How Timmy Didn't Save the Day This Time
Few quotes in the world of sailing have less need of being explained than the one I've referenced in that title above. However, since only a few of the people I know of that might be reading this would consider themselves knowledgeable sailors, I'll explain.
Most people know of The America's Cup Race currently underway in Valencia, Spain. It's origin dates back to August 22, 1851, when the 101 foot schooner-yacht
America, owned by a syndicate that represented the New York Yacht Club, raced 15 yachts representing England's Royal Yacht Squadron around the Isle of Wight.
America won by 20 minutes. Queen Victoria, when informed of
America's win, asked who was second. The oft quoted answer, portraying the intensity of the competition among sailors, was, "There
is no second, your Majesty."
Among the elite establishments in English history, few institutions that I'm aware of have as much of a sense of exclusivity as the Royal Yacht Squadron. It is the most prestigious sailing club of all English sailing clubs, and perhaps in the world. One highlight of the year for the Royal Yacht Squadron, the town of Cowes on the Island of Wight, and the sailing community as a whole is
Cowes Week, an week long festival of everything sailing.
Perhaps the second highlight of the year is the renowned "
Round the Island Race" a roughly 70 mile sail around the Isle of Wight. Like the original America's Cup race course, it starts in the Solent just off Cowes, sails westward and counterclockwise around the island, then finishes opposite the Royal Yacht Squadron's
castle-like headquarters in Cowes (seen here firing a cannon salute to Sir Robin Knox-Johnston as he returned home to England, as noted in
this earlier blog entry, where Timmy
did save the day).
This race consisted of 1800 boats of varying sizes, from one I saw that looked like it must have been at least 100 feet long, to many not much longer than a rowboat.
Clipper Ventures entered all ten of their 68 foot boats in the race and well as a few of the 60's. As the Clipper Ventures fleet qualified for the largest class, we had the morning's first start gate and would be able to leave all the enevitable crowding behind.
You cannot imagine what the water looked like with that many boats filling the horizon. The image below, taken perhaps two hours into the race, can only hint at what we saw. Click on the image to bring it up to full size and you'll see how many sails filled just that small segment of the horizon.
Below is an image showing the race course and it's relation to the rest of England. My home in Gosport on Weevil lane is noted on the coast of England northeast of the Isle of Wight.
The crews on each of the ten boats in our class comprised of a mixture of people participating in the Clipper Ventures race. Most of us had not meet our team mates before, with a few exceptions of those who'd crossed paths in various stages of training over this last year. Some boats also had corporate participants; people not involved with the Clipper Venture race but who'd paid large amounts of cash for the privilege of participating in such a well known event (in England, anyway).
After meeting on our boat Friday morning and spending much of the day sailing on the Solent between England and the Isle of Wight, we moored in East Cowes, an area less visited than the more famous and pricey West Cowes. That evening as we dropped our sails and motored up the River Medina that splits the two sections, I was astounded at how many boats and been crammed into such a small space.
Because of the volume of boats wanting to participate and return at a reasonable hour, the first start gate, ours, was at 5:00 a.m. After a dinner together in the boat and a subdued evening ashore at the local pub, we rose at 3:00 a.m. Saturday the 23rd and, after a bit of preparation, cast our lines at 3:40 a.m. and motored out into the Solent to scout the starting line for the best angles and approaches in the current c
onditions. Awake and alert as we glided past all the other marinas stuffed with boats just showing the first signs of activity, it was a supremely satisfying moment to be who I am, where I am, and doing what I am. Because England is so far north and the summer solstice had just passed only a few days before, there was a surprising amount of light in the sky that early in the morning. Even so, I'm happily astounded my camera could capture the moment with any amount of fidelity. It was as beautiful as it looks here.
Though I'm aware most of my friends reading this aren't particularly schooled in the terminology and techniques of sailing at this high of a level, I'm going to dispense with any lengthy explanations and just tell it like I would to a ship mate. Some will get the details of it all, most won't, but I think that the essence of what is happening will be evident, and that should be enough.
All our 68's are identical with matched sails. The only true variable, ostensibly, is the crew. There's more to it than that, however. While a new set of sails is being sewn as I write this for all of the Clipper boats (at a cost of about $60,000 each), all 68's were currently using the sails from the previous round the world voyage. Some had been trashed a bit more than others, some had been extensively repaired and re-sewn, and some just sagged unbearably.
As the start unfolded and we crossed the line perhaps third or fourth out of our ten, the difference in our boat became evident. Bit by bit we fell back. We tweaked sheet tensions, car positions, sheeting angles, traveler position, luff tension, downhaul tension, halyard tension. Everything we could think of we did, and yet we slowly fell back through the fleet.
The one item we couldn't address was our outhaul. Our mainsail seemed to be one of the ones with the greatest sag and, as our point of sail on this first leg out to the Needles was close hauled, we did everything we could to get rid of the large belly down at the mainsail's foot. We winched our outhaul as far back as we could. The problem was that too long of a loop had been tied with a bowline through the clew and, as we winched the clew back with the outhaul, the bowline pinched into the turning block at the end of the boom and we could winch no further.
Danny, our professional skipper for this race and one of the ten selected to sail the boats around the world for the Clipper Venture race, helplessly watched the fleet pull away from us. To no one in particular he wondered out loud, "Did somebody tie a bucket to our keel?"
At the western end of the Isle of Wight is a formation of eroded chalk cliffs known as the Needles (right). Hearing the name for so long in the lore of the sea, I was expecting something like the rock formations above Chamonix, France, known as
Aiguilles du Midi, the Needles of the South.
More like shark's teeth, I thought when I first actually passed them a year ago. Maybe they looked like needles a few hundred years ago.
In the Round The Island race, the significance of the Needles was that this would be the first true bottleneck. Had we not been part of the first wave of boats off, we, too, would have been caught in the madness of 1800 boats all trying to cut the corner as close as they could.
Once we passed the Needles turned from upwind to downwind, we eased our sails into a broad run. Danny took stock of the situation
and pulled all of us into the cockpit to show us his ideas on a chart.
We were in last place in our class, that much was clear. We'd heard something about a watch being awarded to the winners of our class but didn't think that much of it. One watch for 16 people? So we'd give it to Skipper Danny, of course. That wasn't what motivated us. We wanted to win just because we wanted to pull the best out of ourselves and have tangible evidence that we had done so. So here we were in last place with an inexplicably slow boat. What's next?
Never give up, Danny told us. Pointing to the chart, he showed us how the shortest route to the southern tip of the island was clearly a straight line. Furthermore, if we cut into this bay to our left, we'd not only give ourselves a longer course but we run the risk of having the land mass block and distort the wind, slowing us down even more.
However, he explained, there was a chance that we could pick up some favorable tidal currents inside the bay that might....just might more than compensate for the likelihood of less wind. Gordon, the first mate and only other professional sailor on our boat, pulled out tidal charts for each of the six hours before and each of the six hours after high tide. Noting the high tide for the region in the almanac, we found the appropriate page and turned to it. All around us, the chart showed, everyone was fighting a few knots of tide from the southeast, directly on our nose. But if we took our boat right
there, Gordon pointed out, right along the contour line close to the shore that depicted 5 meters of depth, the tide in that part of the bay not only slowed, but actually flowed
toward the southeast. As our keel drops 3.5 meters below our waterline, it was risky and questionable, requiring exact navigation and diligence.
Danny summarized all the options and then said. "It's your race. What do you want to do? Do you want to take the chance?"
"We're in last place," we all thought. "What's to lose? Let's do it." And so we took the route in yellow on this map.
Because of the inclusion of corporate guests to our class of ten boats and the likelihood of many of them being woefully inexperienced sailors, it was agreed amongst our boats that we would not use spinnakers. All around us on the downwind leg, spinnakers filled the horizon like a sea of drifting balloons. Instead, we used spinnaker poles to pole out our Yankee 2 headsail. With a preventer on our mainsail's boom, eased out as far as it could go to port, and the poled out headsail over the starboard rail, we had a very stable downwind configuration, one that required far less energy, attention, and risk than running with a spinnaker.
To move into the bay, we needed to gybe. Once the decision was made, half the crew jumped into action to lower the pole and move it to the port side. Once done, we gybed and moved into the bay.
Perhaps only 30 of the hundreds of boats around us had the same idea. Everyone else in our class moved even a bit further out to sea than the most direct route, perhaps hoping for stronger winds further off shore.
With the course and plan set, we had the time to enjoy the view all around us this historical and magnificent event unfolding. There were high tech boats with kevlar sails and carbon fiber everything else. And there were beautiful old classics, such as the gaff-rigged sloop pictured at the top of this entry. Except for Danny, Gordon, and whomever was at the helm, we all sat on the high side but comfortably, taking in the moment and the joy of it.
I hung a bearing compass around my neck and from time to time would call off the bearings of the other Clipper boats. One, Glasgow, with a completely black hull, was easy to distinguish. The others all looked the same from the distance. Glasgow was in the lead and so we focused on her. At first glance, she was bearing 155 degrees. A few minutes later, no change. That was good news, for at least they weren't pulling ahead.
At the next glance, it seemed like 157 but, with the motion of the boat, it was more an mentally compiled average of all the different numbers I saw swinging pass the marker in front of my eyes. I thought it might be just wishful thinking and a case of seeing what one wants to see so I said nothing. A few minutes later, Danny piped up, "Timbo! How's it look?"
No mistake. This time it was 158. "They've falling back three degrees in five minutes," I said. Soon it was evident to even the naked eye. We were catching up. Encouraged, we began to wonder how many could we pass before we came out of the bay. Bit by bit, more and more boats fell behind us, leaving only Glasgow with her substantial lead ahead of us.
Swinging past the southern most tip of the island and coming back to a starboard gybe, who would have believed it. We came out one hundred yards ahead of the Glasgow, the lead boat. Now
we were in the lead.
Further more, we slowly pulled away from them. Upwind, we were clearly the slower boat. Downwind, we seemed to have the edge. Perhaps it was because of our aged and sagging sails. Downwind sailing
favors a "belly" in the sail as opposed to a flat one, and we had a belly we couldn't do anything about when we wanted to. We watched, tweaked, watched, tweaked some more, and slowly Glasgow and every other 68 fell back.
Being in the lead wasn't enough. We knew we were at a disadvantage on the upcoming upwind finish across the top of the island. We had to build as much lead as we could.
Turning northwest around the eastern-most tip of the island, we had put perhaps a mile between us and the nearest 68. Glasgow was just a black smudge on the horizon, so far away that sometimes we weren't even sure we were looking at Glasgow. The unique sail plan of all the 68's, however, made it clear who we needed to stay ahead of, be it Glasgow or anyone else.
As we neared Cowes, Danny asked Gordon to drop below now and then and read the GPS, calling off the distance to the finish. Seven miles. On our current tack, we were heading further out into the open channel and therefore deeper water and faster tides, again on our nose. Glasgow tacked back towards the island but every bearing check showed that this gave them no advantage. Eventually we needed to tack to make it into the finish line but there was one 68 slowly closing the distance between us. They were downwind of us so now, forgetting about Glasgow, we held our tack to cover them, that is, ensure that we remained in the same air they were in and that they didn't find any advantage we might have missed out of by tacking earlier than they.
Though we had generally been sitting on the high side of the boat to limit the boat's heel, everyone one but Danny and the one crew on the helm all moved to "Butts on rail," sticking our upper bodies through the railing and hanging our feet over the side to gain as much lateral leverage as we could against the pressure of the wind in the sail. It made an obvious difference. The approaching boat gained at a diminishing rate until finally it was clearly holding it's position, and perhaps even dropping back a little.
Through the binoculars we could see by markings on the sail that it was Durban, skippered by Ricky, a friend of mine and the skipper I'd most like to do the entire circumnavigation with, if not Danny himself.
Further and further we moved out into the channel, content that Glasgow and any of the other 68s were no longer an issue. Still, Durban once again began to slowly narrow the gap. "Five miles to go." We both moved across the channel and now, as we were approaching the far side, depth became an issue. Looking back at Durban, Danny would mutter under his breath, "Tack, dammit," but they held their position.
Pondering our outhaul problem, Danny came up with the idea of removing one of the reefing lines, something we had no plans of using, and tying a tight bowline to the clew to use as a better rigged outhaul. He set it up, called for the line to be winched, and it worked. Finally we had taken the sag out of our foot. Looking back at Durban, we could see visibly that their progress had been all but halted.
"Three miles."
"Tack, dammit," Danny kept muttering at Durban.
"Depth seven meters." Danny could wait no longer.
"PREPARE TO TACK!" Everyone left the rail and took their positions on the runners, yankee sheets winches, staysail sheets winches, and the grinders. "HELM'S TO LEE!" Sails snapped, lines whipped, grinders spun, lines flew as we turned through the wind. We were now headed directly for a point just downwind of the finish line with one last tack to make opposite the nearest of two committee boats to round up into the wind and sail across the line. Behind us Durban tacked was well. We were still between them and the finish line so even though they were gaining, we felt could still hold them off by forcing them onto a longer line to the finish.
A squall came through and what had been a fairly comfortable, if not cloudy day, now turned into a building downpour. No one put their hoods up, however. No one cared and no one wanted to miss a thing.
"Two miles!" A gust came through and heeled the boat over to perhaps 45 degrees. "Ease the main!" Danny shouted. "Ease the main!!!! I've got the helm."
All day until that point, the crew had been handling all the positions on the boat, including the helm, for the race was about us, not Danny or Gordon. Yet the storm had intensified and the conditions were too challenging for anyone else but Danny to be at the helm. I had my hour or so at the helm early on in the race and felt I'd done well enough but was glad to have Danny on the helm now. Gusts would come through and heel the boat over so far that it was all he could do to haul on the wheel against it and hold the boat on a straight line. Each time a gust would come, he'd scream for the person on the main sheet to ease the main, which would depower the mainsail and the dimminish the weather helm enough that he would be able to hold a straight line. [Okay, one explanation: weather helm--the pressure on the larger mainsail behind the boat's center of gravity that wants to turn the boat upwind, that is, into the weather]. After the main had been eased, the heavy effort of cranking the mainsail back in was tackled and it would take a minute or two before we once more had a properly trimmed main, losing speed all the while. Durban was in the same wind and, we hoped, taking the same blows and losing the same speed as we were. We seemed to be holding our position.
"One mile!" How unlikely could it be that in a 70 mile race, we had moved from dead last place to a huge lead and then have it all come down to 100 yards in the final minutes.
A huge gust, harder than any of the previous ones hit us and as the boat tried to round up into the wind, Danny hung on the wheel to pull the boat straight, shouting, "EASE THE MAIN EASE THE MAIN EASE THE MAIN."
The mainsheet trimmer didn't act fast enough and the boat heel over and over, rolling the rudder underneath closer and closer to the surface just as much as the sail above was leaning down towards it, until finally the rudder lost enough leverage to have any effect on holding the boat on course. With the boat heeled to what seemed like 70 degrees on it's side, the immense weather helm forces, free at last of the rudder's restraint, violently swung the boat 90 degrees to the right, across the wind and onto the opposite tack.
The boat swung upright and for perhaps a stunned full second each of us looked around. The boom had crossed the hull and was full but with the headsail sheets unreleased, the headsails were backed. The larger Yankee pressed onto the inner stay and staysail in what was an ugly and clearly unnatural manner. We had broached and had been involuntarily crash-tacked. We were now hove to and had come to complete stop in the water.
Recovering from our one second of shock, Danny shouted "TACK! TACK! TACK! TACK!" Since we had already just been involuntarily tacked, we knew that what he really meant was, "GET THE FUCKING HEADSAILS OVER TO THE OPPOSITE RAIL!!"
We all sprang into action and once more sails snapped, lines whipped, grinders spun, lines flew as we did our best to recover. Slowly the boat picked up speed and, once stabilized, we tacked back towards the finish line. But was too late. That was all it took. Durban had passed us and that was enough.
Once opposite the finish line between the two committee boats, Durban tacked to cross...but they tacked too soon and quickly realized they couldn't point into the wind enough to cut inside the first boat, so they tacked back again. Our eyes opened wide. We now had the inside line to the finish line and we might be able to hold them off yet! We were both on the starboard tack. When they tacked to finish, they'd be on a port tack and with us still on a starboard tack, we had the right of way. If they couldn't completely clear us once they tacked, they would be forced to tack back in parallel with us, with them on the outside and us nearer the finish line. We had a chance again!
Finally, just before we reached a point where we could tack to make it across the line, Durban tacked in front of us, their stern slipping by only a few feet in front of our bow as we bore down on them, trying to force them to tack.
Eight hours and 70 miles of racing and it came down to a matter of
feet.
We were second. Any other 68 was still perhaps ten or fifteen minutes behind us. We tacked and, now on a port tack ourselves and thereby forced to avoid any boat on a starboard tack, we had a few intense moments of excitement winding our way through all the other boats trying to fight their way between the committe boats. We actually had other boats force us to tack five more times just to get across the line but it didn't matter. No other boat in our class was close.
We were second and that was that.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
How did I not save the day? I knew damn well that the crew member on the mainsheet didn't understand what was required and wasn't reacting fast enough. I knew he was overwhelmed by the task at hand and I knew for certain I was completely qualified for it myself, and yet I said nothing...did nothing.
Having sailed small catamarans for years back on the Potomac river, I was fully experienced in and even subconsciously conditioned to letting the main sheet fly when gusts would start to heel the boat over. That's how you sail a catamaran; one hand on the tiller to guide the boat and the other on the mainsheet, ready to pop it free from its jam cleat and let fly out as needed to depower the main when gusts start to lift one of the hulls out of of the water.
Last February, as I sailed with a local school to gain more experience than I'd get with Clipper Ventures alone, six of us sailed the school's 40 foot boat through the harbour one gusty morning as we prepared to move out into the Solent for more room. The depth of the harbour in the tidal conditions of the moment restricted us to a thin line of water down along perhaps a few hundred yards worth of boats moored to lines sunk into cement plugs in the bay. As we sailed past them, I was on the mainsheet. Gusts of wind would hit the boat now and then and the skipper would tell me to ease the main while the helmsman would fight to keep the boat going straight. The gusts would pass and I'd winch the main back in again.
Suddenly one particularly strong gust hit us unexpectedly and the boat started to round up into the wind and directly into the line of parked boats 30 feet to our right. Without waiting to be told, I threw all but one turn off the mainsheet winch and let the mainsail swing out wide. The boat righted itself and the helmsman turned it back away from the boats and on course. A moment later, as I was winching the mainsail back in, the wide-eyed skipper leaned towards the helmsman and, motioning his head towards me, said, "He just saved your butt."
That and the school's brand new $109,000 boat.
I knew what was happening two days ago at the finish line. And I knew the person on the mainsheet didn't understand the predicament at all. As we rode these gusts out, he'd leave the mainsheet in the self-tailer and even have a safety turn or two on the winch, something that would normally require four or five seconds to undo. And then
he'd take ten seconds to undo it.
The hard question for me to answer to myself is when to step in and when to leave things be. There are so many times when improvement isn't needed. Good enough can sometimes be good enough. And, worse, it's hard to claim that I know better about anything than the next person. No lives were in danger that afternoon, only the race. Moreover, over the entire weekend the crew member in question seemed to feel a need to project an air of competent knowledge about sailing, something that approaced an annoying degree at times. Would I be any less objectionable or any different, I thought to myself, if I stepped in and claimed to be able to bring the situation under better control than he could?
Once we tied up at the dock and people headed of to take showers, I pulled Danny aside and told him I felt like I'd let the crew down. "I knew he didn't get it and I knew I did, but I didn't do anything." Danny waved my concern off. "Well he knows now," he said. "It's all about learning. Don't worry about it."
That night as most of our crew walked among the pubs of Cowes, crowded with the thirsty crews of 1800 boats, First Mate Gordon would joke periodically, "We was robbed!" I pulled him aside and told him the same thoughts I told Danny earlier. He shook his head and said, "Danny saw it, I saw it, you saw it, and we all three did nothing. You could say all three of us are to blame. Let it go. It's just a race."
Yes, of course, but I struggle with what I should learn from this. The rumor we had heard about a watch going to the winner had some truth to it. Nautica had sponsored our class and would award a $500 watch to not only the skipper but the entire crew of 16.
That bit of news sobered up our crew for a few minutes before we all shook it off again and went for another round of drinks, milling around the pubs of West Cowes until well past midnight, with Gordon occasionally shouting, "We was robbed!" while the rest of us would laugh and then shrug our shoulders.
It's all part of the learning experience, I've struggled to conclude, and I think I'm finally there. We came in second but I learned a valuable lesson. That moment, I hope, will prepare me for another when perhaps it's more than a bag of watches at stake.
The race also brought an interesting conundrum to the surface to ponder. We had done so well only because we had done so poorly at first. Had we rounded the Needles in, say, second, third, or even fourth place, we most likely would have not risked taking the inland route that, in the end, proved to be so amazingly beneficial. How, then, to apply that lesson to sailing and even life in general or, more to the point, just what is the lesson? Recklessness wins? First fail to finally succeed? Food for thought for a long and calm night watch some day in the future.
Most importantly, I had a great time with a band of good people, most of whom I'd never seen before and with some of whom I've been lucky to develop a true bond of friendship. In the end, as I've said over and over, it's about the people.
All in all, it was an amazing weekend. We weren't robbed. It was a bountiful learning experience. There is no second, Timmy, just more and more opportunities to learn.
