Although this was only my second attempt at the FCYC/RNSA single handed race it is undoubtedly one of my favorite races of the year. The race starts at the Point Grey Bellboy just off of UBC and takes the boats around a mark just off of Bowen island and then to a finish line just off of Newcastle island near Nanaimo. Sailing alone is generally pretty easy; racing alone is not. Racing alone means that there is nobody with you to bounce ideas off of, nobody to verify your assumptions are correct and no one with whom you can chat idly with to drown out your own thoughts...
This year the race started in light winds with little excitement (with the exception of Al on Bedlam II spearing the committee boat but I'll leave that for his blog). As has become a tradition with this race I was sailing along, madly trying to keep the boat going in straight line whilst I was trying to put the marks in my GPS - Something any smart skipper would have done the night before. I managed to get all of the info inputted without killing myself or smacking any other boats despite my GPS having the least user intuitive input system ever built, whereby you have to input a seemingly endless string of numbers with a single, over sensitive, knob. With the GPS programed I settled in and focused on sailing. As the fleet approached the first mark the wind was light. The bigger boats were having a tough time moving and the smaller lighter boats were all trying to do anything possible to keep their momentum up. Somehow I managed to stay in a very isolated wind channel which was taking me up the sunshine coast. Not exactly the right direction but better than going backwards towards the start.
This year the race started in light winds with little excitement (with the exception of Al on Bedlam II spearing the committee boat but I'll leave that for his blog). As has become a tradition with this race I was sailing along, madly trying to keep the boat going in straight line whilst I was trying to put the marks in my GPS - Something any smart skipper would have done the night before. I managed to get all of the info inputted without killing myself or smacking any other boats despite my GPS having the least user intuitive input system ever built, whereby you have to input a seemingly endless string of numbers with a single, over sensitive, knob. With the GPS programed I settled in and focused on sailing. As the fleet approached the first mark the wind was light. The bigger boats were having a tough time moving and the smaller lighter boats were all trying to do anything possible to keep their momentum up. Somehow I managed to stay in a very isolated wind channel which was taking me up the sunshine coast. Not exactly the right direction but better than going backwards towards the start.
I couldn't believe my luck. As I got further and further up the coast I found the wind was getting stronger, it was nothing spectacular but I was moving and very few other boats were. Whats more is the wind was filling in across the strait from where I was. AH HA! Thought I "I've FINALLY figured this whole racing thing out!". I was feeling pretty smart - I had turned towards the finish line, my trusty GPS was reporting my course as perfect and I was one of the few boats with wind. I still had a few hours of sailing ahead of me but I was set up to do well - all I needed to do was sail and relax... Then it happened... my brain started to work.
The brain is a strange beast - it can be your best friend and your worst enemy at the same time. As my brain kicked in It started to ask questions like "did you really put the right coordinates in to the GPS?" and "If this is the best place to be why is no one else up here with you?" and "why does it look like all the other boats are going to a different island?"... I looked towards the rest of the fleet and to my dismay my brain was right... everyone was headed to a different island. After a number of expletives I adjusted my course and fell down to the rest of the boats. This put me in front of most of my competitors but behind a few boats I was clearly ahead of earlier in the race. As I fell down to them I began to realize that they weren't actually headed to a different island but that the wind angle was preventing them from sailing directly to the island I was previously on course for. My GPS almost mockingly was showing my how off my course was and it was at that moment I realized how dumb a maneuver I had just made.
I spent the rest of the sailing day struggling to get to Newcastle and as I found that the "furniture haulers" Nimue and Bedlam II were ahead of me, which was depressing, though it was also becoming apparent that nobody was going to make the 6pm time limit which meant the race didn't count. Woot.
As the time limit was running out, and we were all slowly making our way towards the finish line a massive pod of Orcas appeared near us. John off of Windy Feat reported counting over a dozen whales. I don't doubt it. I have never felt so small or insignificant as when one of the larger whales surfaced a few feet from my boat - his dorsal fin stood taller than my life lines.
I dropped my sails and joined the procession of boats motoring towards the Nanaimo Yacht Club where we would all spend the night.
The Nanaimo yacht club always puts on an amazing event - the food is great and the drinks are always cheap. It's a tradition of the race for every participant to stand up and give a brief summary of who they are and what their experience is. It is always shocking to hear how many of the participants have been doing this race for 30+ years. What's worse is that when it comes to my turn to speak it's always something along the lines of "Hi my name is Ben (insert some dumb joke) and I have the boat Thursday's Child." I need not say any more as everyone always starts talking about how amazing a sailor the previous owner was and how he always did so well aboard the boat. For a man short in stature man he sure has big shoes to fill... After dinner all the old salts keep partying well in to the night, while all the rookies (like myself) go back to their boats to lick their wounds and wonder what the hell they've gotten themselves in to...