We decided to 'Unofficially' do the Down the Bay race in the Nacra 20, since Hampton yacht club informed our beach cat class that we did not meet 4P safety requirements for the race.. No sense letting offical-ness decide whether we sail on a good race .... We did the race without a pit stop, unless you count running aground near windmill point momentarily, a pit stop, man is it shallow there..
We started Friday Morning at 11:00am, starting with the PHRF A boats.. Winds for entire race were S-SW at 5-18knots with typical lumpy bay conditions. This made it upwind for the entire 120 miles.. My daydream of spinnaker reaching from Annapolis-Hampton Va. in 10 hours will have to wait till next year... We never used the spinnaker the entire race.
We made Smith Point on S southern side of Potomac by nightfall.. Early on we stayed ahead of all the 42 boats except Donnybrook, who sails upwind in these conditions very,very well..
Sailing through the night, the winds held at 10-12knots. we carried bow light on Spin pole, attached just behind forestay, and stern light on Aft end of boom, both worked fine. We carried 2 handheld GPS's, on in drybag as backup.We also carried 3 flashlights to check sail trim.. We rigged a jackline and safety line/tether to both of us, so we could not get separated from the boat. The tether length was 20 ft.
Temps were definitely cool, at night w. the spray constantly hitting , with air temps about 59 and water 65 degrees, we were Ok, but would have better off with drysuits, which we do not currently own.. After the race I spoke with several keelboat folks and they say they were cold most of the night, sitting on the windward rail..We took alot of clothing in our duffle bag and ended up wearing this combo: Shortly 3mm wetsuit, ontop of that 3mm full wetsuit, followed by lifejacket, followed by full Foul weather gear (top and bottom), followed by trapese harness..
The wind went light last 20 miles of the race, about 5 knots.Approaching Hampton in the early morning is a cool site, we saw 2 aircraft carriers, a very large Coast guard ship, and some nice beach homes along Hampton's waterfront. We finished off of Historic Ft. Monroe. and then sailed 2 more miles to Hampton yacht club. HYC was very gracious, and let us use their floating dock (used for launching 420's, for their Junior sailing program)to haul our boat. Everyone at HYC was super hospitable and friendly.
We were the 2nd boat across the finish line, behind Donnybrook. Kahuna was behind us, followed by Meridian .. Everyone seemed happy to see a beach cat sail the course.. Hampton is a very Nautical town and we enjoyed the day after the race seeing the sites..
After un-offically doing several races against the Annapolis Monohaul PHRF fleet, my rough estimate is a Nacra 20 in 12knot breeze rates (sails to) about -5 upwind rating and about -80 downwind rating.. This is just observation, not converting from portsmith to PHRF, etc.
Too early to tell if we will do it next year, 21 hours straight on the helm of beachcat is challenge. My crew, Enere Levy, and I agreed it was alot of fun, and quite and experience.
thanks,
Team Rudee's
