Pic unrelated.
I will be participating in my first overnight race as crew this weekend. I’ve been told there won’t be any cooking, so bring snacks. We do have a fridge. I am wondering what would be some good snacks to bring. Weather looks dry, but up here that can be an hour by hour basis. I am wondering if anyone has any advice, tips, or just general knowledge they would like to impart. I am very nervous. New boat, new crew just to make it extra fun. I think I have the basic gear down, all my typical sailing trip stuff + headlamp and tether for nighttime.
Final Review-- bring extra shoes and more foul weather gear!
Ultimately we rounded the mark but suffered equipment failure around 3AM when our spinnaker wrapped around the forestay. 3/5 of the crew was too sick to help so I was on bow trying to lower a stuck spinnaker. Pain in the ass, got it down after about 30 mins of putting my entire weight into it. Just as it gets on deck im trying to collect it all and it blows overboard. Still have it connected to the lines but couldn’t pull it up. Had to spend another 45 mins untangling the forestay mess and was eventually able to pull it out of the water around 4am. Not relaunching at this point because I am exhausted and still not getting any help. Skipper loses his bearings and nav chart isnt working. We have the main out but the skipper doesn’t steer well and the boom (19’ boom) comes swinging across the boat. The traveller lines knock out the nav station, a few feet form my head. At this point it’s decided we have to lower the main and motor back because skipper has lost it. He doesn’t know where he’s going. We have alt charts going on an iPad and he wont steer towards Victoria, and we are directly out in the straight from race rocks. I take over driving because I am sure the skipper is starting to just lose his train of thought. steer us towards victoria and we motor from 5am till about 9am and arrive. scary experience. next time I will never do a race with a new skipper without doing at least one practice session. and not going to do another overnight race without someone I know is capable. I had a lot of fun. Also fear. 2/5 of the crew was sick the entire time. one guy went below 30 mins into the race and was never able to get back up. so we were down to 4/5 crew. One guy was not able to really keep it together for more than 30 mins at a time.
I can’t wait to do another one on a competent boat.
Oh. My. God. Thats insane!! Like I don’t even know what to say. I’m so sorry it turned out like that. That would be really scary, especially as you don’t know these people! But it sounds like you stepped up, did your best, and probably learned a lot about yourself in the process. Whether you liked it or not!
I’m really concerned about your skipper, to have to take over driving due to confusion or mental state is a bad situation. Exhaustion? Regardless, thank goodness you were there. Interestingly, watching the tracker all of the multihulls but one didn’t finish. And with your sick crew, what was it like out there? Lumpy? I’m honestly shocked at the amount of things that went wrong for you guys. The spiral of disaster in full effect. Uuuugh.
I’m glad it didn’t ruin long distance racing for you! After an experience like that I would absolutely have the same requirements for racing with new people. If you ever want to race up here again let me know! I’ll make sure you’re with competent folks lol.
Side note - Not racing today as my skipper has to pull the mast for repairs. Booooo!
It was excruciating at times. One point I was on the bow in the dark, the skipper not steering down at all to slow us, and trying to pull the spinnaker back on deck where I honestly thought if this blows off again and I’m inside inside of it, even if im tethered I am probably going to drown. Which was a very surreal moment. But it was kind of like, in the moment, what are you going to do? You can’t just quit and give up. So yeah I did learn a lot about myself in the process! Side note-- sitting here on my computer, coffee and dog nearby, girlfriend gardening outside, it really makes you appreciate the simple things in life.
Beating out to the mark in Neah Bay was lumpy. We didn’t reef the main so were heeled over a fair amount and the swells were decent 10’ at least would be my guess. This was in 25-30kts too. The period was also a factor I’m sure, because you never really had a second to level out before the next one hit. In all fairness I got seasick once after I spent 10 mins below checking on our incapacitated sailor and eating my sandwich. Came back up top and we were heeled over enough that I was able give the fish their lunch without getting anything on the boat.
The multihull was interesting. The only multihull that made it was a fairly massive cat. The smaller tris all turned around near Race Rocks on the way out. If you look at the DNFs nearly all of them turned around when they got to the strait. I think they decided it just wasn’t worth it. We were I think, other than one other, the only DNF to round the mark. The other DNF that rounded anchored in Port Angeles for some reason.
The skipper is a different story. One of the other crew wrote a letter to the race committee telling them he wasn’t qualified to be taking people out. We only found out around 3am that our VHF wasn’t working, neither were our nav lights. When I was pulling in the spinnaker I was wondering why I wasn’t seeing any glowing in the sail and realized. We were in the shipping lanes at that point too. Not a great feeling? Our steaming and anchor lights worked though. We had a hand held and they were announcing traffic but our skipper turned it off. I asked to turn it back on so we could know what traffic was coming our way and he kind of put me down saying “what do you want to keep hearing the same thing over and over? We will see the ships before it’s a problem.” Idiotic response in my opinion to a safety concern.
All that to say it was a really enlivening experience and I am glad I did it. Would be great to sail together some day! Now that I know I can take the clipper up there relatively easily I would definitely do it again. And same for you-- if you’re ever down here I have a couple boats I know with skippers that are actual competent people.
That just got worse and worse the more I read. Holy dinah. I’m so glad someone is calling him out and letting the RC know how bad it was!! No running lights?? Not listening to the VHF?? No reef?? Wtf… I’m appalled at the disregard for safety. Was he fucking drunk? Balargh!! I’m so glad you made it home safely, and it hasn’t made you never want to be on a boat again! An experience like that does make you appreciate what you have, though I’m sorry you had to go through it. It truly is a strange place to be when it all goes south since you can’t go anywhere. Just gotta deal.
Though I did actually consider jumping off a boat and swimming to shore once. It was during a women’s regatta and the lady doing main was just being brutally mean to me, never experienced anything like that before, she made me cry. Luckily my friend was doing pit so she played defence for me since I was foredeck. Got off the boat at the end of the day and never sailed with any of them again, except my friend (she was on that magical Swiftsure with me!). I worked with the skipper too, she kept asking me to sail with her again and I was like, hells no. You didn’t shut that shit down, just let her keep screaming and berating me. I don’t trust you at all to support me, and you have to trust your crewmates. Not quite as death defying as your experience, but definitely soul crushing.
I had to stop in to one of the rig shops today and talked with one of the guys, asked him what was going on out there. He was on the tri that finished. Said it was pretty crazy out there, lots of broken halyards, but nothing too major that way. Also explains why my skipper needs to pull the mast… Man, I need to change where I get my weather from, said it was supposed to be light!! Sorry!!
Shoot me a message if you’re ever up this way or want to talk boats! And give that doggo a skritch under the chin for me :)