11/27/05

Coastal Cup 2002

San Francisco to Catalina (well, to Moro Bay, at least).

We took GATITA with a crew of five for the Coastal Cup this year.

We had a great start and proceeded out of the gate around 9:00 am. Once outside the bar, the

wind was down to about 15 knots.

The #2 (135%) came down, we put up the light #1 (155%) up and set the spinnaker.

The wind was favorable and between 12 to 17 knots.

It was a wonderful run down the coast. We passed several whales. One of them broached clear out of the water.

The whale in the picture below started swimming towards the boat. It had us worried for a while. It decided to turn around about 50 yards from the boat.

The spinnaker came down around 10 pm. It did get in the water briefly - but came aboard without any damage. The waves started building to about 10 feet. Wind started climbing and settled between 30 - 35 knots. We were flying - the highest  GPS speed was 12.1 knots :-)

It happened on the 3 AM watch. Another crew-member was driving and I was on deck. First mistake was pushing too much of a dead downwind - second was to not re-rig the preventer after the chute came down.

We gybed with a full main in 37 knots of wind. The gybe itself was not very violent - but it must have put a stress crack. The back half of the boom started working loose - and then a crack opened up in front of our eyes. The it snapped cleanly into two.

We got all hands on deck and lashed the boom. We were making over 6 knots with a furled genoa - and I was all for going down to Catalina.

Did YOU take the preventer off?	On a mooring at Moro Bay Yacht club

Third mistake - even talk about Moro Bay as an alternate destination :-). Anyway the forecast at Pt. Conception was 45 knots at our ETA - and it was not prudent to push the boat with only the headsail through that. So we pulled out at Moro Bay next evening.

We saw 43 knots and 12 feet seas that morning going to Moro Bay - but they were on the quarter - and Gatita sailed like a charm with just a hank of a jib for the next 15 hours at 5 to 6 knots. It was an uneventful rest of the trip.

I left Gatita on the mooring at Moro Bay yacht club. Catalina shipped me a replacement boom very quickly - and I put it back on the boat and brought her back to Santa Cruz after a couple of weeks.

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