Lightspeed
Willpower
Both Fleet and Overall finish times - results are now posted. Very close on corrected time for the fleets....Congrats....RC
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Cheers - Bryan
Finish Results Posted
- Thread starter Lightspeed
- Start date
I'm writing an article about the Long Pac and I'd appreciate a short summary of how it went from each of the skippers & from the race committee. Any photos? I've contacted some skippers, but not everyone. If you see this and haven't received an email from me, please contact me. broderic at sonic dot net Notice there's no "K" on my name. It you want to see what the article might look like, check out the Racing Sheet in this month's "Lat. 38".
Thanks, Pat Broderick, Wyliecat "NANCY" and sometime "Lat 38" or norcalsailing.com correspondent.
Thanks, Pat Broderick, Wyliecat "NANCY" and sometime "Lat 38" or norcalsailing.com correspondent.
Hey Pat, I posted this report for my friends on Facebook, but it had a lot of personal details that I've edited out so not much account of the sailing conditions, but feel free to use some or none.
The first day out was the kind of sailing conditions that make these sorts of things fun. It was mostly light wind (10-12), calm sea state, sunny weather, and tons of sealife such as murres, Mola Mola and whales. The biologists at the Farallon Islands also wished us a speedy trip. Super nice to hear that. Then about 10 pm, the winds picked up to 20 knots, which is the time I need to reef on my boat. There was an "uh-oh" moment when the reefing line was giving me trouble and the sail track was sliding out (it's a Tides Marine system), but I got it all sorta worked out and continued on. That was the only time I wondered if I would need to turn around early. The seas were really confused so it was very hard to manage down below. Up in the cockpit was great and that's where I ended up sleeping most of the time.
I crossed the turn around point of 126.4 Longitude around 2140 on the second night. There were a couple other boats within hailing distance who were nearby at the same time so that was nice to know because everyone left me in their wake by the time I had gotten to the Farallones, and I never saw anyone again after that. At the Farallones, I had also been dickering around with the Monitor self-steering vane to get it to work, but after a few minutes of going in circles or stopped dead in the water, I gave that up and relied solely on the auto pilot.
The third night was when I got really beat up. I was hoping for a more downwind return having tried to stay as far north of west as I could on the way out. Kynntana does not do as well as other boats on a close haul, but going southerly to pick up hull speed was something that I figured I might regret on the return.
On that last night (the third one out), we had 25-28-knot winds with sustained gusts above 30 knots and I was beam-on to a large (8-10') swell. Sea state and swell were still not together so it was violent and every so often a larger swell would hit abeam, shudder the boat like I'd hit something, and then a cascade of water would come over the cockpit. It's a good thing it was night so I didn't have to see these coming, but they litterally sounded like a freight train just before impact. It was impossible to go below so my soaking pillow and blanket and I just stuck it out all night on deck. Kynntana and the auto pilot did all the work. In fact, I barely steered the whole time. Burning out the AP was a bit of a concern from the get go, but I figured I would just deal with that if it happened. So, so glad it never did happen because hand steering would have been horrible, if not even possible in those conditions. I now see the tremendous benefits of having both a self-steering system and a back up AP.
There were a few times, however, when the boat slid sideways off some of the bigger swells before the auto pilot could swing us back around. I'd like to figure out how to never allow that to happen again. Those were the only times when my heart would freeze up in a bit of fear and I needed to hang on tighter until we got back on course.
After all that and ripping through the night on my second reef, there was a wall of dead air right at the first channel marker for the shipping traffic lane. I was barely making way of about 0.8 knots. After several hours of trying to go a few miles, I finally got some wind just as we were about to go under the bridge. I finished around 0935 this morning (July 8), some 72 hours and averaging 5.6 knots.
Here are the only pictures. Hope they have attached correctly. If this doesn't work, I'll send them to your email tomorrow.
The first day out was the kind of sailing conditions that make these sorts of things fun. It was mostly light wind (10-12), calm sea state, sunny weather, and tons of sealife such as murres, Mola Mola and whales. The biologists at the Farallon Islands also wished us a speedy trip. Super nice to hear that. Then about 10 pm, the winds picked up to 20 knots, which is the time I need to reef on my boat. There was an "uh-oh" moment when the reefing line was giving me trouble and the sail track was sliding out (it's a Tides Marine system), but I got it all sorta worked out and continued on. That was the only time I wondered if I would need to turn around early. The seas were really confused so it was very hard to manage down below. Up in the cockpit was great and that's where I ended up sleeping most of the time.
I crossed the turn around point of 126.4 Longitude around 2140 on the second night. There were a couple other boats within hailing distance who were nearby at the same time so that was nice to know because everyone left me in their wake by the time I had gotten to the Farallones, and I never saw anyone again after that. At the Farallones, I had also been dickering around with the Monitor self-steering vane to get it to work, but after a few minutes of going in circles or stopped dead in the water, I gave that up and relied solely on the auto pilot.
The third night was when I got really beat up. I was hoping for a more downwind return having tried to stay as far north of west as I could on the way out. Kynntana does not do as well as other boats on a close haul, but going southerly to pick up hull speed was something that I figured I might regret on the return.
On that last night (the third one out), we had 25-28-knot winds with sustained gusts above 30 knots and I was beam-on to a large (8-10') swell. Sea state and swell were still not together so it was violent and every so often a larger swell would hit abeam, shudder the boat like I'd hit something, and then a cascade of water would come over the cockpit. It's a good thing it was night so I didn't have to see these coming, but they litterally sounded like a freight train just before impact. It was impossible to go below so my soaking pillow and blanket and I just stuck it out all night on deck. Kynntana and the auto pilot did all the work. In fact, I barely steered the whole time. Burning out the AP was a bit of a concern from the get go, but I figured I would just deal with that if it happened. So, so glad it never did happen because hand steering would have been horrible, if not even possible in those conditions. I now see the tremendous benefits of having both a self-steering system and a back up AP.
There were a few times, however, when the boat slid sideways off some of the bigger swells before the auto pilot could swing us back around. I'd like to figure out how to never allow that to happen again. Those were the only times when my heart would freeze up in a bit of fear and I needed to hang on tighter until we got back on course.
After all that and ripping through the night on my second reef, there was a wall of dead air right at the first channel marker for the shipping traffic lane. I was barely making way of about 0.8 knots. After several hours of trying to go a few miles, I finally got some wind just as we were about to go under the bridge. I finished around 0935 this morning (July 8), some 72 hours and averaging 5.6 knots.
Here are the only pictures. Hope they have attached correctly. If this doesn't work, I'll send them to your email tomorrow.
pogen
Sailing canoe "Kūʻaupaʻa"
Thanks Carlianne and others for those nice reports. I'm feeling jealous, especially about the fast race and the good weather you enjoyed for the first couple of days at least.
The Awards meeting will be at the IYC on 19 July at 1930. I'll be bringing some diesel jerrycans and also water jerries to give away to 2018 Hawaii hopefuls. And any other stuff that hasn't already been sold or thrown out. See you!
The Awards meeting will be at the IYC on 19 July at 1930. I'll be bringing some diesel jerrycans and also water jerries to give away to 2018 Hawaii hopefuls. And any other stuff that hasn't already been sold or thrown out. See you!