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Daily Van Isle 360 Reports

Leg 1

Leg 2

Leg 3

Leg 4

Leg 5

Leg 6

Leg 7

Leg 8

Leg 9

Leg 10

Overall

KINETIC – June 10, day 0, pre-race, Nanaimo

We arrived in Nanaimo to congratulations from  the race committee and many of our competitors for getting the boat ready in time for the race, after an untimely accident in April which almost cost us the entire season.  We met our first-week shore crew, Val Marie Coutts and Karen Taylor, along with second-week shore crew Gaylean Sutcliffe (to be joined later by Brenda McLean) and other family members.  Our time was occupied by many last minute chores and formalities including the safety inspection. Crew of 11 for each leg were drawn from Rich Alban, Dave Christopher, Steve & Debbie Kempton, Bill May, Mark McKim, Jim Prentice, Brian Richards, Naomi Roddick, David Sutcliffe, Graham Walker and Greg Westerlund. 

KINETIC – June 11, day 1, leg 1, Nanaimo to French Creek

We started under a clearing sky at 1030 with 36 other race boats on a tight start line squeezed into the inner harbour in Nanaimo, with spectators lining the piers and cheering the fleet on.  The wind was very light, about 3 knots, and we were the second monohull over the start line, right behind Time Bandit at the heavily favored pin end.  We reached out of Nanaimo Harbour, were lifted around Gallows Point, and crossed tacks with the lead boats into a building breeze along Protection Island to the Winchelseas.  Wind speeds of 6 to 15 knots were offset by the challenges of an adverse ebb tide and short- tacking our way through the tricky, rock-strewn gaps in the Winchelsea Islands.  We chased Diehler, White Cloud and Lawndart, and were ahead of the 1D48 Flash for a rare stretch, before having the wind go light as we covered the last few miles to the finish at French Creek.  Then, just as we finished, the wind freshened, sweeping the trailing boats forward to finish closely behind us.  Results – one great day of sailing, testing our readiness, and 9th place out of 17 boats in division 1.  
 

KINETIC – June 12, day 2, leg 2, French Creek to Comox

The start was at 0900 immediately outside the harbour at French Creek.  The wind was very light from the northwest, with the forecast suggesting that it would transition to moderate southerly sometime mid-afternoon.  We started on starboard in clean air among the lead third of the fleet and quickly tacked to port to beat towards Lasquetti Island.  Beating in a light breeze of 4 to 5 knots with small waves we worked very hard to get the boat up to speed and keep it there.  We fell back in the fleet as some boats chased the tantalizingly light wind all the way to the Lasquetti shore, getting a lift there.  We tacked before getting to Lasquetti, reasoning that there would be a lift and more breeze between Sisters and Hornby Islands; in this we followed Cassiopeia, Flash and another boat.  For a while, the boats to our right were ahead of us, but as the wind lifted through the gap, increased and then veered we were among the first to fly a spinnaker, and the first to gybe back towards Hornby Island.  We peeled from the .6 chute to the .4 chute, before peeling back to the .6 and then the .75 as the wind built to 18-22.  Crew work was excellent.  We made a big gain here, passing all the boats to our right except for White Cloud, with whom we converged and engaged in a 8 mile boat-for-boat race at 9 knots in almost flat water to the finish line outside the Comox bar.  Although we were only separated by several boat-lengths, we simply could not find the speed to pass them, and finished about 30 seconds behind after racing for about five and a half hours, or some 30 miles.   Results – another great day of sailing, combining a light air beat, key tactical decisions and an exciting run; an encouraging 6th place among 17 boats.
 

KINETIC – June 13, day 3, leg 3, Comox to Campbell River

Our shore crew of Val Marie and Karen were up at the crack of dawn, feeding us and provisioning the boat for the day.  The start was delayed by 15 minutes to accommodate boats who weren’t organized and blocked the rest of the fleet from getting off the dock on time.  Winds were Southerly at about 25 knots and there were rough disorganized seas in the start area just outside the Comox bar.  We got a reasonable but not great start, about one third of the way back in the fleet, fully powered up.  The forecast was for the winds to build and then go light, and our objective was to get to the finish line at Campbell River before this happened.  We reached from the start to the cardinal buoys off Cape Lazo and then bore off to a downwind VMG run under the full main and a number three jib as the wind built to 30 knots.  We hoisted a large reacher and scooted downwind having a great sail at speeds of 9-11 knots.  The boats ahead of us continued right on starboard gybe, some 20-30 degrees high of the mark, except Time Bandit who went to an asymmetric chute and pointed deeper.  As the rhumbline was essentially dead downwind, we decided to gybe to port and fly the reacher wing and wing with the main.  Just as we were setting up for the gybe, we heard a rushed radio call which sounded like another boat, Cheekee Monkey, had a man overboard.  We spoke to them on the radio, confirmed they had a man in the water and needed help, talked to another boat, Flash, to better locate their position, and then headed up sharply, blast reaching at 10-13 knots across the waves.  We then talked with a third boat, White Cloud, to split up the search job.  As the boats converged on Cheekee Monkey’s location, we heard by radio that they had the man back on board and that everything was OK.  We learned later that they had lost 2 people overboard at the same time, including the skipper, out of a total crew of 5.  As their boat is a very wet and wild trimaran, they were both wearing drysuits and were none the worse for wear.  We then gybed to port, winged out the reacher and headed close to dead downwind and accelerated to 10-12 knots with surfing speeds reaching 13, 14, 15, 16 and eventually 17.8 knots, setting a new all-time record for the boat (later upgraded to 18.8 knots after we had a chance to review the max speed log).  Rich Alban had the honour of setting the new record, which may stand for some time.  Wind speeds were ranging from 28-34 knots.  We broke the same vang line twice and jury-rigged a repair.  It was evident that Time Bandit had escaped from the fleet and was unbeatable short of something breaking.  The wind lessened to 22-28 knots and we hoisted our 1.5 ounce chute, just in time for the wind to freshen back to 30+ knots.  Meanwhile White Cloud crossed a few gybes with us and made it through the finish line ahead of us, followed by Flattery and Kinetic separated by only a few seconds.    Thirty four boats completed the course in less time than the previous course record of just over four hours.  Results – an exhilarating day of windy downwind sailing, redress for us and other competitors for assisting with the man overboard situation; and another improved result – a 4th place among 17 division 1 boats.  We are now in third place in division 1 after the first three days of racing.

We got away from Campbell River at 0800 for a start at 1100 in Deepwater Bay. To get there, we motored North through the famed Seymour Narrows, bucking a 4-5 knot flood by slipping along the shore from bay to bight to back-eddy. The entire fleet of 37 boats started at once, with Flash stretching out on an early lead and Kinetic hot behind her with Rich Alban at the helm delivering a great start. Looking back, we saw the fleet spreading out across the course, fighting for clear air and engaging in close quarters tacking.

The winds built from 7-8 knots NW at the start to 13-15 knots within an hour, providing ideal windward sailing conditions - good breeze and flat water. The 72 ft. maxisled Cassiopeia powered past us as we tried to fight off the faster Santa Cruz 50 and 52's. Lawndart and Diehler slipped past us as we crossed tack after tack with White Cloud, and looked back at Flattery and Trip Tease pressing us uncomfortably close. Most of the fleet tacked up the right hand shore before crossing to the left side to approach Chatham Point. The boats ahead stretched out their lead rounding Chatham Point and we fought hard to gain back some of that distance in Johnstone Strait. We sailed boatspeeds in the 7's and low 8's and ground out many tacks. The last Santa Cruz, Mystic, passed us before the finish - not far enough ahead though to beat us. A light patch near the finish compressed the fleet ahead and behind, and we finished the race 7th of the 19 boats in division 1 and ended up 9th on corrected time. After 4 days of racing, we are now 6th place in our division. Tactically, the race was all about sailing in clear air, finding the favorable currents and playing the lifts along the shores.
 

The race started at 0930 in less than 2 knots of wind and a slight ebb setting
across the start line. Kinetic started at the favored end where there was a
current advantage along the shore. Other boats were mid line and three were
over early - a big problem in an ebb where there is little or no wind to get
back over the line to start properly. One of the slowest-rated boats in our
division took over an hour to (re-)start.

The wind filled in very gradually and we played every ghosting puff and
gradually built some boat speed. In a repeat performance, Flash got ahead of
the monohull fleet with Kinetic immediately behind her. The fleet was splayed
out over a wide area and those farther out gybed back towards us as we slid
through a gap with the current. We then hit a current wall as we left the ebb
which was more like a large back-eddy and ran into the incoming flood. At
least a dozen boats passed us so we gybed out, crossed their sterns, paying to
get out of the current and to a better wind angle for the next point. We
passed several boats before the next point and several more along the shore in
a very tricky dying breeze, until only Flash was in front of us. Near astern
were White Cloud, Flattery and three Santa Cruz's.

We sensed a few wind shifts and made several sail changes, gradually
separating from our competition. Flash went hard right, we went out to mid
channel and the wind filled in gradually again. With Flash gybing along the
right shore and us heading across the channel, we stretched out to a huge lead
over the fleet. Looking back at the wall of colorful spinnakers made for a
beautiful view. We peeled from the .4 oz chute to the .6 oz chute as the wind
built to 16-20 knots. Gybing around Southbound commercial traffic, we were
eventually passed by Cassiopeia, joining Flash as the only monohull in front
of us. We held on and hoped for the best with the .6 oz chute as the wind
built further to 20-24, and then gradually faded. We closed on the boats
ahead, including the multihulls, but could not catch them.

We crossed the finish line behind Cassiopeia and Flash, beating both of them
on corrected time, and ahead of the faster-rated Santa Cruz's and ahead of the
equally rated White Cloud, beating them for the first time. We finished 7th
of 17 boats, after the back end of the fleet compressed into the front with
the stronger wind filling in from behind. Such was this compression effect
that the boat that started an hour late ended up getting an 8th place result!
That's sailboat racing ... Another great day of sailing. We are still in 6th
place overall.
 

Starting conditions combined a fickle outflow from Beaver Cove and a Southerly tantalizingly near but just outside the start line.  We got a mid-fleet start, too close to Oriole, and got clear only after heading up and then diving down through her considerable lee.  It became a great downwind ride in moderate air, working our way through the fleet into a better position as we passed very close along the beach in front of the community of Alert Bay.  Flash was ahead, White Cloud and a wall of spinnakers just behind, when we chose the wrong side of a kelp fringed reef and sailed right into a nasty hole.  The fleet sailed by, chortling, as we, Diehler, Cassiopeia, Oriole and another boat parked for a seemingly eternal 45 minutes.  We eventually wriggled free and used our drifter to catch up to the tail of the fleet.  The new wind came lightly out of the NW and we gradually picked off the stragglers, trying to salvage something out of the race.  Proving that Lady Luck was back on our side, the RC soon announced over the radio that no boat had finished within the first time limit and therefore the race was abandoned.  A wild round of cheering ensued onboard Kinetic!  We motored into Port Hardy and picked a nice spot along the dock area reserved for the Van Isle fleet. 

Another start in very light winds.  We got away from the start line very well, on the left side, slipping past a nasty shoal in little puffs and working our way out of the bay.  Just when we thought we might be giving the slip to most of the fleet, we saw new wind filling in ahead and to the right!  That energized the boats to the right and they wheeled past us.  We went hard right, got into the new wind and peeled from our .4 oz to our .75 oz chute.  The SE wind built to 14-18 as we gybed down the strait, loosely covering White Cloud and Flattery.  Peak winds reached 18-20 on a beautiful day with some adverse current.  The wind went light again as we reached the respected Nawhitti Bar, the fleet compressed up and White Cloud skillfully slipped by us in a challenging wind/current/slop transition at the Bar.  Flattery and Trip Tease were hot on our transom as we crossed the Bar, got into the new 6 knot NE wind, a North setting current of 2-3 knots and a horrific slop that we simply could not drive the boat through in such light air.  We struggled for a long time before clawing our way out of the worst slop and heading inshore to the West.  After hop-scotching between holes and wind, we found a brisk 10-15, gusting 20 knots SE wind as we approached Cape Scott, rounding it hard on the wind, shifting gears up and down a few times between the #1 and #2 genoas.  We exchanged inshore and offshore tacks with Time Bandit.  There was a very strong adverse current inshore, partially offset by an inshore lift.  Gains and losses, inside and outside, seemed inconsistent from tack to tack.  The sun sank into the sea, backlighting the sails on the horizon behind us, as we beat to the South in a gradually dying breeze.  We finished in darkness and the last of the breeze at Quatsino Light, between Time Bandit and Trip Tease.  We scored a 7^th for the leg and our race-to-date standing is 6^th. 

Potentially the toughest weather leg on the course, we started in the faintest of NE outflows, on port tack with the chute up one minute before the start, struggling left towards our goal.  We then took some starboard gybes through the fleet, trying to work our way behind Flash out to the forecast W breeze, but never getting there.  Meanwhile most of the fleet stayed left, ghosting along the outflow, and by the time we reached Solander I off Brooks Pensinsula, we were beside or behind many boats that we needed to beat.  We spent all afternoon and night catching boats as the wind filled in W 12 to 16 to 20 knots and gave us a most memorable downwind run.  By early morning we were close in to shore in a dying breeze near Leonard Island, having somehow deviated from our game plan by misjudging our gybe angle and layline.  We took our medicine, gybed out and did a “great circle route” around Flattery to finish on a fast reach in a re-building breeze at Amphitrite Point.  We finished a disappointing 14^th, dropping our overall standing to 8^th. 

We got a great start, reaching in past Time Bandit close to the highly favored pin end, in a nice SE breeze of 8-10 knots which soon built to 12.  A few tacks later, Dragonfly, on port, ducked us dramatically just as a strong puff lifted their port hull several feet above the water, exposing their knife-like daggerboard which seemed about to slice several feet off the aft end of Kinetic.  Initially, Kinetic was ahead to the left side of the course with Lawndart and Dragonfly, but we were gradually ground down and passed by the faster-rated Mystic and Diehler, and by White Cloud and Trip Tease.  We re-took Dragonfly, Trip Tease and Diehler as we pressed the Cape Beal shoreline harder than them.  In ideal beating conditions, we cycled through a number of drivers, keeping people fresh for the long night.  By 1730, the SE wind was dying and we followed Mystic, Diehler and White Cloud out towards what we hoped would be the new W wind.  Trip Tease and Flattery took one more tack into SE breeze along the Canadian shore, and never recovered.  The new breeze filled our chute, tentatively at first, then building up to 17 TWS.  We peeled through our chutes and stayed close to the rhumbline-favored Canadian shore while many boats went mid channel or even headed towards the American shore.  By 2100 the wind was dropping, to as low as 10 knots, and White Cloud, seeing the outside wasn’t working, gybed in and attacked us.  A boat for boat duel followed, with White Cloud gradually developing better boat speed and creeping ahead, foot by foot.  The wind rebuilt 12 to 15 to 18 knots as White Cloud and Kinetic slid past Allons Y, Farr-ari and Mystic, all in their own seemingly personal wind holes.  By Race Rocks we had Westerly wind of 22 to 25 knots TWS and we were doing 10+ knots of boat speed in hot pursuit of two boats who were close ahead.  We finished on the edge with a hot reach slightly right of the rhumbline from Race Rocks to Ogden Point, pressing our .75 oz chute hard, about 4 minutes behind White Cloud and less than a minute behind Time Bandit, after some 16 hours of racing.  We finished 7^th, raising our overall standing to 7^th.  Coming into to the Wharf Street docks after finishing at 0233, we hardly expected our shore crew to be awake, but there at the dock were Gaylean and Brenda, complete with beers and appetizers, prompting a rather late night / early morning dock party ...

We motored out of the harbour past the impressive fleet of Tall Ships from around the world.  Winds were boisterous at W 25-28 for the start; pre-start, we loitered in the shelter of "Cowards Cove" inside the Ogden Point breakwater.  We chose our #3 and reached through the start at great speed.  We soon flew the #1 while some other boats flew spinnakers, a move that seemed premature when Flattery and Trip Tease among others lost control of their chutes as the wind increased to gusts of 30+ near Trial Islands.  We blasted through Baynes Channel behind Diehler, choosing the left side, with Flattery hot behind us as we headed for the inside route up Dodd Narrows.  Most of the fleet stayed right, choosing Haro Strait and the outside route up Georgia Strait.  The wind soon died almost completely and our fate on this leg was already sealed, as the current continued to carry the outside fleet up the course while we found a perplexing back-eddy and were forced to anchor with Diehler near South Cod Reef.  We were away in a fresh but short-lived breeze around 2315 and anchored again briefly at 0100 near Moresby Passage before ghosting our way under spinnaker North through Captain’s Passage and past Scott Point at about 0440, at which time the first boats that took the outside route were already approaching the finish line in Nanaimo!  We passed Spirit of Ladysmith and Karina, found the NW breeze, light at first and then building, passed Bad Kitty and finally arrived at Dodd Narrows in a nice breeze at about 1100, finding Trip Tease anchored, Diehler testing the narrows and about 6 knots of adverse current.  We threw ourselves into the narrows and made endless tacks as we worked first one shore, then the other, all the while egged on by encouraging shouts from race organizer Wayne Gorrie, onshore taking photographs.  In one strong puff, we very nearly stole our way through, but the wind lightened at the crucial moment and the still-strong current prevailed, flushing us back through the narrows.  As slack water approached, the wind failed in concert with the current, preventing us from getting through.  A chaotic scene - "rush hour at Dodd Narrows" - soon developed as commercial boats, power boats, sailboats under power and about thirty “poker run” speed boats converged on the narrows all at the same time.  The poker run boats transited at 30-40+ knots and one used Bad Kitty and Kinetic as slalom gates, bouncing through wildly at full speed.  We finally eked our way through and beat into a freshening breeze, hot on the heels of Diehler and Trip Tease, to our belated finish in Nanaimo.  This low finish on a high point-weighted leg dropped our overall result to 8^th place. 

We will be back! 

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