CTAS 4: Yacht Race

Cycling Through a Storm

Previously, in Cycling Through a Storm
CTAS 1: Cycling Through a Storm
CTAS 2: A House, a Boy, a Girl, a Car, a Dock, a Boat, a Hug 
CTAS 3: Starting Sequence

“Better over by Wisconsin,” Lark shouted from the bow.

Wally scanned river and sky before nodding for Stewie to see.

“Ready about.”

“Ready here,” Gust said.

Vic cleated the main sheet, pivoted to the jib’s winch at starboard. “Ready.”

“Coming about.” Stewie pushed the tiller to port and Corvus swung through windward.

Vic hauled at starboard, making the winch sing while the sail swept across the bow. He reeled in full arm-lengths of line, racing to pull the jib in as close as possible before the wind filled it again. He grabbed a handle to grind the big stainless winch around with one fist while pulling the last inches of sheet back with the other to make the jib close-hauled.

“Blow’s going too,” Lark called out. Roger was following them.

“They’re falling back,” Wally said. “They’re fighting the wind too much with that big jib.”

“We picked the right sail,” Vic said.

Wally nodded. “As long as the wind doesn’t drop off.”

“Bigger whitecaps ahead,” Lark called back.

Wally looked, nodded. “Let’s get some more weight on the high side.” He climbed to the deck and knelt on the port side at the toe rail.

Vic checked the jib’s shape, gave the winch an extra pull, then climbed to the high side ahead of the cockpit. He sat beside Wally, back to the mast, his feet dangling. Gust stayed at the port bench in the cockpit where he could keep working the mainsail.

Blow stayed on the edge of control, covering Corvus tack-for-tack to the buoy at the windward mark, seeking to limit her losses by staying in the same wind Corvus had. Corvus was sailing comfortably with the 130 jib up, which meant that Roger had to be pushing his crew close to their limit with the bigger 155. One bad tack—one mistake—and Blow could get rounded up.

As Corvus neared the upwind mark, Stewie called to prepare for the rounding. They were on the lay line—the most direct route to the mark, and the crew was ready. Gust eased the jib out as Stewie guided the boat around the mark, then gently downwind. Corvus settled, leveling closer to the river.

“Pole up!” Lark called back to Wally.

Wally pulled a line to raise the spinnaker pole, which works like a smaller boom at the front of the mast.

A spinnaker is the prettiest sail on a sloop-rigged boat, the colorful one ballooning like a sideways parachute ahead of a boat running downwind. When flying, the top of the spin stays high on the mast while the bottom corners float ahead, one pinned at the end of the spinnaker pole and the other flying above the water, controlled by a sheet (also called a line, but never a rope). The crew keeps the spinnaker inflated ahead of the boat, which zigzags behind, the wind in the spinnaker pulling it forward.

“Go!”

On Stewie’s command, Lark, Gust, and Vic worked in concert to unfurl the spinnaker from its launch bag, clipped to the deck. Lark stood at the base of the mast and pulled the halyard to stream the sail skyward while Gust and Vic pulled their sheets to draw its corners beyond the sides of the boat, opening the chute to catch the wind. The sail popped open, wind catching it from behind, suddenly a full parachute before them.

“Jib!” Lark called to Wally, and he reached to pop the deck-mounted clutch cleat open. The jib sagged and Lark, at the pointy end of the bow, hurried the jib down, dropping it to the deck to stop it blocking the wind’s flow into the spinnaker.

Mark roundings are where most mistakes are made in buoy racing. Often the difference between winning and losing is one missed step in the crew’s dance while rounding the buoys at the marks.

“We should jibe soon,” Wally shouted for Stewie and Lark to hear.

Stewie glanced across the river ahead, nodded. “Ready to jibe,” he announced.

“Pole coming back,” Vic said, adjusting his sheet to swing the spinnaker and pole back until it was nearly perpendicular to the mast. Lark briefly detached the pole from the mast and the sail, then reattached it on the opposite side of the mast as the spinnaker shifted from Vic’s side of the boat to Gust’s and Stewie steered the boat through the jibe.

“Made!” Lark called out as the maneuver was finished.

Gust looked back over his shoulder to the mark just rounded. “Blow didn’t gain anything there.”

“They’re stowing their big jib below.” Wally said.

“Well, it didn’t help ‘em any on that first leg,” Stewie said, and then added, “What do you think? Should we keep the 130 at the next rounding?”

Wally scanned the skies. “Let’s keep it for now. There’s still time to put the 155 up if we need it.”

“Or the 100!” Gust said. He pointed upriver to what appeared to be the edge of a new storm cloud formation.

Wally followed Gust’s gaze. “That’s not coming to this part of the river.”

Stewie nodded. “Let’s jibe again.”

With similar spinnakers flying, Corvus and Blow kept pace sailing downwind to the buoy at the downwind mark, which was the same buoy that marked the pin end of both the start and finish lines. All the boats needed to round it, do another lap, and return to finish across the line where the race had started. Roger kept covering, matching Corvus jibe for jibe. Several boats from other divisions were also approaching the shared downwind mark, so the downwind rounding was going to be crowded.

“Ready on the jib?” Stewie shouted for Lark as they neared the zone for the mark.

“Any time,” Lark said.

“Ready port?” Stewie asked.

“Ready,” Gust replied.

“Jib up,” Stewie said.

“Jib up!” Wally yelled forward for Lark to hear.

The jib went up and spinnaker fluttered briefly in the jib’s wind shadow.

Stewie turned the boat to begin rounding the mark. “Ready to blow the spin?” He asked.

“Ready here,” Wally said. He leaned starboard, reached under the boom to get a hand on the taught spinnaker sheet.

“Blow it!”

Vic popped the starboard sheet from its cleat. Gust let his sheet loose at the same time and the sail streamed briefly out before sluicing downward into the center of the boat where Wally windmilled his arms to gather it down while Lark controlled the halyard, dropping the sail exactly as fast as Wally could squirrel it down. In under three seconds the spinnaker disappeared below deck through the companionway.

“Make room!” Stewie yelled to another skipper. “Leeward!”

There was a rush and gurgling of water caught between hulls and yelling from a boat very near Corvus. The jib screened everyone’s view of that other boat, except Stewie’s.

“Jibe! Jibe!” A voice from the other boat.

“Go!” A different voice.

Vic kept his focus inside the boat. A moment stolen to peek at what may be happening outside the boat could be the missed beat that causes a collision. It’s the skipper’s job to steer the boat and the tactician is his GPS. The crew is the motor. Vic swirled the jib sheet twice around the winch and punched a yard of line back, pulled again, left, right, again, until the sail was hauled in tight—close-hauled—and no longer blocking his view of Aurora, racing parallel with Corvus, its hull inches from the bill of Vic’s cap.

“Where’d they come from?” Gust asked.

“They overstayed the mark,” Stewie said. “Reached in hot.”

“Clear!” Lark called from the deck, letting Stewie know she had the rigging ready for the next tack.

“Let’s go,” Stewie said. “Ready about?”

“Ready!” Vic and Gust replied.

“Coming about.”

After the tack, Vic’s view back to the zone surrounding the buoy they had rounded was clear. The guy in the fishing boat camped on the starting line hadn’t moved, so he had a front-row seat for an exciting rounding. Corvus and Aurora had been safely ahead of the rest of the fleet at the rounding. Vic couldn’t see exactly what happened from the angle he had, but he heard shouting. It looked like one boat was continuing parallel across the course after rounding partway, heading straight at the fishing boat while blocking another boat’s ability to complete her mark rounding. Just as the two boats were approaching the fishing boat, one swung windward and the other split leeward, jibing away from the fishing boat to avoid collision. The upwind boat’s spinnaker was late on the takedown and appeared to briefly drag over the top of the fishing boat.

“See that?” Gust asked.

“Windswept just swept that fisherman’s deck,” Lark said.

“The race isn’t behind us,” Wally said, hefting the repacked spinnaker bag up through the companionway to Lark. “Let’s sail this boat—not the other ones.”

“Aye-aye,” Gust said, returning his attention to the jib.

“Blow’s putting their big sail up again,” Wally said, watching the action behind.

“I thought they put that away,” Stewie said.

Wally shrugged. “Not so many whitecaps ahead.”

“Sail change?” Gust asked, glancing at Wally, then over his shoulder at Stewie.

Stewie stole a peek over his shoulder to gauge Blow’s distance. “Not yet. Looks like they’re heading for the other side of the course.”

“Hoping to catch a flyer,” Wally said. Catching a flyer is when a boat is too far behind another boat to catch up by chasing it, so it goes to a different part of the course, making a gambit at finding better wind.

Stewie nodded. “Where’s the wind? Does it look better in the middle?”

Wally gazed ahead and across the river for clues.

Lark, less busy without the spinnaker flying, looked at the sky ahead. “Looks strongest over there,” she said, pointing ahead at eleven o’clock.

“Wally?” Stewie asked.

Wally studied the sky another moment. “Better in the center right now, and then it’s going to clock over to the west.”

“Ready about?”

“Ready here.”

“Ready!”

The wind was better at the center of the course. It lulled as they advanced. Per Wally’s forecast, the wind moved west to the Minnesota side of the river as it died down. Stewie kept Corvus as near the Minnesota shore as possible to stay in the dying wind. By the time they were forced to tack away from shore to make the upwind mark, it seemed they were sailing in the only wind remaining on the river.

“Good water-skiing conditions by the mark,” Lark said.

“Calm before the storm,” Vic muttered, but he looked Wally’s way when he said it and Wally’s eye contact worried him.

“Blow is just bobbing,” Gust said, pointing to the Wisconsin side. Blow had crossed not far behind Corvus on an opposing tack toward the eastern shore when they had moved past the center of the course to the Minnesota side. Though they had closed some of the gap with Corvus and looked now like they might even be the closer boat to the mark, Corvus still had wind. Blow’s sails sagged, empty above glassy water. Corvus was gliding on, making slow, steady progress toward the mark.

“Puffs coming,” Lark said, pointing at dark ripples making a shadow on the water, the footprints of air moving a few boat lengths ahead.

As the fresh wind reached them, Vic felt the stiffening of the foresail in the sheet. “Pressure here.”

The main sail snapped quietly as a gasp of new air went behind it.

“Lifting?” Gust asked.

Wally nodded, and Stewie confirmed, “Yes.”

The wind was shifting around the boat, lifting, narrowing the angle of their approach and shortening the distance to the mark.

“Lark,” Wally said, “better hurry. We’re going to be lifted closer to the mark.”

Lark nodded over her shoulder.

“More pressure,” Vic said. He spun another wrap around the winch.

“And lifting again,” Gust said. He looped more line around his winch.

“Blow’s getting wind and gaining speed now,” Stewie announced. Corvus’s jib was blocking everyone else’s view of Blow’s side of the river. “Their big sail’s gonna help ‘em now,” he added.

Corvus was still on port tack nearing the mark. Blow came into the zone to Corvus’s right on starboard tack at nearly the same time, running slightly hotter than Corvus.

“They’re gonna beat us there,” Lark said.

“They have to make room,” Stewie said.

“Starboard!” Roger hailed from Blow.

“Ready about?” Stewie asked.

“Ready here,” Vic said. He did not look outside the boat.

Lark crouched at the base of the mast, readying to raise the pole after the jib swept around.

“Coming about!”

Vic freed the jib sheet and the sail jumped forward, Gust windmilling the sheet on his side to help it around.

“Pole up!” Lark shouted.

“Starboard!” Roger yelled again from Blow while Wally yanked the topping lift line to raise the spinnaker pole. Gust clawed the jib line arm over arm, brought it to close-hauled, held it there for a beat while Corvus continued its arc around the buoy. Then he eased it out, kept air in it while they moved around the mark from upwind to down. As Vic readied the spinnaker sheet on its winch, he glimpsed peripherally the narrowing gap between Corvus’s and Blow’s parallel hulls. Six inches, four inches, two, two ... three inches, four, whew.

“Ready for the chute?” Lark’s gloves were on the halyard.

“Go!” Stewie responded.

“Ready?” The bowman on Blow yelled, almost directly into Vic’s ear.

“Go!” Roger responded.

Blow emerged from the rounding one boat length behind Corvus and stuck close, covering Corvus jibe for jibe. Roger tried to position his boat and sails to dam the wind, disrupt its flow into Corvus’s spinnaker so that it might collapse, even just for a moment, which could give Blow a window, a chance to slingshot past. Each time Corvus jibed, Blow followed. Each time Wally sensed the wind was about to be blocked, he signaled Stewie with a subtle nod left or right, and Stewie piloted the boat in that direction. Corvus couldn’t outmaneuver Blow, but Blow couldn’t get past Corvus.

Wally called for gradually longer reaches on the starboard side and shorter runs to port. This had the effect of moving Corvus slightly closer to the committee-boat end of the finish line while keeping Corvus between Blow and the middle of the line, where the guy on the fishing boat still fished. They were on a trajectory to finish very near the committee boat where Bones sat, ready to record finish times, and then they jibed again, approaching the line closer to the fishing boat. To avoid the fishing boat they would need to do two more jibes: One away from the fisherman and another to cross the line.

Roger had never given up covering and now he had to decide: Keep on following Corvus and take second place, or jibe early to try cutting the angle for a more direct approach to the line, though at a slightly slower pace than the hotter reach allowed.

Wally was waiting to give the jibe signal until Corvus was about as close to the anchored fishing boat as they could go without giving the fisherman any reason to be pissed off.

“Let some wind slip off the sail,” Wally whispered to Vic.

Vic tightened the sheet enough to draw the spinnaker pole back, making the spinnaker slightly narrower. There was no luffing, nothing that would be visible from behind to indicate they were intentionally slowing.

Lark crept into position near the spin pole.

“Perfect,” Wally said. Moments later he signaled Stewie, hissed “Now!”

“Jibing,” Stewie whispered, making a sharp turn to starboard.

Lark had to muscle the pole across because Vic had not pulled it back much, to not telegraph their intention for Blow to see. Still, she swung it across to port and re-anchored it to the mast as efficiently as ever. “Made!”

Corvus completed the turn and glided to the right, well ahead of the fishing boat’s bow.

“Catching anything?” Lark smiled brightly at the fisherman.

“Oh yeah,” The fisherman smiled and nodded back at the pretty woman at the bow of the pretty sailboat.

“Bring it up!” The bowman on Blow yelled back to Roger. “Up, UP, UP!”

“Hey!” The fisherman yelled.

Roger had to push Blow’s tiller down, moving to a broader reach, parallel with the finish line, its spinnaker nearly grazing the fishing boat’s stern.

“Whoa!” Gust said. “Did you mean to do that?”

“Nooooo,” Stewie shook his head. “Ready to jibe again.”

“Ready.”

They jibed once more to cross the finish line near the committee boat for the double line-honors horn.

Wally shrugged. “Roger must have forgotten about the obstacle on the course.”

Next: CTAS 5 - Save the Hat!