Hal Puddy post-race writeup...

I had been stressing for two days deciding just how unsafe it would be to race the Melges in the Hal Puddy.  We had decided to leave the go/ no go call to the last minute.  With wind looking light at around 7 pm, and forecasts changing to indicate less wind for the late night, we voted to take the oversized dinghy for a midnight romp.  Everybody got a pretty good downwind start which was nice to see.  In the skippers meeting a makeshift rule was enacted to limit luffing anyone for the first 100yards, but just outside that zone, a quick look over my shoulder confirmed Kalahar sticking it pretty hard to the Hobie.  As you can imagine, we thought that was just fantastic!  We soaked a little low and lengthened a bit of lead on those guys as they played games 2minutes into a 4hr race.  Ronnie had his absolutely beautiful new 99 out, and was stealthing down town side on his own program, whereas the rest of us looked for more pressure by heading immediately above the parked freighter and working our way down past the fish pens. 

pTeron, Myrrh, and Wild Thing all arrived together at the turn mark at the end of Ediz Hook.  We knew we badly needed inside position on that mark, anticipating a long port tack train after the rounding.  Luckily, with a couple of jibes and some monkeying around, we were able to weasel inside position before the 2 boatlength zone.  After the rounding we just focused on keeping the Melges moving through the awful slop that had piled up with the current and wind going opposite.  We were expecting to get crushed by the heavier boats, but in retrospect, I think our 24 foot boat was able to snake through the short-wavelength, mixed seas better then expected.  Talking to Mike later, he said they were banging along pretty badly, and went through quite a few costly sail changes and reefs while looking for the best combo.  On the melges, it’s one set of sails does all, so we just kept focused on pressing when the steep ones came along, and pinching and feathering in between.  Admittedly, when we saw Myrrh repeatedly tack back hugging the outside shore of the Hook, we outright copied his plan.  I sort of have a philosophy with Kalahar…when in doubt…follow the MAN.

Things were going well for us on pTeron at this point, and we had pulled far enough out front that we had basically lost sight of the boats behind.  I don’t know exactly why we were going so fast upwind.  For one, I didn’t have the rig setup anywhere near the standard.  I was max on the uppers and lowers, in anticipation of big breeze, and lazy to unwind everything.  That first beat, however, was medium breeze and lumpy.  Maybe all that extra rig tension, although flattening the sails, keep everything from bouncing around so much.  The normal mode is to loosen everything up and try to get as much torque out of the rig as possible, but we didn’t, and for whatever reason we were just shredding upwind.

Arriving at the top mark well in first, we bore away to Greg’s GPS bearing of 26 degrees.  We checked out the angle first with the jib still up, and then decided that we could carry the kite.  We did a windward set, yanked it around, and began blazing downwind through the inky darkness.  It turns out we averaged 7.9 knots over the entire course, so it’s safe to say that by the time we took that thing down, we were hauling serious ass.  We had the vang completely blown the mainsheet totally eased and I was just sailing to the kite, running the ragged edge, while Greg, Sean, and Mikey gave me feedback about the waves that we were taking just barely aft of broadside.  With me there is a very fine line between excitement and anxiety and I’m not sure which side of that line we were on.  The wind kept building and the angle was just too tight.  About ¾ of the way out, I turned downwind for nick and the boys did a quick and clean windward douse.  So…. Bang. There we were…  planning now with just jib up, still de-powering like crazy, still dark as hell, and carrying a big luff in both sails.  We pressed onward with enough vigor to make Ronnie proud….and let me just say….One look into Ronnie’s eyes, and anyone can see right away that he feels NO FEAR.  I know this from experience.

We kept on until the GPS said we were right on top of the mark.  We were searching and searching but couldn’t find the damn thing…it seemed the wind ticked up again, adding another 5knots and we felt some rain.  Ooohh… is it a squall…??  OK I was officially past excitement, and into anxiety.  We were debating about the yellow and green flashers we could see in the distance.  Greg was saying we were just past the damn thing, while at the same time Sean was saying, “it’s just a couple more hundred yards!” (turns out it would have been a good 5-10 miles).  At that point we took a vote, and the unanimous call was to bag it.  Everybody needs to be safe and know their limits, so I was proud of our guys for all agreeing that it was time.

Coming back was a windy wet ride on a close reach that seemed to take forever.  The guys basically stopped hiking and sat with one leg in the cockpit and one over the rail.  Having no option to reef, I was luffing both sails hard.  Once we where within 3 miles of the Ediz Hook bouy, the wind started easing off.  We dodged a tug and barge, arriving at the end of the Hook…when out of the darkness emerged…a Hobie 33…sailing at a super weird broad angle.  Where the hell did they come from?  We just decided that they must have decided to quit, or something, as certainly they weren’t out there in the middle with us!!!  We tacked up wind, feeling quite happy to still have a mast, glowing in the accomplishment of the weird saga.  We took our time at the finish just for fun at 12:55:07.  That was a few minutes in front of Wild Thing.

I still had no idea what happened when I arrived home.  Still amped out, I just had to know where we were, so I fired up the computer and downloaded our track.  HOLY CRAP.  Have a look at the attached file…  It’s good for a laugh!  4.2 extra miles is a lot to add to a racecourse in the dark….in the strait…in an oversized dinghy….holy cow.

That’s 2 strikes against the Halberg brothers.  Last time Sean tried to kill me with a GPS was last winter when we skied off the klahanne saddle …. but that’s another story.

Congratulations to Jeff and Debbie Millet.  4 minutes.  Way to go guys!!!  Unreal!.  That is your best race EVER in my opinion.  Awesome job guys!!!

Dan Kaseler

Raptor Sails Inc /Gaastra R&D

dkaseler@olypen.com