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Written by Jay Harrell, Viper #19
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Monday, 19 May 2008 09:18 |
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Here's a little about the MacIntosh Cup held May 10 2008 at Savannah Yacht Club.
I picked up two locals for crew. They were hand-selected by David. One, Bill, was 70 years old, the other, Jon, was the previous owner of my boat, but had never raced a Viper as One Design. We left the dock in 10-15 wind from the west. It was an 8 mile sail out to the race course in Wasaw Sound. Against the incoming tide. A little over an hour. Out in the sound the wind was a pretty steady 15. The RC started the PHRF fleets and sent them out to sea buoys, then started our 4 Vipers. At the skippers meeting, they said they would try to have 40 minute races, but they didn't realize how fast the Viper is in that wind. The first race was 15 minutes start to finish, which was just fine for a 4 boat OD fleet. In fact, I really liked it because we had more chances to start even and sail close with other boats. We had 2 of these one lap races, then 1 two lap race, and 1 more one lap race. Upwind involved hiking hard and playing the main to keep the boat flat. Downwind was a total blast - fast as hell. An "E-ticket ride" if there ever was one. It turns out that Bill on my boat was a ringer - he called tactics, coached sail trim and hiked like a s.o.b. Jon and I had a hard time keeping up with him. He taught me what "vang sheeting" really means and how fast it can be upwind in a blow. We won the first two races. By the third race the wind had built to about 20 and still pretty steady. No race boat is easy in 20 (unless it's underpowered), but the Viper wasn't really hard either - just add tons of vang, dump the main as needed and steer to the jib. We missed a shift on the first upwind and were in third at the mark. We were closing on the leaders coming downwind when I came out of a gybe too hot and got knocked down. We all just hung on to the high side and waited. It felt like a long time, but was probably less than 60 seconds before we popped it back up. Nobody even got wet. But I'm looking forward to that keel upgrade asap, because it took some hard leaning to get the boat back upright with all that wind on the hull! Once up, it took about 2 seconds to get the sails full and we were again sailing at 15+ mph. Fortunately this was the two lap race, so we were able to reel in one boat on the next upwind and finish in 3rd. The fourth race didn't go so well - we hit a sandbar during the pre-start, the keel lifted up and then sat back down on the spinnaker halyard, pinning it. Jon had to get in the water and push the boat off the sandbar. By that time we were very late for the start and unable to use our spinnaker, so we headed back in. 8 miles. Against the tide. Upwind. It took an hour and a half, or maybe more. At the end of the day, the speedo said we had sailed 48 miles (through the water, less over ground). I was unbelievably tired and my legs are still sore today from hiking. But the smile is still there... |
