Charlottetown Race Week 2009 aboard Nut Case

Charlottetown Race Week 2009 aboard Nut Case

Mon - patched small hole in main and one in mylar #1 at North, gathered stuff and headed to boat with rubbing compound, polyester resin, primer and paint, etc... to remove Soling from side of boat. the scratches were shallow so all but three rubbed out and none were deep enough to be any concern. Never saw them all week. Picked up Larry at ferry and spent evening at cottage

Tues - left at 9:15 with depth showing 0.00 most of the channel. Tide was falling. Fabulous relaxing downwind sail in sunny warm weather and 20+ knots wind. just main most of way and then it went west so we used blade. Hauled the boat on crane in evening and scrubbed. The bottom was clean before we started - the Micron works far better than VC Offshore

Wed - Larry and I went to the boat - entered waypoints in chartplotter, fixed running and stern light, tensioned rig. Evening race Steve and Patti from Ever After joined us and Sheelagh Nelis and Heather drove from Halifax - fun race in inner harbour with short course. We won a draw prize with sunglasses from Vogue Optical and a mug engraved 1st in Class - the closest we ever came to first all week.

There were 35 boats approx. J29 had 7 or 8 -> Satisfaction won. J24 had 6 -> Bedford boat won - cant remember name. 5 premier, 5 A, 5 B. All classes except white sail were outer harbour on same course. Windward mark would have three marks. The closest for J24 and B, middle for J29 and A, and furthest for Premiere.

Day 1 - 3 races. Winds forecast 15-20 South. The lightest forecast all week. Race 1 looked windy so we went with blade. premiere started, then A, then B, then J29, J24 and B in that order every 5 minutes. Race 1 was delayed over 1 hour while they played with windward marks. We started and it soon became apparent wind was lighter toward windwardmark. the blade killed us. We used #1 next leg as course was 2 times windward leeward. We managed 4th. Boats were Ghost (102), Nut Case (123), Siren III (129), Midnite (136?), Whimigan (CS 30) approx 150. 2nd race things were better and we managed 3rd ahead of Midnite and Whimigan. Third race was 2 times around and then in. We thought we were 3rd and then 3rd on day but Ghost had been rated at 100 in error - changing to 102 put us 4th. We made some changes by sailing tight main with traveller far down and boat moved buch better

Day 2. #1 patched again to start. Forecast 20-25 SW. Rain, thundershowers in afternoon. Rained from 2AM til approx 8AM and then stopped. Motoring out we drove through light rain and then no more rain all day. 3 races again. Dave ? from Baboon joined Whimigan and they went from worst to best boat in fleet for rest of races. With our new traveller way down use back half of main trick we managed to fly upwind all day. Winds were actually 14-15 knots so we flew #1 again. Was light near windward mark and we were sailing against the tide upwind. Waves early but they flattened as day progressed.

Race 1 were were traveling 6.8 - 7.1 knots upwind. Boat was really moving well. At windward mark everything was late with chute and then the halyard was under the uphaul so chute was flying with foot in the water - we started to run over it. Larry managed to get it back aboard and ready to go but clipped something to pole up ring - at that point Peter said "Larry - put it back in the bag". We had been ahead of Siren, midnight and Whimigan at the time but no longer. Ran the #1 entire downwind leg. Peter was ready to walk back to shore. Next leg things went better. Somehow we managed 4th ahead of Midnite.

St Peters side to play the lift. We clobbered Siren and Midnight 1st half of upwind leg. Then wind lightened where we were and tide also against us. We were fighting the boat and now Midnight had caught us - they covered us three times as we were trying to get the boat moving. Wellington told us that night how it made his day. We finished one boatlength behind Midnight - 5th.

Race 3. Again we went well upwind. no major mistakes and this race was 3 times W-L and in. As usual J29 fleet caught us and we sailed with them for legs 2 and later. On leg 2 upwind we had Red Sled high and just aft of us. We pulled ahead and higher on the leg - clearly making time on a J29 - that made my day! Actually on some legs our tactics gained us on entire J29 fleet. Thought we had a clean race but again we were 4th. The CS30 had new sails delivered 4 days previously and with their huge masthead chute the downwind leg three from far out to the club gave them a huge advantage - they finished ahead of Ghost boat for boat. The CS 30 had gone from worst boat to best in one day.

Day 3 - we hoped for rain so we could stay in. Forecast SW 25 with thundershowers in afternoon. Never happened. Was actually a bit lighter than previous day. 2 races. On Day 2 we were fast upwind and very bad downwind. Day three upwind was not quite working. Wind was a bit lighter and more tide at play. We were not pointing as well. Solved it on third leg of third race about 1/4 mile from mark. genoa car was too far forward by 5 inches for this condition. Had spinnaker patch and spent the day patching holes in genoa. Two more on day three. Race 1 was good no major screwups but boat was slow upwind. Still hitting 6.5 - 6.8 knots but not pointing as just mentioned. Well OK one screwup - we were doing a lot of Dead Downwind sailing and spinnaker was far to side. actually at one point to make the mark the chute was both clews to port of forestay and when I tugged on sheet the snap shackle released on forestay - we were right beside Satisfaction so our buddies there had a good view for their amusement. On first downwind mark Midnite was port approaching with chute and two J29 were rounding and on stbd so in the maneuvering Ann on Midnight was hit with boom. Midnite retired for the day and Ann was fine and back for the party. 4th

Race 2 - three laps W-L finishing outside. We finished 2 boatlengths behind Maestral the J29 MH from Shediac. We stayed 2 boatlengths behind them from windward mark all the way in to inner harbour. Was fun to keep up with the J29 fleet - of course Peter drove in their wake to make us a bit faster..... 4th again