Alla ombord Helsing!

July 27, 2011

I felt right at home on board the pseudo-Swedish boat, Helsing, that calls a slip in Boyne City home. It’s captain, Dennis, had placed an advertisement on the Boyne City Yacht Club‘s website for crew, and since I’m up on the lake without any particular daily schedule, I thought I might do a bit of sailboat racing.

The BCYC hosts its weekly race series on Tuesday evenings. A stiff wind was blowing all day down on my end of the lake and I was getting excited. The short drive from East Jordan was spectacular as I crossed the wide-open fields in the late afternoon sunshine, diving and rolling over the hilly landscape to the “big part” of the lake. Our house is on the South Arm of Lake Charlevoix, and though it’s over 10 miles long, it’s only a mile or so wide, dwarfing it in comparison to the main basin. Stretching from Charlevoix to Boyne City, in some sections it’s more than five miles wide and up to 122 feet deep. The winds there normally blow harder and longer, the waves several feet high. Owing to the size of the waves and the length of the trip from our house, we rarely sail on that side, and I was looking forward to the change of place.

I was the first to arrive that evening—we would  be a crew of six. I took my place on the foredeck, my main jobs were to be helping my new crewmate Shelly with the spinnaker pole when jibing, manning the spinnaker sheet (chosen I think for my ability to quickly move from the bow to the stern and back), stuffing the spinnaker as we re-hoisted the jib after coming around the buoy, and acting as ballast. Once the crew was assembled, we headed out of the marina to join the slew of other boats sailing around, waiting for the start. There would be three classes that evening: spinnaker (us), JAM (Jib And Main), and Portsmouth (smaller boats). It was a windward-leeward out and back race, with nine legs for our class, which seemed like a lot. There was a decent breeze, but it was forecast to drop over the course of the evening. What the heck, it was a glorious evening on the water and I had nowhere in I needed to be.

We were the last class to start, and at the 5 minute horn, we readied our jib—a beautiful gold racing sail which dwarfed the main. Shortly there after, we were under way. A series of tacks got us smoothly to the far buoy, and prepared to launch the spinnaker. Everything went off with out a hitch, and the chute popped in a rainbow of color over the water. Two jibes were required to complete the leg, Shelly and I accomplishing them with the grace and ease of experienced sailors. In fact, this is only the second race I’ve ever participated in, and Shelly has only been sailing for a couple of years. At the mark, we raised the jib and managed to stuff the spinnaker without getting it in the water. The next three legs went about the same, as we gradually relaxed more and more into our assigned roles.

They say the third time’s the charm. In our case, it was just the opposite. Coming around the turn for the sixth leg, we caught a puff of wind a touch earlier than expected, pulling the spinnaker out of its bag, causing it to twist into an hourglass shape. Shelly had to quickly pull it back town to straighten it out but the huge sail not only went into the water, it got caught under the boat. A brief moment of panic on behalf of the crew (mainly Shelly, and myself on the spinnaker sheet) turned into a crash-course in spinnaker problem-solving, and we had the sail back up and full of wind in no time, not even so much worse for the wear except for being a little wet and a bit of black sea sludge clinging to the delicate blue panels. Well, we’ll know how to avoid that next time!

Down the seventh leg, we realized that several boats were not using their spinnakers on the return, and that in fact the race had been shortened probably due to the dying wind. We finished only 14 seconds behind Lickety Split, and would have easily been in third place if it wasn’t for the snafu with the spinnaker, and an unfortunate extra tack at the end we had to make to be sure to come correctly across the finishing line.

After the race, we all headed over to the Boyne River Inn, known affectionately to local sailors and (motor) bikers alike as the BRI where we gorged our selves on deliciously greasy pub food and waited for the results. It was all an amazing educational sailing experience, an evening well-spent, and I enjoyed the company of all my new sailing friends. And I’m sure looking forward to next Tuesday!

Filed under: Michigan,Sailing,USA

Tags: Boyne City, Lake Charlevoix, one way ticket, one way tkt, onewayticket, onewaytkt, racing, sailing, Sports, summer