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Bump's World - June 2012
June 22, 2012
This year I agreed to do the Figawi race with Mathew Chalmers, his crew, and his new Hanse 400. Mathew had a Sabre 36 and had done the Figawi race a couple of times before with that boat. Mathew loves doing the Figawi but was hopeful to improve on his last place finishes.
Weeks leading up to the race, I was copied on many emails going back and forth between Mathew and his crew members. Most emails were directed to believing that victory was certain now that I was going to be there. I tried explaining that I would improve upon their past performance, but victory was more than a pipe dream. There are many well sailed well equipped yachts in this race.
I arrived that Saturday morning for the race and the crew was strutting the docks with their crew jackets, shirts and hats on, very much looking like they knew what they were doing. The fog began to burn off and the breeze picked up to twenty plus.
The starting area was lumpy and busy, with over 240 boats jockeying for start positions. There are 7 courses and many different classes. Your individual start time varies with the course for your class. To confuse things even further the race committee boat could not get her anchor to hold, so the start was postponed for a half hour. Finally the racing got underway. We got the course and figured our start time. We had 11 of us on board which was good for the windy conditions. I got the crew to practice sitting on the rail since that was what they were going to do. The Hanse has a non overlapping self tacking jib. I trimmed the jib and main in hard and sailed around waiting for our start. We practiced a couple of sail trimming exercises but that did not go well so I just left the sails trimmed in and sailed that way. One crew member was designated timer and gave me 5 minute time interval until we could enter the starting zone.
5 minutes before our start we entered the starting area which was very busy. About one third of the boats starting had the wrong start time and the race committee was busy getting them corrected. I determined the race committee boat was the favored end of the line and began to time my start. My timer froze in the excitement, so I used and old system, which is start when other boats rated the same as you start. I saw a couple of those boats, but they looked a little early for a committee boat start, so I lined up to weather and behind them. Sure enough they ran down the line giving me a big hole at the boat and a great start. The sails were already trimmed hard so I just pointed the boat upwind.
We raced up wind with the knot meter showing low sevens. The boat has the shoal draft keel so I’m sure we were not pointing as well as some other boats, put we were going fast. We tacked off to the right nearer shore to try to get less current effect. I had no idea where the first mark was but looking where the other boats were going I got a good idea.
The first mark had a ton of current. I came in high, but several boats had already been pushed into the mark and it was a mess. At the last moment I realized that we would not make the mark. I told everyone to hold on and hold their breath for 30 seconds. I tacked the boat and with the self tacking the sails just flipped to the other side. Everyone went face down in the water. Before anyone drowned I tacked back and around the mark we flew.
The next leg was 13 miles down wind. I sailed high to keep the boat moving and I figured the breeze was got to change one way or the other. It did go way forward bringing us right down to the next mark with good speed. The last few miles of the leg we were getting speeds over 8 knots.
The last leg was about 7 miles up wind again. The boat continued its 7 plus knots up wind and we defiantly had pasted a lot of boats. I could see the finish so I tacked a little short of the port tack layline. I saw another boat on starboard and decided to duck her. I got her name and sure enough she was in our class. There was another boat not in our class coming in on the starboard layline. She just crossed us and I tack on her weather hip. The finish was about 150 yard ahead. I could see the boat was favored but with a boat to leeward and ahead I could not sail any lower. The other boat in our class now was coming at us on port. She could not cross us. She tacked to leeward and our bow slid inches ahead. I thought we had them, but the finish line was at such an angle the other boat was scored 1 second ahead.
Everyone on the boat was very excited and thought it was an unbelievable race. 240 boats started and now I looked ahead. There were not many boats ahead of us. We finished second in class and tenth overall. We were the fourth boat in the marina. One crew member said they had never finished before dark, it was 3:45.
Tonya, Mathews wife, put out a great feast and drinks were rapidly downed. It was a lot of fun and of course they want to know when I am coming on the next race.
Please mail comments to me at Bump@newwaveyachts.com
Bump Wilcox
Bump's World - June 2012
June 22, 2012
FIGAWI 2012
When I sell a boat it often comes up that the new owner would like to do some racing with their new yacht. More often than not the new owners says that me doing a race with them would be a great experience. In the excitement of the sale I agree to do a race with them.This year I agreed to do the Figawi race with Mathew Chalmers, his crew, and his new Hanse 400. Mathew had a Sabre 36 and had done the Figawi race a couple of times before with that boat. Mathew loves doing the Figawi but was hopeful to improve on his last place finishes.
Weeks leading up to the race, I was copied on many emails going back and forth between Mathew and his crew members. Most emails were directed to believing that victory was certain now that I was going to be there. I tried explaining that I would improve upon their past performance, but victory was more than a pipe dream. There are many well sailed well equipped yachts in this race.
I arrived that Saturday morning for the race and the crew was strutting the docks with their crew jackets, shirts and hats on, very much looking like they knew what they were doing. The fog began to burn off and the breeze picked up to twenty plus.
The starting area was lumpy and busy, with over 240 boats jockeying for start positions. There are 7 courses and many different classes. Your individual start time varies with the course for your class. To confuse things even further the race committee boat could not get her anchor to hold, so the start was postponed for a half hour. Finally the racing got underway. We got the course and figured our start time. We had 11 of us on board which was good for the windy conditions. I got the crew to practice sitting on the rail since that was what they were going to do. The Hanse has a non overlapping self tacking jib. I trimmed the jib and main in hard and sailed around waiting for our start. We practiced a couple of sail trimming exercises but that did not go well so I just left the sails trimmed in and sailed that way. One crew member was designated timer and gave me 5 minute time interval until we could enter the starting zone.
5 minutes before our start we entered the starting area which was very busy. About one third of the boats starting had the wrong start time and the race committee was busy getting them corrected. I determined the race committee boat was the favored end of the line and began to time my start. My timer froze in the excitement, so I used and old system, which is start when other boats rated the same as you start. I saw a couple of those boats, but they looked a little early for a committee boat start, so I lined up to weather and behind them. Sure enough they ran down the line giving me a big hole at the boat and a great start. The sails were already trimmed hard so I just pointed the boat upwind.
We raced up wind with the knot meter showing low sevens. The boat has the shoal draft keel so I’m sure we were not pointing as well as some other boats, put we were going fast. We tacked off to the right nearer shore to try to get less current effect. I had no idea where the first mark was but looking where the other boats were going I got a good idea.
The first mark had a ton of current. I came in high, but several boats had already been pushed into the mark and it was a mess. At the last moment I realized that we would not make the mark. I told everyone to hold on and hold their breath for 30 seconds. I tacked the boat and with the self tacking the sails just flipped to the other side. Everyone went face down in the water. Before anyone drowned I tacked back and around the mark we flew.
The next leg was 13 miles down wind. I sailed high to keep the boat moving and I figured the breeze was got to change one way or the other. It did go way forward bringing us right down to the next mark with good speed. The last few miles of the leg we were getting speeds over 8 knots.
The last leg was about 7 miles up wind again. The boat continued its 7 plus knots up wind and we defiantly had pasted a lot of boats. I could see the finish so I tacked a little short of the port tack layline. I saw another boat on starboard and decided to duck her. I got her name and sure enough she was in our class. There was another boat not in our class coming in on the starboard layline. She just crossed us and I tack on her weather hip. The finish was about 150 yard ahead. I could see the boat was favored but with a boat to leeward and ahead I could not sail any lower. The other boat in our class now was coming at us on port. She could not cross us. She tacked to leeward and our bow slid inches ahead. I thought we had them, but the finish line was at such an angle the other boat was scored 1 second ahead.
Everyone on the boat was very excited and thought it was an unbelievable race. 240 boats started and now I looked ahead. There were not many boats ahead of us. We finished second in class and tenth overall. We were the fourth boat in the marina. One crew member said they had never finished before dark, it was 3:45.
Tonya, Mathews wife, put out a great feast and drinks were rapidly downed. It was a lot of fun and of course they want to know when I am coming on the next race.
Please mail comments to me at Bump@newwaveyachts.com
Bump Wilcox