GBCA Discussion Forum

Any Time, J.B.
You are welcome any time.
Why don't you come to Freeport by car some weekend and we go sailing together.
We are only 30 min away from open water.
Bring whomever you want, the boat is plenty long.
Hoping you take the invitation seriously...
Walter

Thank you Sir. I appreciate that.
Next time, I will try to make your victory less easy, and I will do my best to come up with a bigger fight.
It was a pleasure to sail against your great team; no mistakes, that I could see.
Walter

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A word of thanks to Bill for putting together a beautiful regatta and so masterfully he did it.
HYC was gracious enough to race to Freeport, the least we could do was to participate.
Seeing that all our Freeport boats were on cruising class both on Spinnaker plus Genoa only, and the HYC and LYC "Royalty" were by themselves on  Spinnaker PHRF, even though I did not have a good spinnaker on board I decided to get a PHRF rate for Sea Ya II with spinnaker and race them, out of courtesy. The PHRF rate was conveyed to me during that dinner party in Galveston the night before the start and I made the decision there and then, that despite the fact that GB PHRF did not account for the small spinnaker I own, we were given a PHRF of 30 to go up against the J Boats of HYC and LYC.
Wining is not everything, and we were very honored to be racing against them.
It was a great pleasure to meet some of the sailors who participated in this offshore event. The feeling was mutual.
The life lines of SEA YA II are always open to you all.
 

THE RACES SEEN FROM ABORD SEA YA II.

It was a good experience but we lacked a bit of luck. 
It was a lot of fun though.


Race 1. Galveston to Freeport

We were the last boat to start, as it was a pursuit race.
The start line was inside the Galveston jetties, and we had a difficult angle that made us crossed the ship channel and we struggled to clear the North Jetty.
We tacked and went in pursuit of the J120, J109 and J105. Everyone was on beam reach so nobody used a spinnaker. We did not have enough speed.
Soon we found out why. With the Navtec on maximum pressure pulling the mast back and a lot of pressure on Vang as well, we still had about 4 foot of sag on the forestay.
We caught up with the fleet but just barely, and at the finish line. After corrected time we were 4th.
Alex Crowell our rigger had re-rigged the entire standing rig increased the forestay size, even though I asked him if he was sure. He said he was.
Well, it was too long on this race.
The J120 was docked next to us in Freeport and as as soon as I docked I asked Alex for his help. He came in immediately and shorted the forestay by 3 inches at least, inside the furler. That was the best we could do for the following day race.,

Race 2. Freeport to Galveston.

The spinnaker class started all together at 9:00 am and this was not a pursuit race.
We were second across the line and we took of to the lead almost instantly and opened a good gap between us and the J105 and the J109.
For the first two hours we opened that gap, even without a spinnaker. The heading was border line and we chose to use Genoa only. The forecast had the wind backing so we waited for that to happen. Had that happen we would never had to put the mini spinnaker up. Regrettably after two hours the wind started to die on us and those who had the spinnaker up had the advantage. It also started clocking right to help them and not us, so we had no option but to put the spinnaker up.
First time, a spinnaker nobody had seen, a brand new ATN sock that no one was familiar with, and was put together in the morning, spinsail inside the sock, inside the cabin that morning.
That operation costed us 13 minutes to hoist as the sail was twisted inside the sock and got stuck bad and we had to struggle before we could free the sail from the sock.
Finally it was flying but it was a very small sail for that boat and the speed we got was less than what we were getting with Genoa alone. We hoisted the staysail to help and we managed to almost get the speed we had with the Genoa.
Clearly, the J  boats came closer as a result of those operations. Equating the removal of the spinnaker and hoisting the Genoa back would cost us a lot of time so we decided to bite the bullet.
We kept the J boats at large but we could not increase the lead.
We have arrived at the entrance of the Galveston jetties ahead of the fleet, but to get to the finish line we had to Jibe and sail another 2 or 3 miles, inside the jetty.
We jibed the spinnaker but the driver - at the time - somehow understood the finish line was the entrance of the jetties and did not turn to the jibe and the spinnaker started flogging and tangled itself. That lost us another 12 to 13 minutes to untangle and start sailing again.
We finished 2 seconds after the J105, right behind his transom. Those two operations had erased our chances of a good classification. We could never had a win with a PHRF of 30 and a handicapped mini-spinnaker probably no bigger the one of the J109. Shoal draft and the short mast do not help.
We could have done better but we didn't, and we finished 5th.
It was a great run with great fun though.
A final word of THANK YOU all who helped with the regatta.

Walter Gameiro
(A relative of Vasco da Gama ...)