The count down to the Salt Spring Island Sailing Club round salt spring race is stressful. The list of to do’s is not getting shorter. Tonight we where to pull of the practice head sail and put on the tape drive. Will do it in the am. On Monday I pulled the boat out of the water using the crane in town. I thought I would work with the tides and showed up at 6am and put it on the hook and went for coffee and by the time I was back Boomer was out of the water. I jumped in my ugly row boat and started to polish the bottom. I was just finishing the rudder and going to start on the keel and a tug boat and barge showed up and said they had the crane booked. So I kindly asked them for 10 minutes and did a half job on the keel. If we do not win the race that is the reason.
Any boat can win this race. There are over 110 of the top boats on the coast in this race but I must say we have just as good of a chance as winning as anyone. With the light winds predicted at this time and with the tide the way they look I think we will have to go clockwise around the island. The fast boat may get stalled in Sampson narrows and have to wait there for a change in the tides. At about 4pm the current will flow north through the narrows and if they do not have enough wind to make it through the smaller and slower boats could catch them and then we will have them. Once the race stalls at any point the big boats are finished. With the winds predicted in the 5 knot range the big boats can not get up to hull speed and it give the little boats like Boomer and Imp a big advantage. The one big unknown at this time is the weather front that looks like it could be moving in Sunday night but that may change and if we get that before 4pm on Saturday it could change the outcome.
The local sailors have a big advantage during this race. The race is won or lost by knowing the currents and wind patterns. This is our sailing area and I’m going to do my best to place high or win the race. I just do not see the point of going out racing if you are not planning on winning. Planning is the key. Even if we do not come in first place we will win because we will execute our plan and our team will work together, work hard, sail hard and have fun. We will use the rules and the lay of the land to our advantage. To me this is going to be fun I will have my wife and two sons on the boat and my goal is to get them to drive the boat to the maximum. Not me driving them to the maximum and there is a big difference. I will try and challenge them to; see the wind, see the gust, look for the current lines. It is fun to see them into the challenge. Tonight we figured out how we are going to fly the spinnaker in the dark if we have to. We have a secret light that will let us keep it to the maximum trim in complete darkness and not wreck our night vision we will need to navigate.
When it all comes down to it fluckoligy will rain supreme. If we give our self the tools to be successful we might just be successful in our martin 242.
More to follow, back to the charts, maps, sat photos, wind models, tide models, pressure gradient, lists, secret light, tape drive sails, rain gear, gps way points to get max VMG…
Stress heck no this is fun.
Cheers
Scott
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