Here's our report of Saturday's Milt Ingram 'round Anacapa distance race...we set a new beach cat record for the 45 mile distance. Sorryfor the length

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Boats competing in Saturday's annual Milt Ingram 'round Anacapa Isld race:

I20 Double Expresso (Chris Slagerman & Crew)
I20 Team Chums II (Brad Smith & John Schwartz)
TheMightyHobie18 Wind Raider (Tom Hundley & Son)
Tornado Full Tilt (Mike Dobbs & Colin Delaney)
Hobie Tiger F18 Gonzo (Alex Van Brunt & Crew)

Plus an un-offical entry P18-2 sailed solo by Bob Hernandez (R/C insisted on two
man crew).

The start saw a big fog bank suddenly roll across the channel, viz down to <500
yards...made it tough to see the pin end of the line. Beach cats were last
start, after the ORCA multi's...with the fog, we were expecting Afterburner to
suddenly materialize for her start...she'd not been seen before the fog hit.
With 5 min to go to the ORCA start...still no 'burner...what could have
happened?!? She was also late for the Frenchy's Rum Run a few weeks
ago....making a last ditch run from the harbor & crossing the line a moments
late. Her Milt start came and went and she was not there! No time to ponder...we
were next.

Full Tilt made a good start, clear air and about mid way down the line. Chris'
I20 above and on our hip. Winds no more than 5 knots. Definately in the I20's
favor (greater sail area/~2' taller mast than the T...plus can lift the hull
sooner at 8.5' wide). We'd expected this light air early in the day, so we had
tweaked our rig to power up the boat. I put Colin to the leeward hull and sat
myself as near to centerline as practical. We found the boat to be quite a bit
more responsive than usual in the light and the hull was coming out every so
often. We were holding our own against Chris, but inch by inch he was going
higher. All we could do was stem the bleeding and pray for more
pressure...expected to arrive over the next hour. After with first 20 min. we
were coming up on a F28 Trimaran and had to tack over to port to stay out of his
exhaust...we crossed Chris about 5 or 6 BL's astern. Decided to hold port tack a
while to get some separation...no chance of reaching the layline to Grace at
this point. This seemed to work well...after tacking back to starboard, I could
see Chris off our lee bow tip, some 500 yards away, also on Starboard. Over the
next few minutes, I watch his apparent angle move after along the lee hull...we
were gaining on him...likely due to better pressure or small lifting on wind
direction where we were. Winds continued to very slowly increase. We were making
7-10 kts boat speed now...un-weighted hull out regularly.Kinda lost sight of
Chris. We thought we saw Brad & John heading over to right side of the course
well astern of us...and believed Chris was way over on the left. This prooved
the reverse...as the left side I20 tacked over to port, we eventually saw it was
Team Chums II...and they were crossing in front of us!! Then they tack back onto
our wind...slam-dunk style...forcing us to tack away further to the right. I
believe this is one of the first times that Brad has been ahead of me in a
race...great job guys! So now we were second guessing the decision to go
right...were we about to be clobbered by everyone over to the left?
And, would Brad & John continue to harry us in a tack duel out to the right
layline?? Thank God no...they carried on up the middle while we put in a long
port tack top get away. We seemed to find more pressure and looked like we'd be
first to Grace...but still didn't know where Chris was. One of the big concerns
here was that Chris had a secret weapon aboard...we had spotted this prior to
the start...in addition to the regular spinnaker there was a roller-furled
screecher (like the now infamous "Chupacabra" style used by Team USA in Bejeing)
stowed neatly along the spinny pole!! This sail would be capable of doing
amazing things in lighter condition going to wheather and potentially on the two
close reaches to/from the island. Was he using it and already way far ahead of
us??

All we could do was plod on. Approaching within 1 mile of the rig, we saw the
first single trapping winds of the day. Then on the last tack to the layline, we
got in some 45 seconds of double trapping action. We were around and could see
no other cats in front or behind...either Chris was already half way to the
island or....

Reaching to the island we were hitting low to mid teens...not quite enough to
double trap. Two othree keelboat were passed and we finally set the spinny about
1 mile off the west end of the island as we got lifted away in the shadow of
Santa Cruz. Two big keelboats could be seen in a tight spinnaker battle ahead of
us. We set our minds to get by them before the end of the island. We found winds
near shore to be fickle, so stayed out side mainly. Making good progress on the
keelboats. Eventually passing them around the midway point. After a close call
with a randomly steered power boat (the crew shouting expletives at US for
getting in THEIR way!?!?!?) we finally spotted another beach cat...greenish
spinny...more than half-length of the island BEHIND us! This was quite a relief
indeed! Rounding the east end, dodging the 10-15 power boats all congragating
near Arch rock, we were off on the famous Milt toad ride home! No keelboats
ahead (pity..it's fun to smoke them on that fast reach home!). We were now
hitting mid & upper teens on the gps. Waves were step and side on...typical for
this angle. With the lead we had...I took the decision to stay with my butt
firmly planted to the deck and only put Colin on the wire to sheet the main. I
had figured we'd need about 20 seconds per hour race time to ensure a win over
the I20's and something like 11 min per hour for the TheMightyHobie18...we easily had both
these at this point...so no need to risk squeezing the extra performance out of
the boat.

About 2 or 3 miles after the island, we were still checking over our shoulders
to see who's emerge next. "Hey, there's a huge keelboat behind us" said Colin.
"Wait, that's no keelboat...IT'S AFTERBURNER!!!" How the HECK did she get there?
Could she have came late to the start and sailed the course? Usually there is a
5 min time cutoff...you get a DNS if not started within 5 min. Even if she had
started late, how could she have caught us up. And we never saw her behind the
Island...she MUST have not gone around the island and was just out for fun?!?!?

Anyway, all we could to was forge on...after a few moments it was obvious she
was gaining...likely had at least 2-4 knots more speed than us. Still we held
her off until the last 2 or 3 miles from the finish. She thankfully passed us to
leeward. WHAT A SIGHT TO BEHOLD! The 25 ft veil of spray streaming nearly
vertically off her lee bow was just awesome! As if the ocean was boiling from
her passage. The hoots & howls from her deck crew could be heard easily across
the 3 or 4 (Tornado) boat-lengths to leeward of us. At this point in the day we
were flirting regularly with 18 & 19 knots beam reaching. I reminded Colin that
we were literally an eye-blink away from pitch pole...so keep focused and try
not the let 'burner distract.

We reached the whistle buoy outside the entrance, hoisted spinny one last time
for the short stint to the entrance, then took her straight in over the line.
We'd done it...first beachcat in. First boat in. Time of 4 hrs, 8 min and
change. Beating the previous beach cat record (set by Erik and I on '07!!) by
just over 1 min...and paring down the time to the absolute course record held by
Afterburner (4 hrs 6 min and change...also in '07) to just two minutes.

We started our stop watches to measure the gap...next boat over the line was
Chris on the I20...some 30-odd minutes back. Quickly followed in by the Tiger
and then Brad & John on the other I20. Apparently Brad & John were leading up
until they capsized behind the Island, allowing Alex on the Tiger & Chris on the
I20 to slip by. Alex missed the whistle buoy at the end and had to go back out
to round it, costing him second place. Chris never did use his screecher.

The Prindle 18-2, un-official single-handed entry came next, around 1 hour and
45 min later. He hadn't done the whistle buoy and was just glad to be back.
Tom's TheMightyHobie18 brought up the rear a while later.

Turned out 'burner broke the main halyard during the hoist in the harbor...sat
on anchor for nearly two hours replacing it. Came out and sailed straight to
West end of Anacapa...hoping to see us all round...she didn't see us and went
around herself...spotting us as a dot way down the reach as she came past the
island. Crew stoked the coals and lit the burners to chase us down!

Hope to see you all at the Tri Point in August!

Mike
Tornado CAN 99 "Full Tilt"


Mike.

Looks like you need to sign in to read that......

How about you re-produce it here.

How quick were you, under 2 hours?

Sorry about that...modded the original to include the report....

Congratulations Mike, good story

Congratulations Mike!

Beam reaching in 18-19? Sheesh, now that's work.

My arms still feel like jelly

Nothing like a 40+ minute beam reach from Anacapa to Ventura doing high teens on the GPS...'cept maybe reaching all the way around Anacapa like we'll be doing at the August 22nd Tri-Point distance race

Below is a link to the GPS Action Replay of the our '07 versus '09 races.

It's pretty interesting to see where we shaved 1 minute off the '07 record time.

Note that the '09 race trace doesn't start recording until around 35 min past the actual start.

Milt Ingram '07 vs '09 Head-2-Head




Mike.

That's very cool.Seems your very consistent with the exception of the short tacking, good change, obviously.

2007 seemed a much faster race...winds were 12-17 kts/double-trapping shortly after the start and for most of the race...the backside of the island was light, and we found the most air while hugging the shoreline. 2009 was light for most of the windward to the rig and only single trapped the last mile to Grace.

Prior to running the two track I would be bet we saved the extra 1.5 minutes on the backside...was not true. We made it all up inside the harbor...making a straight broad reach(spinny not permitted) from entrance to the line...compared to a few low speed gybes to reach the line in '07.