sailing

PCC’s

Posted on by exploresb

Last weekend was the PCC’s(Pacific Coast Championships) for High school sailing. The event was held by Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club in L.A. The event is organized by PCISA and is the overall championships for all the west coast high school teams sailing CFJ’s. We got to the Yacht Club at nine in the morning to get everything done before the first start at eleven. This involved taking our boats off the trailer, stepping the masts, getting registered, and getting our sails from the race officials. Only after all this could we roll our bout down the launch ramp and dip it in the water. I was sailing in Gold fleet B division, so initially we would not be on the water. First our A team would compete in two races, then we would rotate so we could sail and they could have time to rest. During A division’s race, we were encourager to watch by our coach. The more we can learn before hand, the better prepared we would be for the conditions on the course when we got out there.

A CFJ is a two person boat, so each team has four people, two for A division and two for B division. My partner for B division was Paul Harteck.

Paul is an experienced sailer, but specializes in larger boats rather than the CFJ. Nonetheless, we still got out there and proceeded to win our first race. At the start, we came in late at the boat end and tacked off the line. We sent it out to the right side of the course until we got headed. Then we tacked and on our way up to the mark we got consistently lifted until eventually we were laying the mark. The rest of the fleet was forced to sail into the mark on a header, so by the time we got there, we were already in first. We maintained this lead for the next three legs of the race consisting of an upwind and two downwinds before we crossed the finish line fifty yards in front of the second place boat.

We finished our second race and came in to the beach to switch out. All in all, it was a great weekend of sailing with strong breeze and many races. By the time it was over, we were all exhausted. We finished in an overall eighth place out of approximately seventy teams. Not a bad spot to be in at the end of it all.

The night before

Posted on by exploresb

Tomorrow, I will be going on a trip to LA for a sailing event at Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club. The event, known as CFJ PCC’s(Pacific Coast Championships), is the last high school regatta of the year for PCISA(Pacific Coast Interscholastic Sailing Association). The top four teams by the end of this weekend will be representing the Pacific Coast at CFJ nationals.

Today however, I need to get prepared for my trip. I would need to pack normal clothes as well as my sailing gear, so I walked out to my car and brought my sailing gear inside to the washer. Then, I walked up too my room and grabbed my hamper full of clothes, brought it to the laundry room, and started the cleaning cycle.

While my clothes were spinning helplessly in a torrent of soapy water, I proceeded to enter my parents closet where the entrance to the basement was. We keep all our travel bags down there along with several other things such as skiing gear, paper bags, and Christmas wrapping paper. It seems like the perfect place for a rat to take up residence. I tried not to think about this however, for I was opening the basement door and about to start my decent down the treacherously steep stairs. The stairs had eight and a half inch treads paired with eight and a half inch risers making for a forty five degree slope. I knew there was a light switch somewhere near the top of the stairs, but I could not find it in the darkness.

I grabbed my duffle bag and carried it back up the stairs, through the closet, up some more stairs, into my room, and finally set it down in my closet. I immediately opened it up and started tossing clothes into it as if I was shoveling dirt into a wheel barrel.

I looked at my packing list and went over what I put in my bag in my head. I decided that I probably overlooked a few things, but it doesn’t matter, so I picked it up and hobbled it out to my car along with the rest of my stuff that I had packed from the other day. I was ready to get some rest, wake up early, and have a successful regatta down in LA.

Perfect Timing

Posted on by exploresb

This past weekend I was invited to sail on my friends J105 named “Perfect Timing 2” in a twenty three mile race from Santa Barbara harbor to the oil drilling rigs and back. However, we were only able to get four people on our boat and the wind was blowing at a steady thirty knots. This combined with eight to ten foot seas was a recipe for disaster. So, we decided not to compete in the race. We did still want to go sailing, so we rigged the boat and motored out of the harbor. It was too windy to raise the main, so we dipped below the peer hoping to get in its wind shadow so we could hoist the main.

After we got the main up, we unfurled the jib and put the bow down on a beam reach. At first, there was little swell, but that all began to change the further out to sea we went. The waves got steadily larger as we sailed out, and the wind got stronger. Our boat speed was consistently peaking at sixteen knots and every time a wave came up behind us we would trim in our sails and surf the wave. A few times the bow of the boat would smash into the wave in front of us causing the bow to submerge and water to wash across the deck all the way to the stern where we were sitting. 

We made it three quarters of the way to the rigs before we tacked and headed back to the harbor. The way back was upwind and against the swell, so it was slow and wet. Each wave slapped up against the side of the boat getting everyone soaked. A few times, a wave even managed to clear the rail and break on top of the boat. 

By the time we got back to the harbor, we were soaking wet and exhausted. This was a reminder that sailing can get a little dicey, but it is still possible to get out there and have an amazing time with your friends. I am looking forward to the next time I get to go out in windy and wavy conditions.

A fun-ish day at the beach

Posted on by exploresb

Today I woke up and looked out my window. I could see the ocean if I just sat up a little in my bed. It was a beautiful morning, the sun was out and the wind was howling. I leaped out of bed and ran to the garage to grab my 2.5 meter kite. I pulled it from a shelf and snatched the pump that went with it. I saw a carve board hanging on a hook on the wall and took that as well. Then, with my arms full, I walked the miserable 100 yards over hot asphalt and sharp pebbles to the beach. I pulled the kite out of it’s bag, unfolded it and pumped it up. Then, I meticulously laid out the strings trying to avoid tangles. Everything was hooked up and I was ready to launch the kite and hop on the carve board to go rocketing down the beach using the power of the wind.

But there was one problem, there was no more wind. The wind gods were toying with me. They teased me with the early morning breeze only to shut it off again. I sat there for hours waiting for the wind. Not even my magical wind dance worked to bring the breeze. So I packed up my kite and feeling disappointed, walked back to my house. When I got back however, the wind started to pick up again and before long, the sea was capping. I quickly grabbed my laser and towed it down to the beach.

I had a bit of trouble getting it down there, but I eventually made it. I rigged it in a record breaking four minutes, and I was ready to push it out into the surf.

I dragged it into the water and quickly hopped in. I trimmed in the sail and accelerated to get through the breaking waves. Just past the breaking waves, everything went south. The block at the end of the boom that holds outhaul snapped. The boom fell off, the sail luffed and I almost capsized to windward. A few seconds later, the rudder popped out and was dragging behind me on a string. So I had no sail, no steerage, and I was just about to drift into the breaking waves zone. I grabbed the outhaul line that had come off the boom and used it to power up the sail. I heeled the boat to windward using my body weight which caused the boat to round down rapidly. I gybed the main and headed back towards the beach using my weight to steer the boat. The boat got caught up in a wave on the way in, and I jumped off the back to avoid getting run over. I swam in and dragged the boat out of the water. I was about 300 yards away from where I started, much to far to drag the boat, so I made some temporary fixes and then pushed it back out into the ocean.

This time, nothing else broke, and I was able to safely sail back to where I launched it from. So, all in all, it was not the best day I’ve had at the beach, but it was a good learning experience, and I am looking forward to the next breezy day.

SD

Posted on by exploresb

This past weekend, Myself and four other students drove down to San Diego on Thursday night to take part in the Helly Hansen NOOD (National Offshore One Design) regattas in our boat, a J70 called Cake. We stayed at a house on Harbor view drive in Point Loma just above the San Diego Yacht Club. On Friday morning, we woke up, took our showers and made our self’s eggs and bacon for breakfast. We packed up the car and drove over to Coronado. On our way, we passed over the Coronado bridge where we could see the huge military ships in south Coronado bay where we would be racing. When we arrived at the Coronado Yacht Club, we started rigging our boat, however we did not get far before a competitors meeting was called. They went through the usual stuff, rules, courses, and agenda.

We left the dock at ten thirty as our first race was scheduled for eleven thirty. We cruised up and down the race course adjusting our boat for the wind and sea state. We got everything set up just the way we wanted it. Ten minutes before the first race we were feeling confident. We knew our weeks of practice would give us an advantage on the other boats. Five minutes before the race, we set our clock for a five minute countdown. Three minutes, we were debating where we should start on the line to get us to the favored side of the course. Two minutes, our minds were in race mode and we knew our game plan. At one minute, we were set up forty meters off the line and other boats were setting up as well. Ten seconds and we were ten meters off the line and we trimmed in our main, unfurled our jib and headed towards the line at full speed. At the gun, we were one meter off the line just to be safe so that we weren’t over early.

We sailed for a total of three days coming in tenth overall and first in the youth division. This means we have qualified for High School Keel Boat Nationals in Newport R.I. We packed up our boat, put it on the trailer and headed back home on Sunday night.

Golden Bear

Posted on by exploresb

Last weekend, the SBYSF(Santa Barbara Youth Sailing Foundation), myself included, drove up to Treasure Island near San Francisco to compete in the high school sailing event The Golden Bear Regatta. It is a two day event in which around seventy high school teams compete in a series of three or more races. The event was held in clipper cove in between Treasure Island and the bay bridge.

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We arrived at the event at eight thirty to check in and get our charter boat. Our boat was then inspected to make sure it was in proper working order and then we were given our sails. We then moved our boat to the end of a long line of boats waiting to be put in the water. When our turn came, we rolled our boat down the launch ramp, lifted it off the dolly, and pushed it in the water. With our sails half way up, we rocked the boat over to the nearest tie up spot on the adjacent dock. With the boat in the water and all the paperwork in order, we returned to our team area by the rocks to get changed into our gear. At ten, there was a meeting to discuss the proceedings for the day. After the meeting which was over by ten thirty, we made our way over to our boat, raised the sails, and pushed off the dock.

When we got on the water, the first thing we did was assess the wind condition and sea state and set up the boat accordingly. The first race would take place at eleven, however it was delayed until about twelve thirty due to shifty wind conditions.

Eventually, the wind shifted to a stable westerly breeze and we started racing. Our first race was a windward, offset, leeward, windward, offset, finish down wind. We did not have a particularly good start, but during the race, we made up a few boats at a time. We finished in seventh out of thirty two boats in our fleet. Our second race went better than our first, we started in the middle of the fleet and finished half a boat length behind the first place boat, coming away with a respectable second place. All in all we had a fantastic two days of racing in a beautiful location. I am looking forward to sailing in our local event next week in Santa Barbara.