After a week and a half exploring the San Juan Islands, Sarah, Lillie and I headed to Anacortes. We were meeting Hydra and crew for Anacortes Race Week. This raceweek, we were confident enough in our anchoring skills to bring Spice with us. We anchored Spice just outside of Cap Sante Marina, just a few hundred feet from the channel that all race week boats use to get from the marina to the race course every day.

Spice arrived a few hours before Sam and Hydra. We saw around 15 knots of wind across Rosario Straight, which was enough to get Spice traveling between 10 and 12 knots with a full main and code-0 sail. In sailboat terms, 12 knots is very good speed and doubly so when one is driving a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom condo-maran. It only took us a couple of hours to get from our anchorage on Spencer Spit to our anchorage just outside of Cap Sante Marina. Sarah even took the wheel as we ripped across the straight.

Race Week Rituals

On a typical race week, we deliver the boat a day or two before racing starts. Then, we get out the drills and start drilling holes and fixing items in a mad dash to get to the start line. We send people up the rig (usually me) taping and cleaning or installing something. We also say we’ll go out for a Sunday practice to tune the boat and crew, but the practice never ends up happening.

This race week, Sam, Abbey and other crew fixed most of the major items before the boat left Seattle. One of my favorite fixes was a replacement of our broken tuff-luff system used for the headsails. I was told that the old tuff luff disintegrated on removal, and only then did Sam and Abbey realize the new tuff luff was a size smaller. After a panicked install in the pouring rain, Sam and Abbey were able to get the smaller tuff-luff to work. They averted a near-disaster. If we didn’t have a tuff-luff, we wouldn’t be able to hoist our headsails and we wouldn’t be able to race.

We didn’t have a worklist when Hydra arrived in Anacortes. For the first time in race week history, we actually had the time for a practice sail. The only hitch was that no one told the crew about the practice. This is why we named ourselves Hydra. Our syndicate is like a multi-headed beast, and each of the heads doesn’t always coordinate with the other heads. So one owner planned a crew practice but didn’t tell the owner that was coordinating with the crew.

We had five crew members onboard Sunday morning, which was enough for a practice. After the sail, we came away with a ten-item worklist of things that would certainly have hurt us during racing. One work item required me to go up the rig. Afterward, we learned that a boson’s chair doubles as a swing.

Racing

We didn’t win a race or the series. A 1D35 named Shrek took six bullets over nine races, Annapurna took the others. However, we made a good showing, we got a couple of second places.

We didn’t make any major boat handling mistakes. Most of our starts were clean with no over-earlies. We had speed at the line and most starts left us with clear air. There were no major mistakes on any of our mark roundings. The closest we came to a problem was a fraculator line that fouled the tack of the spinnaker and prevented it from going out as we rounded the mark. I cut the line (and a little bit of the sail) and we set the spinnaker sail 10 seconds later than we would have. We weren’t always on the best side of the course, but we had a few good moments too. Our bullet difficiency came down to a lot of little things. We lost a few seconds here and there to our competitors. Our competitors have dialed-in crews and boats, we are still ~10% off of were we need to be. Still, I think we all had fun and we got faster as the week progressed.

Last year, we had 20+ knots of wind every day. Most crews, including ours, weren’t well practiced in those high-wind conditions. Most teams hadn’t sailed together in more than a year due to COVID. I was taken out of race week after an uncontrolled gybe on the first day of racing that left me with a concussion and a deep laceration above my left eyebrow. There was one other matching eye-injury from crew on a TP52 boat. Another individual died on the race course after getting tangled in a line and falling overboard. This year, everyone was very safety conscientious and didn’t want a repeat of those events.

This year, conditions were much more in keeping with race weeks of years past. We had 8 to 10 kts of breeze, if we had any wind at all. We did have a few races with more than 15 knots of breeze, where our boat has an advantage over our competitors. Tuesday was a total float-fest with no wind. We got no racing the one day our friend Minimus joined us. We did get some practice with very-light air gybing.

Wednesday was rough. Race committee started one race in light wind. Instead of ending the race when the wind got really flukey, they opted to finish the race at the weather mark. The wind shut off and left us with a last-place. At around 11:00am, surrounded by glassy water, our team and others concluded there would be no more racing for the day.

Some boats auctioned off adult beverages to raise money for breast cancer research. Abbey picked up the radio and bid $20 for a pitcher of margarita. After an awkward pause, the auctioneer came back saying the last bid stood at $80. We were committed to bid at this point, we had to save face. So we pooled our resources and purchased a tasty $100 pitcher of marge. Even Sam participated, though at the onset of bidding, he said he doesn’t drink tequila. Was he warning us?  The wheels on the bus were a little bit wobbly when the wind suddenly came up with gusto, at 15 to 20kts. That’s enough to put serious loads on the boat. Suddenly and unexpectedly, our raucous rabbling turned into raucous racing. Sam, in particular, had transformed into captain F-bomb. He used his new-found vocabulary for fun, but it did put an edge on team dynamics. Some of the crew responded in kind with salty acknowledgements of Sam’s often repeated commands.

I became very serious and focused. I wasn’t saying much of anything, which isn’t my typical race posture. I had to do a serious race with wobbly wheels. I did not want to sustain a serious race week injury, fall off of the boat or mess up a mark rounding. It was a sloppy race, some sail changes where a little slower than normal. However, we kept everything together and managed to get a 3rd place. We thought we had managed a 2nd place, and I secretly hoped we might have done better than that.

Thursday and Friday gave us of plenty of racing, and we started logging our 2nd place finishes. Going into Friday, we were in the running for 3rd place overall. We were close most of the time, but weren’t quite fast enough to get the points we needed. The fleet, particularly the top four boats, were often within seconds of each other at the finish.

Party barge and crew dinner

Past race weeks had rum tents. You pay $15 for a wrist band for the week for all you can drink. After a day of racing, you walk to the rum tents. Then, you just walk up to the bar, order your favorite pineapply-rummy-passionfruity beverage and enjoy. Experienced sailors learn you can order two at a time. Then, you repeat the whole process for the 4 hour window the bars are open. The rum tents usually have a live band, and about half way through, they announce the day’s race results and hand out daily prizes.

This race week, they didn’t quite have the rum tents, but they did bring in a few barge-like docks. They had pay per glass beer. On a few of the nights, they had live music. Things are trending in the right direction, and they assured us the rum tents will return next year.

Wednesday (AKA they day of wobbly wheels) our own crewmate Mark was playing with his band on the party barge. We showed up for the beginning of the set. Lillie was very excited. She walked to the stage and Mark invited her up. Lillie noticed a bag full of harmonicas. She was quick to pick one up and she was ready to jam with the band. Sarah and I weren’t as keen, we grabbed Lillie and suggested she show off her dance moves on the dance floor and not on stage.

We enjoyed the band, complete with dancing and singalong. A bit later, they announced the results for the day. Sam grabbed our 3rd place prize, a tech-shirt. We all suffered a little disappointment at not getting 2nd place.

We then headed off to crew dinner. We found a restaurant overlooking the channel. We had a challenging day of racing. Our crew worked well together, we sailed fast and got on the podium. Sam looked across the table at the crew with a water and sunset background and said, “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. This is what its all about, man.” I’ve been at every Raceweek with Sam for the last 20. I wasn’t sure if Sam was feeling sentimental because this was my last raceweek for the next 5 years or if it was the Tequila, but Sam was moved to tears.

Ironically, I don’t actually like most of sailboat racing all that much. My life while racing is full of anxiety. Every 60 seconds of mark rounding is a trial by fire of every line I’ve connected. A successful mark rounding involves set of complex coordinated actions by me and most of the crew. If I mess up, or others mess up, sails are fouled up and we lose the race. I spend most of the leg of a race repacking the spinnaker sail and rerunning lines. I pop-up on deck and get on the rail to see the next mark approaching. All I can do is stress out and second guess all of my rigging until we finally get around the mark. Then, the whole thing repeats. Sometimes it isn’t fun for me, I get grumpy and snap at the crew.

There’s this other part to sailing that more than makes up for that anxiety. There is a beautiful flow and coordination between all of the individuals on a crewed sailboat. That flow extends to other sailboats and their crews as boats move around each other. All of us together, with the wind and the waves, generate a chaotic mixture that can’t be predicted. My job on the boat requires me to move around the deck, to pull on lines to control the sails, to anticipate the needs of our boat based on our surroundings. I can’t predict when a wave or a course change will move the boat underneath me or when those movements may put me off balance or take me out of position. My job is to find perfect movement and action, smooth and fast and flowing to pull the sails into the boat. My movement and flow is directly connected to other crew through lines and rigging and the boat itself. We use our control and movement to create a flow from all of the surrounding chaos and I love it.

Sam was right though. There are moments in sailboat racing when the crew and the boat are one. Everyone knows their job. My absolute favorite moments are when we encounter an unexpected situation and everyone responds without even being told what to do. I really love those moments. I love being part of a team that is in-sync enough to pull off that level of cooperation. We got a little taste of that on that Wednesday, and I think Sam was really feeling it.

Or maybe it was the Tequila. Just moments after Sam’s emotional reflection, I had to answer the question, “How did we do, today?” for perhaps the third time of the night. Sam had to relive the disappointment of realizing we got a 3rd place rather than a 2nd.

Spice and potstickers

On Thursday night, we hosted the crew on Spice. We served Dark and Stormy beverages and potstickers. We had timed the event with the tides thinking that Hydra could raft up against Spice. At low tide, there was just about 9 feet of water, and Hydra draws 8.5 feet. We decided against it, and ferried everyone over to the boat via Dinghy. Three trips back and forth, and the party could start.

We had plenty of space between the cockpit and the trampoline area. Some made use of the bean bag, and some of the kids jumped on the tramps. Spice is likely to be the destination party boat in many anchorages as we travel around the world.

Raceweek wrap up

We ended up in 4th place out of five boats. We tried to get up to 3rd, but couldn’t pull it off. I think we all enjoyed ourselves. Saturday, the day after race week, a parade of boats headed out around the same time in the morning to catch favorable tides.

We had made arrangements to meet Mark and his wife Laurence for an overnight in the San Juans the day after race week. Abbey and Calvin joined us on Spice. We made our way across Rosario Straight in light and variable winds. We rendezvoused with Mark and Laurence at the entry to San Juan channel and finally anchored together in South Bay on Lopez Island.

We all enjoyed a bit of beach time and some cold water swimming. Mark and Laurence shared their sage advice about South Pacific cruising. Lillie made friends on the beach and was cruising around the water on a kayak piloted by a kid named Angus with a gang of kids on paddle boards.

Then, we all met up on Spice for dinner. Mr. Taco, Mark and Laurence’s cat, also came over.

Race week was a fun but exhausting week. A quick overnight cruise made for a much nicer transition back to the real world. For us, the transition back to the real world means a haul out for repairs and new paint for the bottom of Spice’s hulls.