OYRA Full Crew Lightship

[Photoboy]

Spent Saturday gathering images, Earthday editing images, will spend today getting some verbiage,
running around in birthday suit and jumping through hoops...

Hang tight...













Results

[Prince of Whales]

Birthday suit?

Some things you cant unsee PB.

[IOR Geezer]

Are you older today than yesterday?

[Photoboy]

Another full revolution completed, suit needs some tailoring tho...

[Charlie Tuna]

Happy Circumnavigation Day!

[El Capitan]

Circumnavigations are more fun than circumcisions, in my opinion!

Have a great one!

[Carl Spackler]

After careful consideration, I agree with that.

[Photoboy]

Taking Their Lumps: 2018 OYRA Lightship Report

2018 OYRA Full Crewed Lightship : One Lump Or Two?


Adrenalin above and Hano Ho Below



Saturdays annual kick off to the ORA offshore season, began as scheduled, with 1st gun off the GGYC at 9:30 as scheduled. With 60 boats in 6 division eager to get on the ebb escalator, enjoying light winds and wall to wall sunshine. The RC got two divisions headed out before the wind took a siesta. The lucky early fleets had just enough wind to climb up towards the center span before the breeze relaxed on them as well. A few of the luckier boats had climbed high enough to make it up and over the South Tower, while a number of boats drifted helplessly directly towards the structure and others below it.

Hana Ho, Adrenaline, Bright Hour and Bodacious all eeked out in to the Strait unscathed and got a free ride towards Bonita. Some of the less fortunate had to reverse course and sail back in to the bay to avoid the rocky ledge of Fort Point and bad thing associated with it.

Meanwhile back at the GGYC, Postponement would ensue until enough breeze would fill in to ensure a safe exit. The wait would be lengthy, 1 ½ hours before a westerly would fill in and restart the event.
At the front of the early starters, Mark Dowdy and crew on his SC 50 Hana Ho found themselves locked in an offshore match race with Mark Howe’s SC 50 Adrenalin. “It was light and lumpy, with much less wind than we anticipated or which was forecasted” Mark D offered “The lightship buoy had been 19-20 all night long, but it went light and stayed light until we reached it” Hana Ho would round just ahead of Adrenalin but that lead would not last.

“Adrenalin is set up to run asymmetric kites, so we could sail hotter angles than Hana Ho with her pole to the wire, and in those conditions, it made a big difference” Explains Mark Howe “We stayed further north, and benefited with a bit more boat speed. It’s also of note that with the boat show going this weekend in Richmond, a lot of the prop guys were manning booths and not racing, so that helps a lot with evening the playing field.


Adrenalin would finish two minutes plus ahead of Hana Ho to take their 1st matchup of the season, but you can expect more close races between the two as the offshore series continues. Howe compliments the addition of Hawkeye King and Caitlyn Gutekunst to the program as a key assist, “They both have stepped up to the plate helping with logistics from buying and making lunches, preparation and paperwork, it makes life for the skipper a lot easier!”

First Ocean race on the J/88 Benny yesterday. Boat is well suited for little coastal jaunts. We sailed it well, nailed the start and lead throughout. Conditions could not have been better, maybe a tad more wind but had 18+ at the finish. Had the fastest elapsed time out of 50 boats, including some sleds (which to be fair had a tough time making the South Tower). Won our fleet by nearly 14 minutes and corrected out 4th overall for all fleets (Damn Express 27's....lol).

Drew Harper, Sailing on Benny

[IMGhttp://pressure-drop.us/imagehost/images/20134017317327687275.jpg[/IMG]
Loose Cannon


Christian Doegl's Swab 461 Free is new to the racing circuit, her previous existence was that of Lohengrin


Chris Berge's SC 52 Starship is another new face to the Nor Cal Offshore circuit.


The separation from the 1st fleet to the second ended up much smaller than predicted, even though they were spotted a 1.5 hour head start, the additional breeze that the last 4 fleets received made a world of difference. Aya Yamanouchi; J-88’ Benny for example, would sail the course with an elapsed time of 3h:45:11 to take PHRO2, nearly 20 minutes less than Adrenalin, and was nearly the fastest corrected overall, only to be eclipsed by two double handed Express 27’s, Loose Cannon and Hang 20, sailed by Andrew Goodman/ Julie Paxton and Lori Tewksbury/ Eric Ochs respectively.


A Whole Lotta Flood helped the second starters


Loose Cannon



Round Midnight


Sure and steady, Jim Quanci's Cal 40 Green Buffalo wins PHRO 3

Of the three Multihulls which would start 2 hours after the 1st warning signal, Richard Waltonsmith’s Explorer 44’ trimaran Round Midnight would devour the course in 3H:11m:06s elapsed.
A special note. In PHRO1B, Julian Mann took line and corrected honors aboard his C&C 30’ Don’t Panic. This was the boats 1st ever offshore event, and they dispatched much larger and seasoned crews in the process. We asked Julian for a little insight on the day and the program:




PD:The C&C seems primarily to be an inshore boat, but between you and Steve Stroub, offshore is in its capability range...


JM:While the C&C class racing has predominantly been inshore W/L racing, from a structural standpoint the boat was always designed to be offshore capable. Given the lack of one design class participation on the west coast, we have decided to more seriously consider the platform's coastal capabilities. To that end, we have a fairly extensive set of modifications that we plan to make to better optimize the boat for offshore racing. The Lightship race was a great opportunity for us to take Don't Panic offshore for the first time in tactically challenging but, from a survivability standpoint, benign conditions and I honestly couldn't be happier for how she fared.

PD: What are the self-imposed limits you have set for yourself on Don’t Panic?

While we don't have hard quantifiable limits set for ourselves, we absolutely consider the conditions, experience of the team, and experience in the boat before we leave the dock. After an extensive traveling season last year, where we saw the boat perform well in gusts into the mid 30s, size-able sea states, and numerous knock downs, we have built up enough confidence in the platform to seriously consider an offshore focused campaign. When we decided to enter into the Lightship race we discussed the fact that it was our first time sailing the boat offshore, and that if we felt that the conditions due to either sea state or wind forecast were going to push us beyond where we felt prudent, we would watch from the race deck.

PD:Tough start on Saturday, how did you manage to reel in the bigger boats and climb to the top of div 2?

Sometimes its better to be lucky than good. After mis-timing the drift to the start line and letting the fleet get a 45 second jump on us we watched the fleet compress as boats slipped into the back eddy near Ft Point. We realized that this effective re-start gave us the chance to try a high-risk maneuver, and it paid off. As soon as we slipped into the back eddy we sailed with the current to increase the apparent wind over the sails and build up some momentum. While this meant sailing first into the beach then back towards the start line, It allowed us to time the right moment to try to cross back into favorable current, which ultimately we did and then rode the elevator out of the gate as the rest of the fleet continued to struggle under the south tower. From that point on it was just a matter of sailing our boat clean and making sure to cover the fleet.

Selects Gallery( More to follow)

Results

[Panama Red]

Nice write up!

HBD PB!

[Aussie]

See where they sailed: https://www.jibeset.net/gpsshare.php...4294b1480afa35
These tracks were recorded in real time using data transmitted from boats equipped with AIS, Delorme, Spot and Cell phones with the Tracaar App devices.
Yes, there are gaps in the tracks - mostly for boats with AIS - where no data was transmitted from the boat.

[Prince of Whales]

6 Brothers gets the Clinched Sphincter Award!