1-4-1-3-F. It was just right for the conditions. The wind at the start was 12 knots. The start was near B mark and toward the channel more than the last races. We ran a timing start early and determined that we could start at the barge on the north shore at 2:40 from the start. We were right there when we started. We ended up starting before most of the boats but behind River Weasel (RV). She was right on time and stayed in front the whole race. We however fought for second place.

At the windward mark we were fourth around it. We set the whisker pole to port. We determined that we would round the finish line to the Oregon side before the race. We observed white caps along the Oregon shore earlier this evening. We ended up rounding the first leeward mark behind La Dolce Vita (LDV), RV, and Blew Streak (BS). But we pick up a place when BS did not perform their pole dropping smoothly. We went to port tack and stayed on the tack long enough to make the starting line. Other boats, RW and LDV did not and had to tack to port tack to avoid the finish line. We stayed on starboard tack as long as we could. We finally tacked to port only to discover that BS was coming down on us. We had to duck. This ducking was the closest we did without colliding with the boat as I have come. We must have missed her by only a foot or a little more. It turned out to be advantageous for us. We tacked to starboard to make the mark and only had RW and LDV ahead of us.

We again set the pole to port, but this time I headed straight down to the mark passing close to the committee boat and over the starting line. We managed to stay abeam of BS and pass LDV, but RW was too far ahead to do anything about. When we rounded the second leeward mark we managed to do it smoothly to port tack while BS had trouble. We passed them and maintained port tack until we were able to make the finish line. We were second to finish.

I really like have my experienced crew with me do the races.

Congratulations are really due to William Street and Bill Ormond. They are the best.

SYSCO Thursday Night Summer Series, June 29, 2016, Race 5 (which was really race 3)

The crew tonight was Bill S. and Chris D. Bill is experienced, while Chris is a newbie. I rely on Bill to help train the newbie. Sometimes it works.

The race tonight was TT, Start-1-3-1-3-Finish. The wind was out of the west with a little northing to it. It was from 8 to 10 knots with gusts to 15. The committee boat was having a lot of trouble staying put in this wind. She kept overriding her anchor. Poncho setup the start and finish buoys in line with the boat. After a few minutes the committee boat had to reset its anchor. This made the committee boat the favored end of the start line.

We decided to port tack the fleet starting from the committee boat end of the start on port tack. If the rest of the fleet did the conventional start, we could cross in front of them and get to the channel and tack to starboard. This all hinged on timing. For some reason we did not get our timing right and started a little late. We ended up crossing behind most of the fleet. There is a wiggle in our track caused by a boat coming from starboard. We yelled "ducking" and started to turn, but the other boat panicked and blew here horn and yelled and turned. No contact. She should have stood on, since she was stand on boat. We managed to get ahead of Wildheart by the windward mark. We set the pole to port as usual in this kind of wind. We made up quite a bit on the rest of the fleet. We rounded the leeward make third. Back to the windward mark in three tacks. Set the pole to port again. Made up quite a bit more on the fleet, but could not catch La Dolce Vita or River Weasel. All we had to do is beat La Dolce Vita for first place in the series. We round the second leeward mark about 5 boat lengths behind La Dolca Vita who took a port tack to get angle on the finish line. There was a Ranger 20 between us and La Dolce Vita. We were overtaking the ranger when they lost it and started coming at us. We were close so we panic tacked to starboard. We lined up and saw we could make the finish mark on this tack. We might be able to make the line before La Dolca Vita because she spent a lot more time on port tack than we had. That's when you can see the yellow segment of our track. We got in irons. I was fiddling with the main sheet instead of steering the boat. We ended up back on port tack and got the boat straightened out and tacked back to starboard tack to get to the line. But by then we lost our advantage on La Dolce Vita.

We got second on the series and third on the race.

SYSCO Thursday Night Summer Series, Non-Race 4

As the headline says, the race did not count. We raced for 1 hour and 45 minutes. That's when poncho came with the "N" and "A" flags flying to abandon the race. But it was a fun race anyway.

Crew this evening were Bill S. and Chris D. Chris is the new guy. He is filling the vacancy caused by the "old" guy Bill O.. He bought his own boat in the last couple of weeks and my not be with us long. We shall see. It was good to have him along. Bill S. is training him well.

We had a mediocre start. We were fourth out of five. Yes, all five boats were racing tonight. Blew Streak had the best start. I think he started by the mark while the rest of us fought it out by the committee boat. Again the wind was light at the start. We figured that the race would be shortened at 2. By the way, the race course was 14-2-14. The committee boat used the buoy 14 as the finish line and set a start mark to the Oregon side of the boat. We were third in our group and in dirty air. We tacked to port to get to the channel and clear air as soon as we could. But we had to give La Dolce Vita a lead so we could tack. She was above us and we could not tack in front of her. We had to wait until she passed to tack to port and get to the channel.

We got to the channel and tacked so we could avoid Ryan Point. On starboard tack we had rights, but did not need any. We were not challenging any leaders. We tacked twice after that to get to the windward mark. We rounded the mark in third place. We had improved our standing by one. We set the pole to starboard and meandered over to the 20 foot depth. We were closing on the leaders, except for Blew Streak, who was doing a fabulous job of leaving us behind.

The wind died on us twice. We anchored twice. We started sailing again about 8:30 and were doing 3 knots when Poncho III came by with the abandon race flags at 8:45. Since we were sailing we continued trying to catch Blew Streak, since we could sail. The wind was building to 8 knots. We did not catch her. She "finished", or should I say she went by buoy 14 a little before 9:00. We "finished" going by 14 about 8:59. We tacked to starboard and had a great sail back to Tomahawk.

SYSCO Thursday Night Summer Series, June 16, 2016

Boy did we have a good start. The Bill's were crew tonight. I kept hearing too soon between the count down to the start. 20 "too soon", 15 "too soon", 10 "too soon. Until I said let's go for it. We were first across the line. We were a little early, but we walked the line with the rest of the boats, but we ducked in between two and hardened our sails and took off. Before we knew it we had a couple of boat length lead over the second boat. We actually had a 5 boat fleet tonight. Instead of doing our port tack at the line we usually do we continued ahead of the fleet until we could pass the drydock on the Washington side on the down stream side . I was hoping to be able to make mark 2 on this starboard tack. We waited until the last moment to tack to starboard down stream of the drydocks. We tacked but had to tack again to make the mark. We were first in our fleet to round the mark.

We set the pole to starboard and was being pursued by the other San Juan 28 in our fleet. Blew Streak was being sailed by husband and wife team of Gary G. and Mrs. They came on strong for a while and almost passed us. We wandered over to mid-river and sailed on this tack for almost half the way. You can see where we increased our speed on the track below. At this point we actually changed the pole over to the port side. Normally this move does not pay. We usually loose ground because the head sail is not pulling during the switch over. I wanted to go straight to 14, our leeward mark, but could not do it on the previous tack without sailing very by the lee. My crew gave me looks that could only be near mutiny, but they did change the pole. Thanks. We maintained our speed and our lead. We even caught up to Barcode, who is in the previous start.

We rounded the mark with Barcode and set a starboard close hauled to the finish line. We could not keep up with Barcode to the line, but we kept our lead.

Other points for the evening was the wind was out of the west and very light at the start. It built during the race. We caught up the the previous fleet because we rode the building wind down to the fleet. Very interesting race and the results help make it memorable to us.

Thanks crew.

SYSCO Summer Series 2016, Race #2 (which is really race #1)

This was a frustrating race. But, at least, it was a race. The wind was calm up to 6:35. There was a little rain, but it stopped about the same time. Then the wind came from the south and built from 4 knots to 6 by the start of the race. We watched Poncho II set the number one mark. It sure looked close to the shore. It was leeward of a stand of trees. I told the guys there would be no wind there.

The committee boat picked up its anchor and moved to about "B" mark. The start buoy was set upstream while the finish buoy was set downstream. Mark 3 was set at Ryan point.

We chose to start at the mark as it was really the favored mark. My plan was to use the momentum of the boat to round the mark. All went to plan. We came inside LDV at the mark. What was not to plan was all the boats sitting at the mark due to being in the lee of that stand of trees mentioned above. I had no choice but to go around the 6 to 8 boats lined up at the mark all becalmed. I had enough carry to get to the front of them, but not enough wind to go around the mark. We sat there getting puffs of wind moving us forward only to have it die and then drift us back. We did this for almost 1/2 hour. Unbelievable. So we finally get clear and LDV has long gone and made her other marks and was finishing at the time we were crossing the start line for the second time. So I chime up and say we got the horn as LDV got her well deserved horn at her first place finish. Of course, we had to go to the leeward mark yet, but it was fun anyway. We finished the race without incident. The race committee was sure glad to see us finish as we were the last boat for the night. I can say we were glad to finish.

We had a new crew member this evening. His name is Chris D. This was his first race in many years. He raced off of Honolulu many years ago and is looking for a boat. I got his email because the fleet captain email forwarding had not changed to John Osborne's email address. The universe works in very strange ways. I have been looking for a crew to replace Bill O. who is moving on. Bill O. has been excellent crew for more years than I can remember. I do remember the first day he crewed. I was short of crew as usual. Here was this guy with a boat two slips away and with nothing to do. So I asked him if he would like to crew. He has been with me since then. I will miss him very much.

The Race

The Mark (About 30 minutes). The boat was facing upstream all the time. That is to the right in this picture.

SYSCO Spring Series, Thursdays, May 5, 2016

This was fun. The wind was up and the course board was confusing. The RC decided to save time and effort and combine pennants with the same course on the same line. I took it to mean that there would be only four starts, but as later pointed out to me there were six starts as usual. There were no plus signs between any of the pennant numbers. DUH. That explains the interesting squiggle at the beginning of the race. We started twice. Actually we were going to start three times, but noticed that only the rangers were starting on the third start so we bowed out. We did start in the fourth start, but noticed that our fleet flag stayed up after we started. Strange. Then it occurred to us that we would have to start again. Thus the squiggle.

At this time I would like to thank my crew. We managed to snag Gary K. to help Bill S. Gary owns Blue Streak, the other SJ28 that should have been racing, but he has been having more fun crewing on other people's boats.

We had a decent start, right behind La Dolce Vita (LDV). It took us some time to figure out where we were after our first start and managed to get started alright. We managed to round the windward mark second and get our whisker pole out to port to make the downwind run. The wind was about 8 to 10 knots with gusts to 15. We meandered over to the 20 foot depth and headed for 14. The gusts would get us going about 7+ knots. The water off the bow and stern was the loaded I have heard on Aventura. Then about 3/4 down the run, a gust exploded the whisker pole. It broke in half. Half going in the water and the half attached to the mast stayed with the mast. We were contemplating taking the pole down because of the usual problem of the wind going to a beam reach from the broad reach at times. This is caused by the boat getting ahead of the wind or the wind dying while the boat continues with its speed. We were gaining on LDV until the pole exploded. So we finished second, again. This puts us in third place, but tied in points with River Weasel and LDV. They each have a first.

I bought a 20' length of 2" diameter .065 walled aluminum tube to replace the whisker pole. I am going to cut it at 15' and use the end I have and make another end for the sail on my 3D printer. It is a 7 hour build. I am waiting for a day where I will be home for the build. I am just too busy being retired. Probably build it Saturday, during the rain.

Click map for larger view:

SYSCO Spring Series - Race 2 Thursday Nights - April 28, 2016

I can't believe I have not posted in over two years. The race was course TT ( Start-1-3-1-3-Finish ). The wind was like the normal summer wind from the west-northwest. Poncho put a "1" buoy out in the middle of the river across from McMennimens. The "3" buoy was located off Rose City Yacht Club. The committee boat, start, and finish was about at "C" mark. Crew for the night was Bill S. and myself.

We chose a starboard tack to start at the mark end of the start line. We had made a run at the mark and discovered it was way over toward the Oregon side of the river from the normal start lines. We adjusted. We were a little early to the start at 7:00 PM. We are in the "C" Cruising class with La Dolce Vita (LDV), Braveheart, River Weasel (RW), and Blue Streak. Blue Streak did not show. We walked the line for the ten seconds and turned when the flag dropped. La Dolce Vita was on our tail while the other two boats where behind her. We went to port tack as soon as we could to get over to the main channel to get into the current. Upon looking at my track later I discovered we tacked too soon back to port. If we waited a little longer we could have remained on port tack long enough to eliminate two tacks later. The wind was good enough to carry us. We ended up tacking to starboard a little early and passing behind LDV. They were making better time to wind than Aventura. We are going to have to experiment with the sail settings now that she has new rigging. The head sail sets differently now. We tacked back to port to get up to the windward mark. We were doing fine until I heard Bill say we are in a collision course for Braveheart who was on a starboard tack. In the moment all I could think to do was a 360 turn, which would get us up behind her and clear. You can see the kink in our track before the windward mark. It shows as a yellow area between two light blue tracks. On hindsight I think if the crew was ready we could have just tacked to starboard and be in front of Braveheart and to leeward. We would be almost in a line to the mark if we headed the boat a little. The result was that we were the last around the windward mark.

Bill set the whisker pole to port with the boom to starboard making us on a port tack downwind. We inched over to the 20 foot depth and then headed for the leeward mark, which I did not see for quite a while. We ended up looking a the track not heading straight for it but a curve to the south. Meanwhile RW did a beeline to the mark. She stayed in the channel a little more. We were catching her for a while, until she got into the shallower water with more wind. We did alright because both LDV and Braveheart went over to the Oregon side and tried to beat the current but lost some wind.

We caught up to Shadowfax an Elite 36.1 owned by Michael Nance. He was in our class last year with Estrella Del Mar a 29' boat. He is living aboard his new boat now and carrying all his belongings. I latter learned that he hit Vaporware on the start of his race and spent some time untangling the two. In the track you can see where he slowed us down toward the end of the leeward leg of the race.

We rounded the mark with Shadowfax who turned to a starboard tack while we turned to a port tack to get back the the main channel and the current. About that time a barge had to come up from the I-5 bridge through the racers. He was far enough downstream that we went to the main channel and tacked back to starboard and headed over to the middle out of his way. We sailed on starboard looking for the windward mark. By this time the sun was setting. We could not see a mark. So I headed for buoy 2, thinking the mark had been picked up. We finally picked up the mark and saw Poncho off to the starboard of the mark. We could see her navigation lights, but could not see a flag. But why else would she be down by the mark, but to shorten the course. It was getting dark anyway. We finished second.

Click to enlarge the image:

SYSCO Summer Series Race 5, July 17, 2014

Again this was a normal summer wind pattern. The wind was from the WNW along the river. Crew was Bill O. and Doug C. Our start was typical for this series. There were lots of boats at the start. Estrella Del Mar (EDM) was coming up leeward but overtaking on starboard tack. He tried to push us up and into the starting mark. I held my course and could argue that he was the overtaking boat and had to keep clear. Then right after the crossing the line, we over took River Weasel (RW) who was coming up leeward on starboard tack. We did a port tack to get clear of the group and get clear air. We encountered traffic with a boat on starboard coming down river. We had to tack to port before I had planned. We continued on starboard passing in front of EDM. We had gained a boat length or two by that time. We tacked to port to go to the mark. Again we encountered traffic. Another boat on starboard tack while we were on port. This time I started to pass astern, but Bill suggested we could make it in front. But by the time I took a look at the boat we were too close to pass astern or ahead so we did a quick 360 turn and maintained our position. We rounded the mark and set the whisker pole to port. We headed upstream to 14 staying in the middle where we found the wind to be best earlier in the evening. There ahead of us was RW. We were back about 5 boat lengths. We started to catch them. Then they would pull ahead. We would again approach them even getting our sail shadow on their stern. Again they pulled away. About 3/4ths the way to 14 EDM caught and passed us. We were able to stay with her to the mark and was able to cut inside her and the mark and gain a couple of boat lengths in front of her. We left the mark on starboard tack. After a while it was apparent we were not going to be able to make the finish on this tack. About half way to the finish EDM tacked to port and passed behind us. When we were able to make the finish on one tack we tried to go to port tack, but the sheet was trapped by the whisker pole. Bill had secured the pole to the starboard inner shroud above the starboard jib sheet. We had to wiggle a bit and Bill went forward to free the sheet. By the time we got straightened out, EDM had crossed in front of us and finished second. RW had done a great job and finished first. We finished third. The 360 turn is visible in the track as well as the wiggle near the finish.

Fourth Race SYSCO Summer Series 2014, July 10, 2014

Nice normal summer wind.  Crew was Bill S. and Doug C.  The course was S-2-14-F.  We had a normal start with an added advantage of Estrella Del Mar (EDM) being over early and thus having to restart giving us a nice lead.

We rounded Buoy 2 second right after La Dolce Vita (LDV) who had an excellent start.  We set the whisker pole this time and kept it up until 14.  We were able to catch LDV.  We tried to shadow her, but she kept moving to port to get out of our shadow.  She finally moved to port enough for us to break away.  Bill was watching the action behind us and noted that EDM was catching us.  She finally chose to shadow LDV who was shadowing Upstart.  The three of them slowed down and allowed us to further separate from them.

We rounded the leeward mark and I cause us to go straight to starboard tack instead of remaining on port tack and gaining some ground to go straight to the finish on one tack to starboard.  We had to tack to port to gain the finish line which we did and got the horn.  We had finished first.  This was the first time finishing first since the first race of the spring series.  We attributed it to Doug being our lucking charm.  This was the first race for him since his heart trouble.  Glad to have him back.

Here's the track: