Newport-Ensenada Race Results

Mother Nature 2, Catamarans 0

This year's Newport-Ensenada race started off in good winds as a small storm

front passed over the race course. It was raining as we finished preparing the

boats on the beach, and it looked like the wind would hold out for at least 24

hours. I was sailing in my 4'th race, along with Ken Fox who had sailed with me

last year. In that race, we had medium winds of 8-12 knots right up until the

end of the race, coming in about 10'th out of 430 entries. This year, with more

experience and better preparation for the night portion of the race, we were

eager to see how many of the bigger boats we could beat.

The multihulls were the 3rd start this year, starting 20 minutes after the 70

foot sleds. We started off doing about 9 knots on a reach, with the wind slowly

building into the high 'teens. We were doing quite well, having passed most of

the big half-cats that started 20 minutes ahead of us, and all of the multihulls

except Afterburner (we kept them in sight for a couple of hours, but when the

wind built they accelerated a lot more than we did).

We quickly lost sight of Brandon/James on the black boat, who chose a more

inshore route about 5 nmi offshore, while we headed on a broad reach about 10-15

nmi offshore. As the wind built, we were broad reaching at full power under

main/jib. The interesting thing was the wind chop - after a couple of days of

strong winds from different directions (first south, then west), it was at least

twice as big as any I've ever seen before (and I've done lots of catamaran ocean

sailing in the SoCal area).

We were cooking along averaging about 15 knots. Combined with the chop, this

caused us to get soaked big-time at least once/minute, with water coming down

our necks, up our pant legs and inside our wrist cuffs (we were wearing wetsuits

under 1-piece spraysuits). It was much like being in a washing machine set to

"agitate". After a while, it the chop became so big that I could not steer and

trapeze at the same time, since I kept getting body-slammed by the waves, and

the boat would go all over the place when I got thrown around. We settled for

Ken single-trapping while I drove, facing backward to keep the majority of the

firehose out of my eyes.

Periodically, a certain combination of gusts & waves would dig in the leeward

bow, causing a sudden deceleration from 15 knots to 5 knots. Lacking chicken

lines, Ken would scamper along the hull to the bow until he could stop and

return back aft. On one wave, the hull dug in quicker and deeper than before.

I could hear Ken going forward (I was still facing backward to steer), followed

by a loud crack, and suddenly saw Ken trapezing by the leeward shroud! He had

gone "around the world" on the wire, breaking the spinnaker pole in half as he

passed the bow. As we parked the boat, I went up forward to clean up the mess.

I took us at least 1/2 hour to get things back onto the tramp and packed away

before we could get moving again. Fortunately, the spinnaker itself was

undamaged, and we had not lost the $350 TackTick compass that was mounted on the

pole. Unfortunately, by this time we were both getting quite cold due the

frequent dousings, which our clothing was not doing enough to control. We were

OK for the present, but it kind of felt like those times you aren't wearing a

wetsuit and really wish that you were. However, we were already wearing all of

our technical clothing, and it was only midafternoon. Since we had lost the

spinnaker and were facing the possibility of a long, slow, and very cold night,

the coldness wone out and we decided to abort the race at Mission Bay, San

Diego, about halfway down the track.

Since we had lost sight of Brandon/James soon after the start, there was much

speculation on board our boat as to their position and situation. We figured

they had to be at least as cold as we were (it kept getting colder as the

afternoon wore on and more gallons of water went down our suits). By the time

we entered Mission Bay, we set the odds at about 98% that we would see the black

boat on the shore when we arrived. And, as we rounded the last point, there it

was, already cleaned up, with the owners coming out of the bar looking dry and

toasty, each with a drink in their hand.

James and Brandon reported that they encountered even more wind on their inshore

route than we had found further offshore. They encountered winds in the 20-25

knot range, so much that they were forced to drop their spinnaker (we had never

even launched ours). This matches the the reports of some of the monoslug

sailors I talked to, who reported many boats blowing out spinnakers in the

gusts, leaving nothing but shreads behind. One of these gusts also got the best

of the black boat, which capsized early on in the race.

After getting throughly soaked in the capsize and worried about getting colder

as the race progressed, Brandon and James decided to call it a day also.

In hindsight, we were doing pretty well on our boat except for 2 points. (1)

Lacking chicken lines, what should have been a non-event (digging the bow in)

ended up breaking our spinnaker pole and taking a serious bite out of our speed

potential later on in the race. You can be sure that I'll get these set up for

next time, and for other ocean sailing/racing that I do. (2) While I've always

had good luck wearing a wetsuit under a 1-piece spraysuit, this combination was

totally inadequate for the weather we had in the race. Next year you can be

sure that we'll be wearing breathable drysuits, with plenty of insulating

clothing underneath. While the wetsuits worked well in the three previous N-E

races I've done and in numerous trips to Catalina, if you get soaked frequently

enough for long enough, the cold water wins out.

While it was a bummer to not be able to finish the race this year, each year we

enter we get more experience. Next year we'll be even better prepared and even

more eager to finish at the front of the fleet.

Alan Thompson

I20 - San Diego