Is everyone sailing or has my email address been deleted from the server?

I’ve been racing my 424 as usual this summer but I’ve suddenly had much better success. I find myself in second-place overall for the spring series in a fleet of seven boats. The spring series had nine races. We got three 1st, four 2nd, one 3rd and one 4th. We do better of course when we have a bit of wind, but we’re a contender now even in light winds. I attribute our improvement on the race course with the replacement of the main and gennoa (ten boat-units) along with having a great crew this season. In particular, the new headsail allows us to point higher. The other boats in my fleet can no longer out point us. In fact, the boat that currently holds first-place told me that we can now out point him. He fears our lee now that he can’t luff us over. My foredeck crew is pretty good at launching and retrieving the cruising spinnaker and the sheet monkeys are quick to re-trim.

My club divides the boats into fleets with similar PHRF handicaps. We are in the slowest fleet with a 189 handicap. I race against boats that are typically around 27 feet and weigh about 5000 lbs. It’s kind of a mismatch, but nobody in his right mind would race a lumbering behemoth like a 424 so it’s hard to find a match race.

Last week, a 27′ S2 lost his mast during the race. We dropped out to assist. He was unable to maneuver with his mast dragging over on the port side complete with both sails. He was drifting toward a nearby ledge. One of their crew fell overboard. Like the captain and other crew member, he was in his 70’s and not in very good physical shape. We are all required to wear life-jackets. His was the auto-inflating kind. It likely saved his life. With no rigging, their life-sling was of little use. They had no boarding ladder, no tools, and few options. We were able to recover him using our swim-platform and swim-ladder. We put a tow line on their boat and pulled them away from the ledge. I put two able-bodied crew onboard. They cut his mast loose and dropped it to the bottom. When the mast and rigging get tangled like this, it is not always possible to pull the clevis pins. Bolt cutters come in very handy for this kind of thing. They are inexpensive and invaluable in an emergency. Get the largest you can find.
http://www.harborfreight.com/36-inch-bolt-cutters-41150.html

We don’t know exactly what caused his rig to fail. The mast was broken at the spreaders and the deck. It was hanging over the side bent in two. I speculate that the windward forward lower parted. If you crank-down on your backstay tensioner, it puts a load on the forward lowers. They should take the load, but if there is a defect the wire might part. With the rig at the bottom, we’ll never know for sure. His boat is likely a total loss given the high cost to re-rig. Luckily, nobody was hurt.

This isn’t the first time we’ve rescued boats on the race course. We don’t have all that many emergencies but with as many as 50 boats racing on any given evening we occasionally have an equipment failure or spinnaker wrap. The Race Committee boat can’t leave station to assist unless they abandon the race. With about 10 crew onboard and a large engine, we’re an obvious choice to assist. I’m a bit disappointed that we had to drop out because we were doing very well up until then. It’s more important to help folks in distress however so no complaints.

I’ll be on the south side of Cape Cod until about labor day. If anyone is in the area, please reply with your itinerary. Maybe we can hook up for a beverage some evening.

Rich
BlackSheep #47

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