As seen from Dura Mater, Tom Boussie driving:
https://vimeo.com/261427394
The E Rudder weekend was productive for a number of reasons. First, of course, is because the sailors who participated in the ERudder Race learned to gauge the difficulty of attaching, deploying and then sailing or even motoring their boats under emergency rudder. The conditions were benign, the sky drizzling rain throughout the day. I was later informed that it didn’t rain all day in Oakland. Well, wherever we sailed off Richmond it rained on us. All day. Or maybe we sailed into the rain because that was where we found wind. Either way, we all got wet and it was just fine. Mighty fine.
The start of the race was delayed because … well, because we forgot to start on time. So Jonathan Gutoff agreed to be the grown up when no one else wanted to do race committee. He took Dura Mater’s orange cushion and hung it from the platform on Richmond Yacht Club’s seawall, using channel 71 and an air horn to announce the preliminary and start times. He also took some photos which might show up on NorCal Sailing soon. Check out that site:
http://www.norcalsailing.com/
John Woodworth was on hand with his Crealock Owl, Brian Boschma and Bob Johnston serving as crew. Don Martin was there with Crinan II (“that damned Wylie” as it is called by several people), with David Herrigel (who knows a winna winna chicken dinna when he sees one) to assist as needed. Randy Leasure and crew Cliff Shaw were on the substantial, cinnamon roll-producing WestSail Tortuga.
Later in the day Christine Weaver showed up to photograph people for the official 2018 Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race program. Christine’s time and words are paid for by “the West’s Leading Sailing and Marine Magazine” Latitude 38, a gift in kind that has been provided since the first race in 1978. Thank you, Latitude, for sending Christine, one of our own SSS sailors and a writer, too.
Tom Boussie was on hand via land yacht because his Capo 30 JouJou was sitting in the San Francisco small boat harbor with two (not one, but two) dead batteries. Seems Tom took some friends out sailing a few days earlier, and left the batteries turned “ON” when they left Jou Jou. His claim is that the presence of other people on his boat distracted him from doing all the things a singlehander must do at the end of the day, which is: Everything.
On Saturday Tom was hoping to sail with/check out the competition on either of the Wildernesses, but since neither FUGU nor NIGHTMARE was available, he reluctantly accepted the consolation prize of driving Dura Mater, the get away boat. So there you have the cast of characters. Nine sailors in foul weather gear motor/sailing around in the rain, three sailors aiding and abetting.
TheVideo: John, Randy and Don, please correct any mistakes and offer additional information for the sake of other sailors.
All three boats motored to the start. John Woodworth raised his sails and made deployment of his ERudder look easy. He has a monitor windvane and the ERudder that can be purchased separately. You can see Owl sailing smoothly along, only to get caught in the flood as she approaches the mark. Did she ever circle the mark? Dunno. What does John say?
http://www.selfsteer.com/products/monitor/mrud.php
Earlier in the day Randy Leasure indicated the huge transom hung rudder on Tortuga. “I don’t think I’ll ever lose my rudder.” He smiled. He has an emergency rudder, and Saturday was going to be the test of deploying it away from the dock.
As we circled ‘round Tom Boussie asked Randy when he planned to deploy. Randy’s response? “When it is deployed you will see a rooster tail off the stern!” Expansive spread of the hands and a big smile.
Randy’s crew was Cliff Shaw, who steered and handed him materials as he lowered himself down in the bosun’s chair to attach the ER in calm conditions just outside the Richmond Yacht club harbor. Tortuga’s engine wasn’t turned off, her sails not raised. Randy waited until the starting horn to deploy his emergency rudder. In order to do so he lowered himself by a combination of stern ladder and bosun chair to disengage a pin and then deploy the emergency rudder. Only he could explain how complicated it is to do so. It certainly looked difficult, but he didn’t look concerned at all, hanging off Tortuga’s transom. He waved and smiled as we motored by.
See Crinan II that “damned Wylie” with Don Martin looking pretty smug and David Herrigel pleased to be sailing another winner. However it must be said that Don deployed his emergency rudder at the dock. He asked about a motoring allowance before the race began and when asked whether he intended to sail spinnaker or non spinnaker he mumbled something under his breath that sounded like sailor talk. But his boat looks sweet on the water, even if she did have a helluva time circling the mark. There are very few marks between San Francisco and Kauai, though, so Don is in fine shape. After the race he struggled to remove his emergency rudder. Asked if he had ever removed it before, he shook his head, and said, “I figure taking it off won’t be a priority.” He smacked it loose with a borrowed ball pein hammer, and smiled. “I’ll have to buy one of those.”
Hopefully Randy, John and Don will offer their own versions of events here. It was a most enjoyable day in the rain. Before the race everybody crammed into Crinan II and then after the race all food and people headed for Owl, which has a toasty heater and cold and hot running water. Kind of like Dura Mater except with a toasty heater and cold and hot running water.
The next morning David Herrigel drove us all into town for breakfast at Little Louie’s in downtown Point Richmond. The place was crawling with sailors. We saw Chris Kramer from Six Brothers and Jim DeWitt the painter. And in case you are wondering: yes, Little Louie’s serves lattes.
http://www.littlelouies.com/
