It was a gorgeous weekend. Rascal and Deception left the WAC on Friday afternoon to avoid the commotion of Opening Day. Rascal had some issues with the KB batteries (there are not enough good batteries, but we are going to work on this) and almost missed the Fremont bridge. The bridge operator was really kind and gave them a little extra time. We made it through the locks (thank you to Nate for helping me with Deception) and docked at Shilshole for the night.
It was an early morning the next day and Deception's motor refused to run (it would continue to be uncooperative for the rest of the weekend). Rascal helped immensely by constantly giving us tows. If they weren't there we would have not been able to compete. Saturday started off well. We had a good start and because we were in the slowest of the slow class we started first. There was some disadvantages to this as we could not make decisions based on the fleet so we made our own. It was a strong flood so we knew we had a tack up one of the shores. We started on the East side but moved to the West when we saw the fleet doing this.
It was a beat up the shore and I became very familiar with Deception's weaknesses. Unfortunately, Deception cannot point well at all. I believe we were the worst pointing boat in the entire fleet. I knew it was bad, but not how bad! She's also not well balanced (I think she needs her rig tuned; forestay tightened, backstay loosed to bring the mast a little more forward). The jib halyard slips in both locks so it might be time to replace it.
Nightshade passed us just south of Kingston pointing about 30 degrees higher and looking really good. That boat sails really well. They had a really awesome day Saturday. We met up with Rascal just North of Kingston and stayed together pretty well up to just south of Point No Point. They were able to outpoint us quiet a bit as well and started to pull away. I was watching the fleet. Most boats tacked up the shore to Point No Point then headed across the Sound to round the Double Bluff buoy. Some other boats cut across the Sound a little earlier into Useless Bay. I watched both sets of boats and noticed that those going into Useless Bay had a really nice lift toward the Bay, then got headed in the Bay, so when they tacked they had a really nice lift to the mark. I decided to follow the boats into Useless Bay as I was just falling further and further behind doing the shore tacking to Point No Point. It was slack tide at this point. As expected we had a great lift into the Bay, then got headed, tacked, and had a great lift towards the mark.
Unfortunately, the wind lightened up and we ended up in a massive hole in Useless Bay with a couple other boats. The other boats were of a lighter and larger variety and got out of the hole before us. I think we were stuck there for 45 minutes or so. It was pretty discouraging to watch the rest of the fleet go by and be completely dead in the water. We worked on the engine some to no avail and when the wind came back it was a massive header which ruined our lay line to the mark and put us even further behind. It was then a slow beat to Port Townsend and we were one of the last boats in the fleet. We had really good wind (had a reef and a dbl reef at some points) so it didn't occur to me that we would get stuck in a hole. It's always risky to do something different than most of the boats in the fleet. You will either get ahead or end up massively behind and sadly in our case it was the latter. It is safer to stick with the fleet because then all of you will end up the same. It was a big mistake and bad decision on my part but I learned a lot from it.
It was a good night at Port Townsend. It's a great town to race (or cruise) to! I highly recommend it! I actually managed to get engine running consistently at the dock. The next morning; however, it died at the marina exit and we had to get a tow to the start line. We got off the tow too early and there was strong current and light wind so we had troubles making the start. We were very late to our start (about 15 minutes). The sail on Sunday was spectacular though. Downwind is where Deception shines. She can sail well really deep so we were able to make lay on Double bluff and be one of the first ten boats or so to round the buoy. Around Kingston though, the fast boats caught up to us and there was a bunch of freighters going through which messed a bit with our strategy and had us hugging the West shore rather than hitting the middle were the flood current was helping us. The wind shifted easterly a ton so we dropped the chute and had a nice beam to the line. We did pretty well. We bummed around the finish line waiting for Rascal to finish so we could get towed and watched as boats tried to make the reach under spinnaker which was interesting. Some held the chute and other had issues. We saw Nightshade finish and Rascal was not too far behind. All the club boats did pretty well (except for us on Saturday - which was really bad) and it was a ton of fun.
We got towed to the locks and made it back to the WAC in time to have a little BBQ.
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