Team Pirates of the Chesapeake

It’s hard to believe that I’m back in Maryland, looking at a van full of wet stuff and a boat on a trailer that needs to go back to West River Sailing Club. After a whirlwind week of activity, action, and people, there’s a profound sense of withdrawal that I suspect will last awhile. It’s hard to not simply slip back into the mind’s eye view of the places you’ve been and sailing you’ve done.
So here we are at the culmination of an effort that has taken a bit of time. As I was talking to Adam, it came out that Alec bought the boat in the end of 2005, we sailed it all of 2006, and gave our first try at the Tybee in 2007. Not such good results that time. So here we are in 2009! Nobody got sick, the boat didn’t get whacked, and Mother Nature served up some awesome sailing conditions for a whole week.
One of the things that happens when an effort like this winds down a bit you find yourself remembering some of the things you intended to do, but didn’t. For one, I intended to put something in writing on this site after every day. The other was that I had bought a bunch of mounting stuff for my Hero video camera with the intent of catching a bunch of cool footage. But once the action started, neither of those things happened. The blogging can be updated later (although probably nobody’s paying attention now), but I’m bummed I forgot about the camera. But that’s how wrapped up you get. Checking the boat, weather, and making sure everything that makes the boat go (gear and people) becomes the thing. Maybe after a doing the race a couple of times these things become easier and other details get attention – we’ll see. But I’m still bummed about the camera!
So I’ll fill in more details in the days to come, but here’s a few things (and like me it will be long-winded) -
The sailing was awesome, long, and sometimes tiring. I began to think of thing as boot camp for cat distance racing. We got to sail the boat in ways we just don’t get to do in the Chesapeake. One thing is reaching – when you do a lot of beer can races, the thing everybody tries for is a nice windward leeward course. But then you don’t get the experience of really airing the boat out. Starting with day 1 we were spinnaker reaching, two on the wire. Then we get to spin reaching on the wire surfing the waves just outside the breaking surf. Then you get to spin reach on the wire pacing world-class sailors you only get to read about most times. Launch through breaking waves, beach through breaking waves. Trap off the stern driving the boat in a building breeze on the ocean watching the Speed Puck blast to 19 knots and over.
The Nacra 20 is an awesome machine for this kind of sailing. Tough, forgiving, and fast. Our boat has seen this kind of use since its birth, it’s still got speed, and stood up to yet another round. After this effort, there is one thing that is obvious this platform is screaming for – development, consistency, and quality in the sail plan. We’ll go into details another time, but I think it’s time for the distance racers to form an association and come with a new sail development and supply option – who cares if it doesn’t fit the buoys racing class, as long as it is recognized by the distance racing organizers.
The F-18s were awesome as well, and definitely proved themselves in these conditions. There are definitely times when the power of the 20 wins, and times when the efficiency of the 18 is king. There is room for both in this world, to exclude either would be a huge detriment in my opinion.
You’ll maybe remember that the last time I put anything up here, we were in Islamorada and I was still wondering whether we would use the gen 1 or gen 3 rudders. We stuck with the gen 1, and had no problems with cavitation like we did before. I think maybe that reflects our increase in familiarity with sailing the boat. They do make the boat very responsive, and it takes a different approach to driving. I don’t have any hard data to say which is faster, but the consensus is still that the gen 1 blades are.
So, I’ll end this with another long round of thanks. Thanks to the whole Tybee race committee for putting this thing on and running it the way they do. Thanks to the Team Velocity effort for putting together the race package we raced under, they were professional and organized and we would had a very hard time doing this without that support. Specifically Trey, Tad, Allie, Adam, Ryan, and all the others. Thanks to Wendy and Doug for keeping us going. Thanks to the veterans who unselfishly offered up advice and wisdom even when it was unsolicited. Thanks to the sponsors, both the companies and individuals.
That’s all for now, I’m off to empty a wet van and deliver a boat to her usual home!
Cheers,
Kap’n Keith