Tweet
Hiccup @ Day 2 Finish
Jeff Zarwell on unexpected situationals at finish of Sunday's Vallejo Race:
"Another Great Vallejo Race in the books.
If you raced in the Great Vallejo Race this weekend, I urge you to read this post.
Yesterday was a beautiful day with great sailing. Today was too, until the finish.
We arrived on site in plenty of time. The signal boat dropped their anchor in the same Lat/Lon location we've used since I've been managing this race. (While I have never cared for the location of the finish, it is the location the YRA decided upon long before I came on the scene).
It has always been known that the west side of the course by the San Rafael Channel is shallow and is even called The Shallows. The finish line though is south of that and is in deeper water. In past years boats have run aground 100 - 300 yards above the finish line, but the line itself has never been a problem. Most people paying attention to their sounders or chartplotters have not had a problem.
Today was a different story. Anchoring in the same location that has been the norm for years, the signal boat's sounder read between 20-22'. Exactly what we were expecting. That allowed me to set a finish line long enough for the pursuit race and still be just on the fringe of the channel, which has too much current to anchor in.
The first boat to finish was approaching the finish line and they stopped just yards from the finish. Another boat came to a stop 3' from the finish line. Strangely yet another boat, not paying attention attempted to finish between the boat aground and the signal boat and it actually sailed across with no problem.
The sounder on the signal boat was still reading 20'. Their chart-plotter (Raymarine with Navionics cartography) said they should be in 20-25'. I came over in the support boat I was on and while it did not have a sounder, the chartplotter (Lowrance with Lowrance cartography) also said we should be in 20-25' of water. I had the second support boat come over and their Garmin chartplotter (with Garmin cartography) also said 20-25' of depth. WTF?
Boats were finishing, so we couldn't just pick up and move the line.
To make matters worse, several boats severely misjudged the effects of current when approaching a mark (aka the "Finish Pin"). The current was so strong that I couldn't keep my boat anchored as a pin boat, so I dropped a mark in place. It wasn't there for more than 3 minutes when a boat mis-judged the current and snagged the mark. The other support boat moved into place to replace the mark and his anchor rode was snagged by another boat that mis-judged the current.
The first snagged boat cut the anchor rode to the mark to free themselves, so I grabbed the drifting mark, tied a new rode to it and dragged it up to the original location. Boats were yelling at me, telling me I couldn't move the finish mark. What they didn't realize was that I wasn't moving it, I was putting it back in place after it had been snagged, drug down current, then cut free.
For those of you finishing during that period of time, the signal boat was finishing you from a landmark, not the moving inflatable mark.
As the winds kicked up, the signal boat rotated and now they were in 6' of water. Again WTF? This is not on any chart.
To those of you who ran aground at the finish line, I urge you to file a "Request for Redress". It is the standard US Sailing Protest Form. Just "Check" the box that says "Request for Redress" instead of "Protest". Explain what happened.
I cannot make any guarantees, but we anchored where we have for years without incident, but clearly the bottom contour has changed drastically.
We want to run a fair race. While our intention was to have a fair finish line, I don't think it was fair at all."
Jeff Zarwell on unexpected situationals at finish of Sunday's Vallejo Race:
"Another Great Vallejo Race in the books.
If you raced in the Great Vallejo Race this weekend, I urge you to read this post.
Yesterday was a beautiful day with great sailing. Today was too, until the finish.
We arrived on site in plenty of time. The signal boat dropped their anchor in the same Lat/Lon location we've used since I've been managing this race. (While I have never cared for the location of the finish, it is the location the YRA decided upon long before I came on the scene).
It has always been known that the west side of the course by the San Rafael Channel is shallow and is even called The Shallows. The finish line though is south of that and is in deeper water. In past years boats have run aground 100 - 300 yards above the finish line, but the line itself has never been a problem. Most people paying attention to their sounders or chartplotters have not had a problem.
Today was a different story. Anchoring in the same location that has been the norm for years, the signal boat's sounder read between 20-22'. Exactly what we were expecting. That allowed me to set a finish line long enough for the pursuit race and still be just on the fringe of the channel, which has too much current to anchor in.
The first boat to finish was approaching the finish line and they stopped just yards from the finish. Another boat came to a stop 3' from the finish line. Strangely yet another boat, not paying attention attempted to finish between the boat aground and the signal boat and it actually sailed across with no problem.
The sounder on the signal boat was still reading 20'. Their chart-plotter (Raymarine with Navionics cartography) said they should be in 20-25'. I came over in the support boat I was on and while it did not have a sounder, the chartplotter (Lowrance with Lowrance cartography) also said we should be in 20-25' of water. I had the second support boat come over and their Garmin chartplotter (with Garmin cartography) also said 20-25' of depth. WTF?
Boats were finishing, so we couldn't just pick up and move the line.
To make matters worse, several boats severely misjudged the effects of current when approaching a mark (aka the "Finish Pin"). The current was so strong that I couldn't keep my boat anchored as a pin boat, so I dropped a mark in place. It wasn't there for more than 3 minutes when a boat mis-judged the current and snagged the mark. The other support boat moved into place to replace the mark and his anchor rode was snagged by another boat that mis-judged the current.
The first snagged boat cut the anchor rode to the mark to free themselves, so I grabbed the drifting mark, tied a new rode to it and dragged it up to the original location. Boats were yelling at me, telling me I couldn't move the finish mark. What they didn't realize was that I wasn't moving it, I was putting it back in place after it had been snagged, drug down current, then cut free.
For those of you finishing during that period of time, the signal boat was finishing you from a landmark, not the moving inflatable mark.
As the winds kicked up, the signal boat rotated and now they were in 6' of water. Again WTF? This is not on any chart.
To those of you who ran aground at the finish line, I urge you to file a "Request for Redress". It is the standard US Sailing Protest Form. Just "Check" the box that says "Request for Redress" instead of "Protest". Explain what happened.
I cannot make any guarantees, but we anchored where we have for years without incident, but clearly the bottom contour has changed drastically.
We want to run a fair race. While our intention was to have a fair finish line, I don't think it was fair at all."
Comment