Catamaran Sailor Magazine?!?

So I've been waiting to link to this article I submitted to Catamaran Sailor Magazine... I even subscribed to the print version so that I could see it... but it hasn't turned up yet. In this age of instant gratification and immediate delivery that digital media provides, one has to wonder how much longer print will last! Anyway, this is an aggregation of previous entries on this blog, all rolled into one long summary. Enjoy!

The 2010 Great Texas Catamaran Race

From the Perspective of a Distance Racing Novice

The first time I ever sailed a catamaran in the ocean was almost one year prior, to the day. It was the last leg of the 2009 GT300 and I was pushing my 1982 Nacra 5.2 into the surf to begin the Dash Race - a one day affair that allows those less serious or new to catamaran racing to sail the same course as the GT300 sailors, starting one hour ahead. Would I get caught by the F18s and I20s? Not if I could help it! I managed to finish 15 minutes ahead of the first place F18. 15 minutes after that, I was shopping around for my own spinnaker cat... Fast forward to the present, and I was remembering this experience as I gripped the hull of Michael Yost’s I20 in the warm surf of South Padre Island, seconds before the start of the full GT300.

While I did end up buying a Hobie Tiger shortly after the Dash, I figured that I didn’t have the experience to skipper the full GT300 myself, and instead found a very capable boat owner and driver in Michael who was willing to overlook my limited sailing resume. We practiced together a handful of times in buoy races and one medium-distance race on Lake Travis in Austin, TX, then agreed that we could tolerate each other for the 8-10 hour days of the GT300.

My first day of real catamaran distance racing proved to be a very interesting one. Unfortunately, the wind on the morning of the start of the first leg was a little lighter than everyone was hoping. After the spinnaker-up start, most teams had trouble getting enough power to clear the surf. There was lots of pitching, rolling, and a few near collisions of boats at the mercy of the breakers. Despite every one's best wishes and stay-scratching, this dog-slow 6 knot breeze persisted for about the first two hours of the race. I spent this time on the low hull, trimming the spinnaker with each puff and wave. Michael eventually determined that if we stayed just outside of the breakers along the beach, that the wave action causing our mast to pitch generated enough wind through our sails to propel us a bit faster than the competition.

Eventually, the wind picked up and it was time to get out on the trapeze. I put a doubler on the spinnaker sheet to make the loads on the I20’s big kite a little more bearable. We were sailing as close as we could to the rhumb line. There were some boats higher than us, and some lower, each executing their own strategy. On this leg, the rhumb line takes you 20-30 nm offshore, so we quickly lost sight of land and could only steer by compass or GPS. After several hours of this, we could not see most of the other boats, and weren’t quite sure where we stood in the fleet.

Things were going well, and with our then boat speed of about 16 knots, we were predicting another 45 minutes of sailing when the storm clouds on the horizon started getting scarily close. About 10 nm from the finish, we felt a very cool breeze flow in and the wind direction start to change, the approaching low-pressure storm sucking air in from above and around it. Michael immediately yelled out “Get the spin down… NOW!” I flew in off of the trapeze, blew the spinnaker halyard and tack line, then started pulling the retrieval line as fast as I could. All of a sudden we went from going downwind to upwind, and the wind strength was increasing fast! As the storm overtook us, the wind direction returned to normal, albeit with much higher velocity… I estimated something upward of 30 knots. Our sails were still trimmed for going upwind, so after the shift we were heading directly away from the finish. To return to that course, we had to first bear away – a dangerous move in these conditions. Michael executed this perfectly, and we were then heading deep downwind. We shifted all our weight to the back of the boat and were avoiding pitchpoling, but we still had to gybe. As we did so, we probably headed up a bit too high and capsized. Michael jumped off the back of the boat, and I slid down the trampoline to the water below. I’m 99% sure I managed to avoid the boom… but more on that in a bit.

As soon as I hit the water, I grabbed for whatever I could and held on for dear life. Somehow I was able to quickly get up on the lower hull. Michael managed to hold on to the mainsheet, and I helped him into position near me. As I grabbed for the righting line on the trampoline, I realized that it had come undone and had to be re-routed before we could get the boat back upright. We did this as quickly as we could, then Michael instructed me to right the boat by myself. I was surprised for all of half a second, then realized that with the wind so high, I should have no problems doing so. Michael sat on the lower hull and planned to quickly crawl onto the trampoline to keep us from capsizing on the other side. I wrapped the righting line around my trapeze harness hook, then leaned off the hull until I was just above the water. The boat moved slowly at first, but then the wind caught and whipped it upright. As the boat came down on top of me, I grabbed the front crossbeam / dolphin striker. With me hanging on below and Michael’s weight on top, we managed to keep the mast pointing upward, but then the boat began to sail away upwind… fast. I was hanging on below the trampoline, being dragged through the sea. It took all the strength I had to pull myself up to the front hulls, then lift me and all my water-logged gear on to the trampoline. I arrived to watch our now-broken metal boom switch from puncturing the trampoline to tearing the mainsail. Michael asked me to take the helm so that he could drop the main and stop the sharp ends of the broken boom from doing any more damage to the boat, or worse, us.

After Michael managed to disconnect the main from the top of the mast, I helped him to lower and roll the sail, then detach the boom and get it safely on the trampoline. Fortunately, the wind was now pointed almost directly towards the finish, so we eased the jib and headed straight down. I looked at the GPS on my wrist and we were doing 9 knots dead downwind.  Michael asked me to turn our rotating wing mast perpendicular to the wind, and this small increase in its profile added another 2 knots to our speed - we were averaging 11 knots. Crazy! The knot in my throat finally began to subside as I felt like we were at least in control and headed to safety despite the large seas and high wind. After 10 or so minutes of sailing in this configuration, the wind began to subside a bit and our speed decrease. Michael became worried that we would become stranded 7 nm offshore. He handed the tiller to me, then got out the satellite phone and began calling people to let them know we might need assistance. Unfortunately everyone we knew was at the beach finish line, where there was no cell coverage. Oh well, we would have to manage all by ourselves.

Once our speed dropped to 5 or 6 knots, still with 20 or so knots of wind, we tried partially hoisting the spinnaker to present a bit more sail to the wind. This didn’t work well, and the spinnaker managed to get wrapped back on itself. I asked Michael why we shouldn’t hoist the entire thing, and he reminded me that the main sail works as a backstay for the mast, and without it the spinnaker would cause the mast to break. I suggested we use the now-available main halyard as a backstay, which we did, and fully raised the spinnaker. From our earlier hoist, the kite was folded on itself and would not fill. All the flapping had also opened up an existing tear to become a gaping 4-foot hole in the fabric. After 5 minutes of flogging, it eventually popped open and began pushing us along. Our speed increased to 8-10 knots, and we calculated that we would take less than an hour to finish.

45 or so minutes later, as the sun was preparing to set, we spotted flashing yellow lights at the finish. I counted only 3 masts sticking up on the beach. 9 of 12 boats had yet to finish, and we could see no others on the horizon. We had an uneventful beach landing in the rough surf, our ground crew handed us some beer, then we went off to do an interview with Sailing Anarchy. After recounting our experience, we learned that two boats had finished before the storm, the second only minutes before the winds picked up. The third boat, TCDYC, a Hobie Wildcat skippered by Chris Green, had actually pitchpoled in the surf as they approached the beach. Then, we had to wait for word from the other boats…

I was walking around when the VHF radio I forgot I was wearing crackled to life. It was an alert on emergency channel 16 that an EPIRB, had been activated, and it was registered to one of the boats in our fleet – Team PACMEN. Their position was unknown, and they had yet to be found. Uh Oh…

Eventually we spotted other boats approaching the beach with varying amounts of damage to sails, battens, rudders, and lines. Everyone had been hit by the storm… hit hard. We learned that Team Quicksilver was calling the Coast Guard from their satellite phone, as their mast had filled with water and they were unable to get it back upright. We shook hands with the exhausted sailors on each boat as they arrived, then, ourselves being quite exhausted, headed to the hotel with the fate of the remaining boats and crews uncertain. The next morning we would learn that both Team Quicksilver and PACMEN had been rescued, treated for minor hypothermia and strained muscles, and released. What a day!

In comparison to the boom-breaking weather we experienced on day 1, day 2 was a "lollipop ride." The wind started on the high side of the I20's design wind, maybe 16 knots or so. The start was a bit interesting as the first place F18 team, Ruff Rider, took off exactly 1 minute before the horn. Sounds like someone set their watch wrong! This led the other top 2 boats, Velocitek and TCDYC, to take off along with them, as well as several of the teams at the other end of the line. They would all receive a 15 minute penalty in addition to the amount of time they started early... about 16 minutes total.

After the starting issues, we raced off with the other F18s, headed about 5 degrees higher than the rhumb line. The sea state was fairly confused, with 3-5 foot swells, some occasionally larger. We were headed high enough in relation to the true wind that we could not carry the spinnaker, but not so high that we needed to double trap. I remained on the wire for probably the first 50 nm of the day, securely attached to the boat via chicken line. Somewhere between miles 20 and 30, the F18s that had been heading 5 degrees higher than us decided to pop their chutes and double-trap reach for the remainder of the race. Both teams Velocitek and Ruff Rider, who were about a mile or so further offshore than us, began to bear down, eventually crossing our line only hundreds of yards ahead. I believe they made it all the way down to the beach with their spinnakers up and rode the sea breeze to the finish.

At some point Yost and I tried our spinnaker and the best we could hold was still a good 10 degrees lower than our bearing with both of us on the wire. Keeping this number in mind, we decided to ride it out single-trap reaching. Around mile 50, the wind started to die down a bit so I came off the wire and began sitting on the windward hull. As the wind continued to die, I eventually began riding the leeward hull, occasionally dashing back up to the high side of the boat in the puffs. We were committed to the rhumb line, so we did not dare head for the potentially higher winds closer to the shore. Instead, we decided to simply continue on our heading, still about 5 degrees higher than the rhumb line, then pop the spinnaker as soon as we could. We were far offshore and our only company were the numerous oil platforms. We could only speculate as to the wind the other boats were experiencing, and we were anxious to finish so that we could determine whether or not our tactics paid off.

8 or so nm from the finish, we determined that we could hold the kite, and Michael and I both got out on the trapeze. We calculated perfectly, and were able to maintain this configuration to the finish. As time passed, we spotted the 3rd and 4th place F18 teams, TCDYC and Rudderless, a bit further back along the beach. We managed to not screw things up and finished in 3rd place, elapsed. After all the boats finished, Mike Beuerlein, skipper of Team Quicksilver who had been rescued the previous day and had yet to recover his boat, cooked us all a nice gumbo. Mike isn't from Louisiana, but I am, and after a day of racing I deemed his gumbo top notch!

After a decent start to the third leg, Michael realized that the leeward rudder had been bent off the pintles as we emerged from the surf. If it were the windward rudder, we could have gone on, but it wasn’t, so we turned back to the beach for a fix. Unfortunately Michael did not have any spare gudgeons, so we had to take off the windward gudgeons and put them on the leeward hull. This process took about 10 minutes, but only after spending 10 minutes searching for the right tools. We then taped the tiller extension to the crossbar and loosely lashed both to the rear beam.

It was another day of main and jib reaching with me on the wire, the chicken line keeping me steady. The wind died a little over the course of the day, around mile 30 of 50 (as opposed to the first two 91 nm legs). I tried the spinnaker, but we could not hold it with just me trapezing. Michael would have joined me, but the way in which we taped his tiller would not let him extend it to the length he needed to steer from the wire. About 10 miles from the finish, we passed the last place boat, Jack Flash. We could see several others, but catching them was unlikely. 5 nm out, I popped the chute. Our prediction was a bit off, though, and we ended up having to search for power a bit, heading a little higher (and down the beach from the finish) than we intended... should have hoisted the kite a little earlier. We decided to put in a gybe about a mile out, which was a precarious move with only one rudder. On the port tack we sailed very conservatively, then gybed back to starboard for the finish.

I estimated that we took 25 minutes with the repair, in addition to a good amount of speed lost not being able to carry our spinnaker. Without this deficit, we would have surely been in the top 5 boats... possibly even another third place? But we felt good about our handicapped performance, and headed out to shower up for a delicious pasta dinner.

Day 4 started with me helping to push off Team Flip, Flop, and Fly for the Dash Race. I was impressed - there were something like 25 boats on the starting line! Perhaps we’ll have an even larger GT300 next year? After getting wet, I donned my harness, camel back, goggles, life jacket, hat, GPS, boots, gloves, and all the other crap that had become part of my daily attire. I was excited at the prospect of completing the entire GT despite our mechanical issues, but it was a little bittersweet as I was not ready to end all the fun I was having!

After the Dash started, the wind began to die down. We started and planned to stay on the rhumb line again as it actually remained close to the beach most of this leg, but it appeared that all the F18s were in better wind a bit closer to shore than us. With a new set of gudgeons, we gybed without issue and headed back in, making negative VMG. After several more gybes in light air and about 15 miles behind us, we worked our way into first place. The larger I20 spinnaker really made a difference, and we continued to put distance between us and the lead F18s. The wind eventually built and I trapped out with the spinnaker up, Michael joining me in the heavier stuff. My friends on Team Savla Vida Vela were kicking butt behind us in second place, but we could not determine the boat order behind them. We saw the other two I20s who were far enough behind in total time to not be a threat, but in addition to holding first place in the Open Class, we really wanted to be the first to the beach.

Fortunately, the wind held and we retained our lead. Apparently all the Dash boats had gybed before the finish and entered the surf perpendicular to the shore, and the swimmers on Galveston's North Beach weren't really prepared for a big cat with its spinnaker up tearing through the breakers on a perfect rhumb line. As I was pulling up the daggerboards, I was yelling as loud as I could for the swimmers to clear away. We were coming in at a tight angle and as such our window to finish on starboard tack was only a few boat widths wide... we didn't want to screw up our finish because of a few kids in floaties. They managed to get out of the way, though, and we hit the beach with the lowest elapsed time of the day. I couldn't immediately see her, but I heard my niece screaming out "Uncle Ryan! Uncle Ryan!" and I smiled from ear to ear. She and my sister, along with my parents, had made it to the finish to cheer me in. What a great ending to an awesome race!

Ryan Verret
GT300 Team Yost Auto
Hobie Tiger F18