The Montana Cup

We packed up the Rocket and headed to our next destination, Flathead Lake and the Montana Cup. We were invited there by Mike Seth (proud owner of Rocket #9, completion date early October) and his crew Rod and Jed. My son and I were looking forward to a little less wind and fresh water and that is exactly what we got! After 21 hours of driving we couldn't get into that lake quick enough! Flathead Lake reminds me a lot of our home Lake, Okanagan. Both have crystal clean, warm water, warm sunny weather and the lake is surrounded by beautiful mountains.

We arrived on Thursday and put the Rocket into the water which gave us time relax and catch up on some sleep. It also gave me a bit of time to look at changes to the club that Mike had talked about. The host club, North Flathead Lake Yacht Club (NFLYC) had previously that winter, put in new moorage, landscaping and now had a top notch marina and clubhouse.

I also got a chance to observe our competition as they arrived from across the lake and neighboring states. We were put in "A" fleet, boats like the J-24's and Ultimate 20's were in "B" fleet and J-22's and SR21's in "C" fleet. The local boats in our fleet, a Schock 35 "Limerick", an Olson 30 "Jolie Blon' " and a Santa Cruz 33 "Maria" were already at the Marina. One by one the visiting boats arrived. Last years winner a Hobie 33 "Spirit", then the J 90 "Eye Eye", a Frers "Dream Catcher" arrived from the other end of the lake. Then, what I thought was the boat of the week was the extremely well preserved 38ft A-Scow "Camel" followed by her junior cousin a 28ft E-Scow "Sympathy for the Devil". To say it lightly, a very diverse fleet!!














They had a warm up race on Friday night which gave the boys a good chance to get familiar with the boat. As tactician, I ignored the one thing you always do when you come into a new club and unfamiliar waters and that was "follow the locals"! Quite simply, we got slaughtered.

As I was having a beer after the race Mike suggested that we "Hit the Hay", white flag comes early. How early I ask? Skipper's Meeting 6:30, white flag 7:30. I couldn't believe it!! WHY?? Mike explained, at the north end of the lake you have early morning thermals from the north, as it warms up the breeze fades, so by noon its calm. Later in the day it switches and blows from the south and by evening its coming from the west!























Next morning true to their word, a nice 10-12kt breeze and a 7:30 white flag. Quick out of the gates were the Olson 30, Hobie 33 and much to our surprise we corrected over the Schock 35 for third. For the rest of the day (morning) as the wind got lighter we got quicker, especially down wind with the asso. Our philosophy was to try and hang up wind and motor down hill, which we did. As I quickly discovered, even though the boats were diverse, it was a very talented fleet. We were very aware that it was our wind, if it got stronger and wavier the results would be quite different and that is the nature of the one number PHRF beast.


















Next morning, the beast had indeed changed. Wind was stronger and the Greyhounds were flying!! When the J-90 got clear of the fleet she was gone, luckily for the rest of the fleet it only happened a couple of times but everyone saw her potential. The Hobie 33 started to hit last years form but the boat of the day was the Olson 30. All we could do was hang around and stay close enough to correct over on handicap. Things that helped us was the ability to tack as soon as we got a shift and not slow down. Once again our downwind speed put us back in contention. In the end, the Olson couldn't overcome its 5th the day before and since its a "no drop" regatta, we managed to win on a tie breaker with that 5th being their "double edged sword".

If anybody has the ability to tow their boat to regattas you have to consider this regatta www.nfyc.org. The location is phenomenal, competition is excellent, the famous Montana hospitality shines but I will never get used to a 6:30 Skippers Meeting.

Bayview's Monday Madness

I was also invited to the Bayview Yacht!!! Sorry Boating Club"s Monday Madness. Over the weekend, every time I mentioned the club's name, I would get, from those who knew the club, laughs and giggles and often a story associated with their annual "Plastic Classic" regatta(thanks Max). Something about overly enthusiastic female spectators at the weather mark trying to distract the participants and apparently succeeding!! I thought to myself "why would they want to invite a brand new, asso strutting, sport boat to a club that prides itself in the promotion of "older is better!!"

For the race I needed crew that knew how to get to the club from Berkeley Marina and the body of water that we were going to sail in. Once again we went to Sailing Anarchy for help and got a quick reply from Max. I then called Tim, an OCSC instructor that had Monday off and he was keen! They were both available for a little practice time before the race. After a couple of tacks and some nice screaming broad reaches it was time for the trip to Bayview.

For those of you not familiar with the bay area and love bridges, this is the place for you!! We had to go under two bridges to get to Bayview. One was the old "S.F- Oakland Bay" bridge and the new "hugely over budget and highly controversial" bridge. Thank goodness Max came with us because the club was "shoe horned" between a couple rusted, out of service, old military ships and hidden behind a pier. We sailed in, docked and I went up to register for the race.

What I found was one of the friendliest, funky looking clubs I had ever seen. I had to do a double take!! It was as if I just walked into an old "raw" bar in Key West. There I was standing in the middle of the bar, with my fashionable Helly Hansen inshore, baby blue, breathable state of the art sailing gear and rap-around RayBan sunglasses. There was a sudden hush, like the one you would see on a spaghetti western when the bad guy walks in. Looking back at me were a dozen or so Gerry Garcia and Jimmy Buffet look alikes. I didn't know that pony tails were in fashion!! Boy did I feel out of place!! I mumbled something about a race and was directed to the patio and the race committee. I registered and went back to the boat.

The race, for us, was rather anti climatic. We started on a fairly tight broad reach and as the gusts shot out between the warehouses along the waterfront we would franticly try and bare off. On the third broach we broke our lower pintle and after a successful "fireman's drill" we sat there like a cork and watched the fleet of "classic" boats sail by.

Funny enough, the first thing that came to mind was that I wouldn't be able to get back to the Bayview Boat Club and tip back a few and spend some quality time with the locals. The next time I'm back in the Bay area I want to find out why they call it "Monday Madness"!!

Berkeley Circle

After a week of racing the new resin infused Rocket 22 at Whidbey, it was time to really put her through her paces and what better place than on the Berkeley Circle. The Berkeley Circle is a group of 8 bouys placed in a circular fashion (points on a compass) with x mark(start mark) at the hub of the wheel. No matter what direction the wind is blowing there will always be a windward/leeward/reach mark set. These are not the property of one club so that on any given day or evening one of the many clubs in the Bay area will have a race going on. In the summer, when a high pressure is firmly entrenched over the Northern California coast, the sun warms up the Sacramento Valley. The warm air rises and it sucks the cool ocean air in to replace it. The wild card to how strong it blows is the morning fog. If there isn't very much fog in the morning or it burns off quickly, watch out, its going to "blow the dog off the chain"!

Our gracious host for the next five days was Anthony, the owner of OCSC, the largest sailing school in the Bay area. I can't thank you enough Anthony, for opening up your phenomenal facilities for us to use.

We (my son and I) rigged and launched the Rocket and prepared her for the Berkeley Yacht Club Friday night race. My son took one look at the 25kts and said "find another crew" so I walked the OCSC docks and threw out the invitation. Immediately Jimmy, one of the maintenance guys, jumped up and volunteered and said he had a friend, Meredith, that would like to come. At the same time I got a message from a local hotshot Dominique that I met and sailed with at the Oakland boat show and he was up for the race . Alright!! We are ready to race!
Remember, this is a brand new boat that has never seen anything over 12kts. I had visions of disaster running through my head. We arrived at the line and in a blur were off. Thanks to the internet a Megles 24 got wind that we were going to race and showed up from Richmond.

Our fleet consisted of a couple of OCSC Ultimate 24s, a few J24s (one of which was very well sailed) the Melges and us. It quickly became a three boat race. The first beat we played around with the barberhaulers and the jib tracks and did our best to stay with the Melges. The first run was uneventful. The next beat Dominique had got the boat nicely dialed in and we felt that the Rocket started to settle in and go fast. For the final run, all the gloves were off and up went the asso. Next thing we new we were on a screaming broad reach with the Melges close on our heels! This was great, exchanging gybes to the finish and not giving an inch! Now came the tricky part, the finish was inside the breakwater at the entrance of this huge, super busy marina. At the last minute I chickened out and took the chute down and let the Melges beat us across the line by 15-20 sec. I couldn't help but think back, as I watched the Melges doing 13+kts into the entrance and remembered the grief I got three weeks earlier for coming into the Penticton Marina with my main up while under power. The J 24 corrected over us but it was a great boost to know that the Rocket can live quite happily and thrive on the Berkeley Circle!

Whidbey Island Race Week 2006

The month leading up to Whidbey was a blurrr!! The boys in the shop had just finished #7 and were starting on hull #8. I was in the process of trying to pull together 4 Rockets and crews together in order to have a presence at Whidbey. The logisics of replacing old rigs with the new ones, making sure that all the sails were One Design size, getting their PHRF-NW certs and delivering them, grew exponentially larger, the closer the time came to leave for the regatta.

The burdon fell squarely on the shoulders of Ken, Sheldon and Darin in the shop with a special thanks (have I thanked you guys yet?) to Bryce and Terry coming in at the last minute to get us over the top! If you have a couple of hours to spare, any one of them can fill you in on the details.

After talking to the owners, it was decided to race the regatta with the class assos only. After much consultation with Charles Tolman, the bean counter for PHRF-NW the magic number came to 96!! What the He--!! We OWE 3 sec to Melges 24 and Olson 30!! But as someone said "you can't fight beaurocracy"! We assumed the position that made Kevin Bacon famous and said "Thankyou Sir, may I have another".

NOTE: This is the first regatta that a Rocket has raced with an asso. The learning curve was vertical. Do we sail hot? Deep? When do you pull out the sprit? What's a sprit?? Out of the 4 crews only one had sailed together before as a unit.

The fleet consisted of 2 Melges 24, 2 Olson 30, a Sonic 30, J 27,Humbolt 30 and 4 Rockets. Besides the J 27 the gap was only 12 sec from quickest to slowest.

From the onset, two trends appeared. The two Melges, the Olson Lunchbox and the Sonic, Violator were doing exactly that to the rest of us!

The other trend that became apparently clear to me, as I religiously rushed to the right side of the course, was that someone forgot to flush the tiolet!! I have come to believe in two things in my many trips to Whidbey Race Week: 1/ You WILL have a hangover every morning and 2/ Penn Cove acts like a tiolet bowl being flushed (counter clockwise). The first was still happening but what the Hell happened to the second!! I was confused. Comments from the winners were alien to me, like "playing the shifts up the middle" and even more outlandish things like "playing the shore up Coopsville!!". Global warming must have something to do with it.

One by one the rest of the of the fleet started to click in. The J 27 Stranger started to make a move, then it was the Rocket Diavola from Calafornia and even the inconsistent Olson, Deuces Wild had flashes of brilliance. But not I!! The only thing to save my ass was the asso. I was astounded by how much distance I could make up down hill!!

By the end of day three, Gary Stuntz in his Melges 24 "Cool Beans" was giving the rest of us a clinic on "How to win regatta and make it look easy". You know, the boring old stuff like clean, conservative starts, play the shifts, loose cover the fleet and great boathandling. The other boat that thorughly impressed me was Violator. From my view in the cheap seats, whenever I looked up they were always in the right place on the lifted tack.

By day 4 Penn Cove started to flush but the writing was on the wall, the pecking order had been established. One comment I heard over coffee at around the middle of the week " WIRW is just like the movie 'Ground Hog Day 'you wake up and its the same as the day before and the day before that."

PS Sorry about the lack of photos but the photographer didn't take one down wind shot of the Rockets with their new assos. I will work on that.