Steeplechase Race From The SC20TR Prospective, December 2003

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Bill Roberts
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Posts: 515
Joined: November 17th, 2003, 9:13 pm
Location: Stuart, Florida

Steeplechase Race From The SC20TR Prospective, December 2003

Post by Bill Roberts »

The race started Saturday morning at 9:00am at the mouth of Jew Fish Creek, Key Largo. The first 5 miles of the race was N NW with east winds 10 to 15 mph. We tried the chute before the start and could not lay the the Card Sound bridge by 15 to 20 degrees. We started the race on a main and jib reach and planned to put the chute up later as the wind was forcast to swing to the southeast. Most boats started with spinnakers. A few spinnaker boats pulled out about 1/4 mile on us midway to the bridge. We had worked our way to the windward side of the fleet so we put our chute up for the second half of the leg. We got to the bridge fifth and close to the lead boats. There was a gap in the boat traffic immediately behind us. We had to go West to a taller bridge span than other boats for mast clearance. The next 5 miles to Anglefish Creek was NE, to windward, double trap. We quickly ran down two boats and entered the creek a close third. The tide was coming in and the creek was ripping fast against us. The course is now east with the wind out of the east, light and blocked by the land and trees. It was hard digging and some hard paddling to get through the creek. We came out like we went in. On getting out in the ocean the wind came back up and everyone took off double trap headed SE, port tack to windward, about 11:00am. We were immediately gaining on the two boats in front of us and passed them to leeward; 40 miles to go. We went out of sight on the fleet within the next hour. We continued SE double trapped until about 2:00pm when the wind began to get lighter, no more trap. We got into some shallow water at Indian Key and had to tack out, NE for about a mile. Lost some ground on the fleet there. Then we went back SE and gradually ran completely out of wind alltogether around 2:30. From here it was paddle to the finish line, got there around 3:30pm. The next boat came in 52 minutes later.
Sunday morning there was plenty of wind, 15 to 20 knots from the south and we had a nice cushion on the clock. We would have used a reefed main if it had been finished at the sailmakers but it wasn't complete. The Gulf side race is a NE course made up of about six stretches of 7 miles each connected by narrow marked channels which you 'must sail through'. With our light air sail plan and sailing downwind with the chute, we could not sail the compass bearing to the next narrow channell. So we decided to sail low with the chute for about 10 to 12 minutes and then sail high without the chute for 10 to 12 minutes to make the next gate. We did this for the first two gates, no problems and 3 or 4 boats in front of us by a few minutes.
Now comes the third gate. We ran too long with the chute and were about a mile below the markers with a mile to go. We decided to try to cut across the shallows, 0.5 mile. We were making it OK until a rudder kicked up, we thought, but it actually had broken off. It was the only rudder in the water at the time and so the boat gradually rounded up and turned over in slow motion all sails luffing. It took us 10 to 15 minutes to get the boat up and another 5 minutes to get the boat sorted out again and the spinnaker flying. From here on in it was sail with one rudder and much of the time it was in the air. We had to slip the clutch a little the remaining 25 miles to keep things under control but we still got home with about 27 minutes of our 60 minute margin from the first day still in tact. Our boat speed with one rudder wasn't all that bad. We passed a few boats after we got back up. We passed one more boat in the last stretch to Gilberts.
In summary: The Steeplechase is one race you need to sail two or three times just to learn the course. You have to have it all in your head. Looking at a chart and looking around for land marks etc is not competitive. You have to know where you are and where you are going at all times.
Bill
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