![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scrottieInitial word was skipper's meeting was 10:30. Slack tide was 6am and noon and I'm super leery of leaving or entering here with strong tides rushing. You have to be moving faster than the water to have any steerage which in the worst case would mean coming in at a hot 5 mph or so, with really good timing and aim. Leaving, the wind is often blowing you against the docks which is another matter.
So, was hoping to get underway not long after 6. That did not happen, but thankfully I soon got word that the skipper's meeting was now scheduled for noon. I got out just after 11 and made it with 20 minutes to spare. I tried to check the water catcher on my fuel filter, which it supposedly had, but I've decided it is not a real water catcher and spent an awkward minute with my finger stopping the flow of diesel fuel out while trying to figure out how to recover the little plastic doodad that seals it up from inside the diesel dribble jar that was too tall and narrow to stick fingers in to. Then of course since I opened the system accidentally, I had to bleed the fuel lines. Diesel is noxious.
Four skippers with four boats and I grabbed a rando who turned out to be the club commodore who happened to be walking by as crew. I was introduced to him as such before but forgot the face/introduction. It takes me a few times. The topic didn't come up while we were sailing.
Had to motor in to the club (narrow channels, dead headwind) but it was short. We sailed out to the start line.
Course used channel marker buoys upwind and downwind on the channel with both channel marker buoys near the club as the start line.
We made a good start, managing to pass at full speed seconds after the start was called. Leeward mark, all boats were in a bunch and we managed to pass windward holding on to second but gave space cautiously around the mark, losing ground (water) a bit. Winds started to crap out after that, and shift. Everyone was trying to figure the wind out. We had some serious sheer, with winds at the windex level being very different from below, so I trimmed for my sense of the wind and ignored the windex and continued to jockey for second but then started to suffer as winds continued to drop. The oar got employed as a whisker pole to keep the jib out to go wing and wing but that was adjusted a lot as winds shifted.
Tide was reaching max ebb as we were heading for the upstream mark, and all of us were basically stuck for an hour. GPS indicated 0.0mph was the wind and tide exactly cancelled each other out, but then small gusts would shoot us up to 0.4 or 0.6 for just a second. We were a close 3rd around the upstream mark as we headed back, but then sailing in to the wind with a saggy old sail in super light wind, we were forced to make tacks that #3 didn't. #3 was able to point higher in the light wind and made significant ground ahead before the wind died and the race was called and us and them DNF'd.
We didn't make it to the upstream mark until the tide was just about ready to slack again, so we rode that most of the way back at a screaming 2.5mph or so before we ran out of wind and tide to carry us.
Commodore and I motored back to my berth and walked the approximately 1 mile back to the club and had St. Patrick's dinner (didn't realize it was a holiday). I was not wearing green. No one pinched me. I ate a tremendous amount of cabbage, potato, and carrot which was cooked together veg style, yay then had a great variety of deserts and a beer. No one brought Irish Whiskey. I shall have to be more proactive in such matters.
In other news, the entire marina staff was fired very suddenly and the new harbormaster seems to be a bit of an oaf. I don't know the full story, but Kathleen was good to me and the other berthers here. Now there's a big shake-up here while the new management (same owner, new harbormaster) remakes the place in his image. Friendly service is not currently part of that.
So, was hoping to get underway not long after 6. That did not happen, but thankfully I soon got word that the skipper's meeting was now scheduled for noon. I got out just after 11 and made it with 20 minutes to spare. I tried to check the water catcher on my fuel filter, which it supposedly had, but I've decided it is not a real water catcher and spent an awkward minute with my finger stopping the flow of diesel fuel out while trying to figure out how to recover the little plastic doodad that seals it up from inside the diesel dribble jar that was too tall and narrow to stick fingers in to. Then of course since I opened the system accidentally, I had to bleed the fuel lines. Diesel is noxious.
Four skippers with four boats and I grabbed a rando who turned out to be the club commodore who happened to be walking by as crew. I was introduced to him as such before but forgot the face/introduction. It takes me a few times. The topic didn't come up while we were sailing.
Had to motor in to the club (narrow channels, dead headwind) but it was short. We sailed out to the start line.
Course used channel marker buoys upwind and downwind on the channel with both channel marker buoys near the club as the start line.
We made a good start, managing to pass at full speed seconds after the start was called. Leeward mark, all boats were in a bunch and we managed to pass windward holding on to second but gave space cautiously around the mark, losing ground (water) a bit. Winds started to crap out after that, and shift. Everyone was trying to figure the wind out. We had some serious sheer, with winds at the windex level being very different from below, so I trimmed for my sense of the wind and ignored the windex and continued to jockey for second but then started to suffer as winds continued to drop. The oar got employed as a whisker pole to keep the jib out to go wing and wing but that was adjusted a lot as winds shifted.
Tide was reaching max ebb as we were heading for the upstream mark, and all of us were basically stuck for an hour. GPS indicated 0.0mph was the wind and tide exactly cancelled each other out, but then small gusts would shoot us up to 0.4 or 0.6 for just a second. We were a close 3rd around the upstream mark as we headed back, but then sailing in to the wind with a saggy old sail in super light wind, we were forced to make tacks that #3 didn't. #3 was able to point higher in the light wind and made significant ground ahead before the wind died and the race was called and us and them DNF'd.
We didn't make it to the upstream mark until the tide was just about ready to slack again, so we rode that most of the way back at a screaming 2.5mph or so before we ran out of wind and tide to carry us.
Commodore and I motored back to my berth and walked the approximately 1 mile back to the club and had St. Patrick's dinner (didn't realize it was a holiday). I was not wearing green. No one pinched me. I ate a tremendous amount of cabbage, potato, and carrot which was cooked together veg style, yay then had a great variety of deserts and a beer. No one brought Irish Whiskey. I shall have to be more proactive in such matters.
In other news, the entire marina staff was fired very suddenly and the new harbormaster seems to be a bit of an oaf. I don't know the full story, but Kathleen was good to me and the other berthers here. Now there's a big shake-up here while the new management (same owner, new harbormaster) remakes the place in his image. Friendly service is not currently part of that.
