OK, you asked for it:

Cat Fight I was held at Mission Bay YC in San Diego this past weekend under
some very challenging conditions.

Fifteen boats (5 I20's, 5 F18's, 1 H20, 1 18-2, 1 N.5.8, 1 H16 & 1 Tornado)
competed in 3 groups. The 20 ft spinny boats made up A fleet, followed by
the F18's in B fleet, then the rest in C fleet.
6 races were scheduled.

Day one saw winds in the 15-18 kt range, but the real story was the huge
ocean swell kicked up by a very large arctic air system that was sweeping
through the region over the previous few days. We had 10-20' trough to crest
heights throughout the day. This made for thrilling racing action and
sickening Race Committee work.

My crew Glenn B. from this list had sailed with me in one other event, the
Nationals in Houston last Nov...which were light to zero winds. Glenn had a
learning curve nearly as steep as the waves we were sailing in. I'm happy to
report that he came through it like a champ, steadily improving on the
various new techniques he was being exposed to throughout the races.

Race 1 we found ourselves out in front shortly after the start, with the
extra beam on the T being put to good advantage over those pesky "road-width
legal" I20's. My OCR experience was paying off big time here...I was much
more confident getting out on the wire quickly and leaving the main trim to
the crew once the downhaul was set right made the boat ride the rails. The
swell made seeing the weather mark near impossible. We just kept sailing to
windward and scanning the horizon when at the top of waves. The only mark we
could see looked to be off to the extreme right, near the peninsula...I
believed it to be a marker buoy of some kind and kept driving to weather.
After a while more, still no other marks to be seen, and we see the second
start fleet (F18's) leader heading to that far right mark. The closest I10
(#224) tacked over to it, we hesitated a little, doing one more scan, then
gave in and make for it also...now on a very fast reaching angle. I love
reaching, and boy was it a hoot in these waves! We make it to the mark ~8
BL's ahead of 224, but about the same behind the lead F18...which started 3
minutes after us (that's how much time we'd lost be overstanding so much!).
The rest of the I20's were way back...it was the T and 224 duking it
out...with the top F18 thrown in to spice it up a bit more. We had a good
hoist and set about trying to spot the leeward mark while coming to terms
with the swell conditions. Though we struggled to close with the leading
F18, we could use him to help guide us to the mark. 224 did a better leg and
closed the gap by the bottom mark...we rounded within a few BL's of the F18
and ended up in bad air...having to tack away to clear. We blew our tack
(not the for the last time...the sea conditions made tacking, particularly
port to starboard, very tough), sat helpless as the I20 made a better tack
and slipped by. About 2/3rd's up the leg, he was well ahead, tacked over to
port for the layline, but he then went into irons. We saw a chance to make
up ground and tacked within 5 BL's beneath him...but we also suffered a slow
recovery...he pulled ahead and beat us to the mark. The F18 that had gone up
the right side of the course had done extremely well and was right with us
again. Off wind we couldn't quite find the right groove for the swells and
were unable to make a gain by the bottom mark....and with the finish line
only a quarter mile to weather, we just couldn't make the pass in time. A
solid second place with no other boats near us.


Race 2 we were determined to strike back. Got a good start and grabbed the
lead shortly afterwards and the T demonstrated its windward performance to
the fleet. We had much less trouble finding the mark and made a good
rounding solidly in the lead, going with a bearaway set. Shortly after, the
mainsheet leapt over the rear beam and pulled the traveller line out of my
hand. The boat felt sluggish as the long loop of line would skip in & out of
the waves behind us. I had no emergency release without the traveller line.
Tried to make a stab at pulling it back aboard with one free hand, the other
still trying to steer. No way, too much load on the line. Called for Glenn
to come off the wire to fetch the mess back on board. While he was doing
this, I kept noticing how sluggish the boat felt, and how heavy the helm had
become. Was the line wrapped on the tiller connector? Was the load that
high? Can it be causing that much drag? I couldn't play the gusts & swells,
we were barely moving! 224 passed us easily! Glenn finished his work but no
improvement in helm feel. WHAT WAS WRONG!!! Glancing back...the windward
rudder had popped up! A double-fault situation. I let go of the tiller,
reached back and snapped it back down, managing to re-grab the tiller before
rounding up violently. It was good to be back under control, but we were now
many bl's behind 225. Could not close much before the bottom mark, and then
on our final gybe to the mark, the spinny halyard came out the cleat. This
set us back out of striking range for the next leg. It became apparent on
the last lap that once 224 got ahead, they tend to stay ahead. We had to
settle for another 2nd...rest of A fleet still a good way back on us.

After congratulating 224 for their two bullets, we let them know they'd be
getting no more freebies from us!

Just before the start of Race 3 the T was in a good spot in clear air, two
boats to weather but behind off the line. At the gun, the traveller sheet
became hooked on a tramp stud on the rear beam and I could not sheet in,
costing us vital seconds. We were swallowed by one of the two windward boats
(the top F18...they were started with us this race). Had to eat bad air for
a short while before we could tack off to port and breathe again. As it
turned out, this proved to be an excellent situation...we were easily first
to the top mark. Had another great hoist and some better swell handling to
the bottom mark, where we were starting to master the art of surfing at full
spinny speeds, and even one more spinny halyard release...but it didn't hurt
us too bad...we rounded bottom still ahead with a pretty good lead on 224.
We then kept the lead to the finish line in this Windward-Leeward-Finish
course.

Back at the club, we had a great evening chatting with the other teams. Even
Gary F. & Buzz from this list were on-site. They were out watching from
Buzz's Prindle. We had lots of comments from other teams on how great the T
was going to weather in those conditions. I was surprised to hear that many
boats dropped out of the other fleets as the day wore on...due to things
getting too wild for them. I was surprised since the thought had never
crossed my mind that things were wild...just bumpy and fun...not beyond
control (well, ok, when I lost the sheet and one rudder...that was a little
daunting I suppose!!). The T just loves this stuff I guess.

Day two started with more settled winds and somewhat flatter seas. We made
some rig changes to prevent the spinny halyard tripping out the cleat
(easing off the slack-sucker shock cords some) and I taped off the rear-beam
tramp studs to keep lines clear. Discovered a tramp hook had pulled out the
deck on the port side right at the spinny block tie off point. Jury rigged
it for the day. Lastly, I went up to the 224 team at breakfast and let them
know they should eat lots of those "light-weight" burritos on the menu
because I couldn't find their boat out on the lawn the night before and thus
didn't get the chance to use my 3" hole saw ;-). They responded that that
was fine because they had found my T...:-0

Race 4 started and it was back to business. Seas still lumpy but winds were
down around 10-15 kts range. RC started all the classes together. Made a
clean start and had the lead by the top mark, but not by much. Glancing back
shortly after rounding the first top mark, it became 224 had a problem with
their spinny. We'd later learn their tack line had failed and it took them
many minutes to fix this. We could not sit back and rest because we have the
rest of the fleet right with us. Taking a transit for the top & bottom marks
before the start really helped us locate them from the lead position. We got
in some really impressive surf action down the big swells and it paid off
big time against teams that didn't get it quite so right. We had a
reasonable lead at the first bottom mark, and went out the right side of t
he course (which had paid so well the day before). This proved to be a
mistake, as at least one other I20 beat us to the top and another was right
with us. Our lead was gone. 224 were no where in sight. One more lap and we
lost another spot, finishing 3rd...with 224 in 4th. We had failed to
capitalize on 224's misfortune.

Race 5 had 224 fully recovered. We got a bad start, in the middle of the
fleets with bad air from leading boats and no way to tack out. We gasped for
air behind the top F18 ("Diamond Girl") for way too long in ~10 kts breeze.
224 was clear and ahead and held with lead to the top mark. We rounded 3rd
or 4th. 224 went to the left gybe, we held a bear away set and followed two
other boats out to the right. By midway down the leg, we had gained & passed
one boat, sailing lower & faster using the surfing methods from the day
before. We were the last to gybe, holding this as long as possible without
overstanding the layline... The run into the bottom mark showed this to be a
great decision because we smoked the fleet, getting to the mark out in
front. We had passed 3 boats for the lead on that 1 downwind leg. 224 tacked
over shortly after the bottom mark, so we decided it was time to give loose
cover. We had good speed and could match his point of sail pretty well, even
extending over most of the leg. He made some cleaner tacks and gained some
back, but we held him off to the top. Off wind he didn't make the same
mistake and followed up out to the right side. He didn't gain much at all
and we had a nice bottom mark rounding. At the last top mark he had
re-gained some position, but we still had a nice cushion. Downwind finish
was very close as he seemed to get it right in the swells and went deep &
faster than us. We just had him by 5-10 seconds at the line. didn't believe
this to be enough against the handicap, so we resigned ourselves to 2nd
place once again (this would turn out to be wrong, as the official results
showed us with another 1st place).

The last race became our throw out. Winds had lightened to the 6-10 kts
range, seas still fairly lumpy. Back into I20 range. RC started us without
the F18's, but for some reason one of them got it wrong and came with us.
This boat would prove to be our undoing, as we had to make a rushed tack
from port to starboard to avoid him on the top mark layline. We couldn't
make the mark and had two more tack to make. In my frustration, I blew the
1st tack and we sat in irons while the fleet swept past. Must have lost 90+
seconds on the leaders. In an act of desperation, I called for a flyer on
the 1st off-wind, heading us out to the left side away from the fleet. A
calculated risk that didn't pay off. We were further behind than ever by the
bottom. The RC had called for a 3 lap race with another downwind finish, so
there was at least time to make up some places. By the end of the next off
wind leg, we had clawed back one position. On the last windward, we followed
the leaders out to the right side and tacked back on their wake, some
1000+yards behind. The one boat we had passed earlier had come up the middle
and crossed ahead of us! Turned out to be Wally C....good call man! We
fought our way down to the finish, trying to gain ground to weather of
Wally...he gave us an excellent fight, luffing us higher & higher to protect
his air, but we had the speed on him and sucked the wind from his sails.
Crossed the line just seconds ahead for 4th place. We were sure a 5th was in
order for us after handicap...but again the official results show us with a
4th. Was the committee just racing us boat for boat? 224 was 2nd behind
#22...not sure what happened because 224 was way out ahead at the midpoint.

Overall, we ended in 2nd behind 224. What a great time and exciting event.
Thanks to all who attended and to the RC & MBYC staff. See you in May for
round #2.

Results posted here:



P.S. Glenn's wife Connie was busying taking many photos from the RC
boat...can't wait to see them all.


Mike
USA 807 (a.k.a. USA 838---gotta change those sail #'s one day) "Full Tilt"