July 19th. Well here we go. The big shake down cruise. But with the wind forecast light and variable this is going to be nothing like the ocean.
Set off around 7am with light mist over a glassy lake. No wind so far. We motor around 5 or 6 knots with the engine running at a quiet 1500 to 1800 rpm. All food and clothes are stuffed away and the crew is not real happy about the wind prospects. Nice morning though.
We get up to the start line around 9:30 with an hour to go before the first start. Drop anchor and relax, kill some flies, snack and wait for the rest of the boats to come out.
Lots of stares at the silver beast. As the committee boats come out we haul anchor , raise the main and motor off to cruise around the fleet to check out the competition.
Lots of very nice boats motoring around. The first start is at 10:35, the non spinnaker white sail fleet. Off they go towards Toronto with a light following breeze. Our start is at 10:55 and we start about a minute behind the line, out of harms way. Throw up the spinnaker, and we are away. Not much speed here but at least we are moving and enjoying the views.
As we come up to the first mark (Gibraltar point off Toronto Island) things are getting crowded. The organisers wanted a good photo op. off Toronto with all the boats and they got one.
We go around the mark and stay well inside to clear all the traffic. This puts us closer to shore than most of the others. We head a little south now to clear the eastern gap and Leslie Street spit headland. Again we stay inshore and as we pass the headland, the wind isn’t bad. We are saving some distance, compared to the boats that went out further.
All is going smoothly when I notice a few of the boats are heading quite a bit south of the most direct course. There are still a lot of boats around and we can’t see a long way ahead. Then we see why the course changes. There are 4 boats just sitting with flat sails and pointing in different directions. Never a good sight. Boats bobbing around with flat sails means no wind! We quickly try and change course to get out of the flat spot, but our speed goes way down and now we seem to be in a channel with no wind. Boats are passing us on both sides. Very frustrating because you just can't manoeuvre a sail boat over to where you would like to be. You can only go where the wind will let you. Now, if this wasn't a race on would go the motor and over to the wind we would go, but we can't do that here.
We are still moving although slowly and we make our way down to the Whitby mark. Pretty crowded here too. Make our way around and because of traffic and winds decide to stay inshore close to the most direct path to the next headland, about 50 miles away. We have a dinner of spaghetti. Changing sails and tacking are happening quite a bit. Very low speeds with some improvement during rain showers but nothing exciting that's for sure. John and I head off to the bunks and Stuart and Brendan make way.
which means taking down the spinnaker moving it over to the other side of the boat, changing course, hauling up the spinnaker, set the new running back, try to get the spinnaker flying again because the wind has died and the boat has stopped moving. After about 10 minutes hopefully you are going at 2 knots again. Oh ya and it's been raining off and on. One good thing at least it's warm.
Time to put on the foul weather gear!
John and I take over. Right now just the jib and main are up. We are going along at about 2 to 3 knots. I'm enjoying going forward and the quiet. Then I hear John up front getting the chute ready to fly. Sure enough up it goes and we fight to get it flying. Settle down, creeping along, and there goes the wind over to the other side. The spinnaker stars flapping so down it comes, over to the other side. Our speed goes to zero, fight to get it flying, and 10 minutes later we're back up to 2 knots. OK, not bad we're moving again, but hold on, there goes the spinnaker flapping again, time for another tack. I suggest to John we just put up the jib and see if the wind will make up it's mind. Moving along slowly beats all these stops, and starts. John agrees, reluctantly, he's more a racer and doesn't mind a lot of work for that extra ½ knot. I'm more a cruiser, sit back and see what happens, if the wind picks up go for the chute if not just relax and watch the world go by.
So here we are, it's raining hard, we're heading away from shore, we're moving, the wind is shifting slowly and we are bending our course to a more favourable heading. Hoping for more wind in the middle of the lake or a big shift. Neither!
Stuart gets up around 5 or 6 looks at our position and asks if we're lost. We're heading towards the middle of the lake and not making a lot of headway towards the headland. Stu and Brendan take over and I'm off to the V berth to get out of my wet clothes and into a warm sleeping bag.
I get up somewhere around 8 and Brendan and Stuart are on the same course, going out into the lake but do make a tack just after I get up. At least we're going back towards land but a bit too much so the wind is not cooperating at all. We have some breakfast, and then the wind shifts. Not a good wind shift though. Now it's coming straight from where we want to go. The worst thing that could happen.
Now to go where we want to go we have to zig zag. People watching us on the web site think we can't make up our minds as we go towards land for an hour then back out into the lake for an hour. Miles travelled, 4. Miles towards the mark about 1 ½. Another wind shift. Now we are heading right towards the shore. Not good. Tack over and I can't believe it, we are heading right towards the mark. The wind is perfect. Not strong, but at least we are going where we want to go. WOW this might be it, we might actually get back into the race. Spirits are up, but, wait for it, about a half hour later the wind starts to shift again, now we're heading right towards shore once more, and the wind is dying. It's gone. Nothing.
We sit, the sails aren't even flapping. Hardly any waves. Have some lunch, have a nap, nothing. Thomas puts on a movie, I turn the stove on and make a frozen lasagna, which I screw up and we have to microwave to fully heat up. It was good in the end and the movie was also good. Not a bad day floating in the lake.
After the movie, we have a meeting, we'll give it until morning and see what the wind does. One hour goes by, things are cleaned up, we all agree, enough is enough, no wind lets go home. The motor comes on the wheel is turned, (all day the boat was pointed at the land and never moved) and the course is set to Port Credit.
Later that night the wind came up, we were able to turn off the engine and sail in a light breeze at around 2 to 3 knots. Much better than with the engine running. We were in no hurry to get home, hoping a good wind would fill in and we could enjoy a nice sail back. Not to be. The wind died and the motor came back on. That was that, the sails where put away and we motored from Toronto to Port Credit YC, turned in our transponder, congratulated the boats that had completed the white sail race and put out for Bronte.
It looked like we may hit a storm just as we where arriving at Bronte. I suggested if that was the case we go out into the lake instead of trying to get into port in a storm. Luckily the bad weather passed in front of us. A big storm did hit the lake behind us (with funnel clouds sighted) and we had some strong winds with sunshine. Of course our sails were put away, and we were too close to home to take advantage of the wind.
All in all, not our kind of race, probably the worst conditions that we could have wanted. If we experience that on the ocean, the motor would have been on and we would head for wind. We did learn a lot though, so it was not a waste of time. The crew got along well. Everyone agreed with most decisions that were made. Well, John and I got a bit of a hard time about heading out into the middle of the lake, but no one was keel hauled. A few small problems came up with the boat, so those can now get fixed.
So that was it for our big race. Disappointed we couldn't show off the boat more, but better off because of the things that we had learned. Now it's all about the big trip. Not much time left!!!
