Hi Barry,
Yes, we were fortunate to win Harvest Moon again. And we managed to do it
without my wife Laurie steering (she's concerned about "offshore", and opts
to haul the trailer to the finish line instead) and Don Wigston (who was on
Tony Townsend's TRT 1200 GT which took first in the big multihull Class).
Bruce Jenevein wrote a separate post that recounts much of the race.
Hmmm, tips to share? Well, last year I wanted to do this race for the first
time and found myself with a big-enough boat (we had traded our F-24 Mk II
for an F-28R) and no crew. Probably the best move I made was to invite
Voldi Maki and his regular crew of Kirk Livingston and Nick Mason on-board.
Voldi has an F-28R that he campaigns from Austin, Texas, and over the years
we've competed but never managed to beat them. (This year at Nationals,
they placed third and we placed fourth, so the pecking order continued!).
So, my wonderful idea was to invite them on-board and try to learn as much
as possible from them. Last year, the guys came to Kemah for a tune-up
weekend to get the boat ready. The race was a few weeks later, and turned
out to be a wonderful spinnaker run almost the entire 150 miles, all on port
tack! The sky was clear, the Harvest Moon bright, and lots of stars and a
dry ride. We managed to beat the second place F-31 boat-for-boat, and the
rest of the Class was unlucky enough to catch an outgoing tide near the
finish line (which exaggerated the delayed finish times).
Bruce alluded to halyard problems: last year we lost the spinnaker halyard
to chafe about 40 miles from the finish. Additionally, the wind died near
the end of the race. We still managed to cover the 150 mile distance in 13
hours and 40 minutes, and of 230 boats, were beaten over the line only by
the Newick 48 "Bird" (rating minus 120 sec/mile), which set a new course
record of a little over 10 hours. Looking back, I guess our success then
was due to racing the entire course like a round-the-buoys race, constantly
trimming the spinnaker, changing drivers every 45 minutes or so, and racing
hard the entire time. And it probably helped that Voldi made a contribution
to the sea gods when his Magellan GPS fell out of his jacket about mid-way
during the race. (I chuckle to think of some poor monohull coming upon it
later that night, finding it floating like a beacon, complete with course
marks already entered! But if that happened, no one volunteered its
return.)
This year, I signed up the same crew, and spent a lot of time getting the
boat ready (lots of safety gear on and day-sailing stuff off). But those
were about the only similarities to last year's race. This year's race was
a very close reach on port, with lots of waves, spray, clouds and some rain.
The F-28R "Rumline" nailed the pin end at the start (3:30 pm on Thursday),
and shortly thereafter all of the boats unfurled screachers and ran
double-slotted with jib. As Bruce said, we on "Persevere" opted for a
rumbline course to the Freeport buoy (the first mark), and he opted to go a
bit offshore. I think most of the other F-boats sailed the shorter course.
At the Freeport buoy, about 40 miles into the race, we were first to round,
followed by "Bird" (who had made a tactical mistake going too far inshore
and had to tack back to fetch the mark), a McGregor 65, and Townsend's TRT
1200 "Thalia".
Oh yea, tips! In my book, Voldi, Kirk and Nick are masters of sail trim. I
have a 2:1 screacher halyard and it was bar-tight. The jib was set to match
the screacher profile, each using barber-haulers. A few times the wind came
up around storm clouds, and we had to furl the screacher momentarily. At 2
am, consistent with tradition, we lost the screacher halyard. Actually, the
Ronstan high-load block split in half! So maybe that's some idea of how
tight the screacher is hoisted. We debated hoisting the screacher on the
spinnaker halyard, but really didn't want to risk losing the only remaining
downwind halyard. The end of the race is a two mile run up the jetties and
into the Intercoastal channel, usually against a tide, and we wanted to have
use of a downwind sail to finish in that mess! So we continued on through
the night with just jib and main.
Plowing through the waves made for a very wet ride. Even wearing foul
weather gear, I managed to soak through two changes of clothes. At one time
Kirk was steering from the float and was hit by a rogue wave at ear-level,
landing on his back, and tested his tether. (We all wear life jackets,
harnesses and tethers after dark. Recovering MOB's is slow - another tip!)
At 40 miles from the finish, I think we all had enough waves, spray, rain
and pounding. Actually, it didn't help that the wind was slowing. GPS
check at 40 miles from finished yielded 10 knot speed and 4 hours to finish.
Check an hour later said 32 miles, 8 knot speed and 4 hours to finish. Next
hour, 28 miles, 7 knots and 4 hours to finish. It was "Daddy, are we there
yet" redefined. Someone asked if we could sail close enough to a Gulf
shrimper to jump ship!
Sometime during the night though, a pod of dolphins chased the boat and
darted back and forth near the float where we were sitting. It was a
fantastic sight. By sunrise, the seas had flattened considerably and the
wind was around 6-8 knots. We couldn't see any boats nearby at sunrise, and
opted to hoist the screacher on the spinnaker halyard and finished the race
that way, including the run up the channel. This year "Persevere" was again
first F-boat to finish on both elapsed and corrected time. We finished at
8:08 am Friday, taking 16 hours and 38 minutes to cover the 150 mile course.
Two boats had crossed the line ahead of us: "Bird" at 14 hours, 20 minutes
elapsed time, followed by Townsend's "Thalia" 24 minutes later. Townsend
easily corrected out in first place in Multihull Class A. Congratulation's
to Tony. (Last year he placed third in Class B on his F-27 "Panacea").
In Multihull Class B, Jenevein's "Nectar Soda" finished in second place 2
hours, 14 minutes after "Persevere". Larry Greenwood's "Ninnescah Flyer"
placed third. An interesting note is that the corrected time span for the
2nd place through 5th place boats was less than 14 minutes. That's
incredibly close for an 18 hour plus race! Class B results, both elapsed
and corrected times, are as follows:
Zotzky (F-28R)16:38:3816:01:08
Jenevein (F-28R)18:52:4918:15:19
Greenwood (F-27)20:12:5218:27:52
Beall (F-31)19:14:1018:29:10
Cymbaluk (F-28R)19:06:4418:29:14
Turner (F-27)21:30:4519:45:45
Galemore (F-31)WDR
Montgomery (F-27)DNS
Finally, for those who are not familiar with the Harvest Moon regatta, it is
a 150 mile offshore race from Galveston, Texas to Port Aransas. This year
was the 15th running, and had a record 300 boats entered. It is typically
sailed under a full moon, ending with a weekend of great parties. Bacardi
is a title sponsor, and there was more than ample rum drinks, music and
camaraderie for the finishers. There are usually 8-12 F-boats entered, some
coming as far away as Kansas (Greenwood's F-27 "Ninnescah Flyer") to race.
Beginning this year, LaVida Starships sponsors a perpetual trophy (and a
keeper trophy) for the first Corsair on corrected time.
Michael Zotzky
Persevere
F-28R 51589
PS. Don't tell Bruce, but when he called in at the finish, we HAD already
taken showers at the municipal marina and were eating a big breakfast in
town!
