WINGSSAIL

wingssail images-fredrick roswold

It’s 1:30 in the morning and pitch black outside.

We’ve jibed over are heading east towards Tenacatita It’s rough and instruments are glaring out the story: we are still seeing over 27 knots of wind out of the north and 7.6 knots of boat speed. We are sailing with just a reefed main and no headsail and the windvane is steering, as it has been all night. Renee has been on deck as I worked on the broken bilge pumps but I finally finished , went on deck, and took over the watch. Renee is getting some rest. It’s about time.

Frankly, we’ve overstood and that’s on me. We should have jibed two hours ago.

Why is it that it aways seems to be stormy and problems happen when we start out on a passage? I can’t tell you how many times on the first night out of port I’ve been head down in the engine compartment trying to get something fixed or something sorted out while outside the wind is howling. Right now it is as dark as the inside of a cow and Wings is sailing fast through the black night. It is pretty scary for the crews I’d guess, they are often new to sailing, especially sailing at night, but they have always turn out to be tough. Renee is.

We don’t plan it that way. Usually we leave port during the day, often by lunch time, but even then things happen.

This time when it got rough we found water in the bilge and the pumps decided not to work. In the end the boat was not found to be leaking, it was just left over water I missed, and after I got the pumps all running we were fine.

We made it to Tenacatia at sunrise.

Tenacatia Bay is beautiful. We had a day of rest and then while Renee did her workout routine and went for a swim I went about lining up some crew for the race.

I keyed the mic on my VHF, “Hi, this is Fred on Wings, may I speak to Dave?”

“Speaking”

“You interested in racing?”

“Yeah, I think so, I’ll let you know.”

Bingo! I got the best guy in the bay. Others good sailors soon followed. By race day I had a full crew and a great one at that. Renee was navigator and everyone else just sort of fell into place. We practiced; it went well. We were ready.

Speeding across the bay in the dingy on race day with the flags for the Race Committee Renee and I must have been a spectacle. Anyhow the pre-race excitement around the fleet was tangible as crews were being ferried to the race boats and those already aboard were busy rigging.

Here come the race flags

021

In this race trash talk is encouraged and the teen and pre-teen girls were already into it.

“Hey you guys over there with Jim, look out, we are going to leave you in our wake”

“You just think so, beware we have secret weapons.” Then the water ballons broke out.

But we had none of that, we were serious (in a fun sort of way) and it paid off. While the kids played around with the radio and threw water ballons we sailed with intensity . Renee called the start perfectly, Dave called trim (he was the star) and we all worked as a team. We knew the weather leg in this bay, with its persistent right shift, was similar to the pattern we knew well from Banderas Bay, and it was the key to this race. We played it exactly the same as going to Punta Mita, rounded the top mark first and led the rest of the way around. A great day for Wings.

< Fred Steers

Ready to Tack

Wings finishes first

Next stop Barra. We weren’t so lucky. The race there, the Flamingo Cup, is a very well attended charity event and we were keen for a repeat but we missed the entry deadline and were not allowed to race. Dang!

But Renee and I were invited to sail on John and Donna’s Carmanah, a great custom C&C race boat from the late 70’s with an excellent record. John wanted to work the foredeck so he turned the helm over to me. We sailed hard and finished second, missing a possible first when the spinnaker tack line failed on the final leg. Congratulations to Baja Fog.

Renee fights with the mark

After the race we volunteered to pick up some of the inflatable marks. Renee had to fight to get them fully deflated for the ride back to the marina.

I may have cut it a bit fine at the start however and we may have been a second early. I didn’t think so and we were not called by the RC but anyhow a competitor notified the race committee after the race. He was sure we were that we were over early, and he complained, “They should be thrown out.”

The RC asked me, “Fred, were you guys over early?.”

“Could be, it was close”

“Did you go back”

“No, we didn’t hear any radio hail or see any recall flag., so we figured we were good”

That was true, but how could we have heard? The radio was filled with a shouting race announcer and the trash talk was in full force, and there were no flags. We heard nothing so we went on, and I acknowledged that.

It was a deciding moment. We could have been disqualified. But the complaining skipper allowed us to exonerate ourselves by buying him a drink at the bar, Whew!

So that was Tenacatita and Barra this year. All that was left was the sail home to La Cruz.

Cruising main, reefed, and a small jib.

Charging with the small jib

Renee and I had a good sail then, all night again, with the wind on the nose (wouldn’t you know it?) and a bit more breeze than we wanted but not too bad, and the rounding of Cabo Corrientes in the morning with flat water and a nice brisk cool wind, was glorious.