Lake Erie Challenge

SI for Race #5 of the Lake Erie Challenge, Ullman Cup.

Sail #56 was EPIC on Sock Monkey. A FULL MOON RACE occurring between a blazing sunset in the west and a soft, tranquil moon rise in the east in Buffalo's Outer ...Harbor. 25+ knot winds and 5 foot waves threatened our race, delaying the start by an hour; but when both wind and waves diminished a bit (just a bit) we raced. Our course took us through a roller coaster of rollers on a reach on one (or two) legs outside the breakwall, flatter waters on the upwind leg inside the break wall, and another leg on a reach on the flat water again (Skipper: "What's our boat speed? 5 knots? Throw up the spinnaker and see if we can do better"... speed accelerates to OVER 8 knots!). Upwind leg got a little hairy at one point as Skipper yelled out, "I'M WEATHER HELMED!!" - he'd lost control driving. Both sails were immediately eased out by crew - I dropped the traveler to spill power from the main sail. "Thank you," the skipper said. This had to be the most challenging race yet for me on the main sail. As the sun set and twilight set in I lost view of my tell tales and even the windex wind indicator at the top of the mast at times. All I could see was the white pin-pricks of stars in the cloudless sky above and the dark shape of my sail. I kept thinking how useful glow-in-the-dark tell tales and a windex arrow would be. It's darn difficult trimming a sail without either of those things! Luckily I had a couple people - the Skipper and a guest crew member named Scott - who could somehow MAGICALLY deduce when the sail needed trimming. Aside from driving the boat into the harbor one evening after the sun had gone down last fall, this was my first night sail! Certainly my first on the main sail! It was fun - but also a bit challenging! I need to learn how to magically deduce sail trim in the dark! Although Skipper DID say I did very well tonight. After the race we sailed around in the dark for fun and ate breaded pork chops and pasta salad and chocolate chip cookies. It was a fantastic time. See more

Tomorrow Night!

Before I tell the story of last night’s man overboard, the crew of Slider wants to thank David Krystaf and his crew aboard Ate for the timely rescue of our crew... member John Egan. We also want to thank Greg Toole and the crew of GW for their rapid response and assistance in the rescue operation. Without the efforts of either of these two fine crews, this story certainly ends in tragedy. You have our deepest gratitude and thanks for preventing that. Instead, this story, like so many others, ended with friends sharing a few pizzas, beers, and a list of things we want to share with all of you that we learned last night. So here we go As we were performing a tack onto starboard approximately of a mile West of the Buffalo Lighthouse, John was crossing the boat to the high side, tripped on what was either the driver’s footrest or the deck port for the emergency tiller, that remains unclear to everyone. On loss of balance, John stumbled toward the lifeline and attempted to grab it but was ultimately unsuccessful and fell headfirst over the lifeline. On most boats in BHSC, an incident of this nature is well noticed as the entire crew is forward of the driver and everyone is bumping elbows getting the boat onto the new board. The Farr 40, Farr 47, and both Andrews 30s all have open transoms, aft-mounted travelers, and space on the rail for people to hike aft of the driver. It’s my usual spot, next to Mr. Egan on the upwind legs. Last night I was on the mainsheet and John was alone behind Jack G. Kitrenos. As the boat was tacked, all eyes were forward/up, winches were turning, people were moving No one saw him fall overboard. There wasn’t a sound of him hitting the boat, bouncing off the lifeline, nothing. He just vanished. Through the tack, Tim Wenger is responsible for pulling the new jib sheet on, before he passes it off to our trimmer and heads to the rail. Tim was the first person to actually look backward and notice something floating in the water. In the 5-10 seconds between the start of the tack and Tim hitting the rail, the boat was doing 8 knots (almost 14ft/s) and John was already so far away, we couldn’t really tell if it was a person or not. We could only see the back shoulder of his jacket which was red and it blended in really well with the water in the low light conditions. John’s life jacket did not auto inflate as it was equipped for, but luckily he was conscious and manually inflated with the pull cord, but by then another 3-4 seconds went by and he was even smaller and harder to see. At this point, we still aren’t even sure what we are looking at is a person and things quickly became more chaotic. While we were all trying to make sense of the situation, my sister Rian Matzel did a headcount and as we all looked around to make sure everyone was on board, the realization that someone missing was harrowing. 15 total seconds passed between John falling off the boat and the start of us turning around. Between John’s drift rate and our rate of speed, we were already upwards of 250ft from him and he was near impossible to see when he was at the wave crest. In the trough, he was not visible at all. In the next 15 seconds, Tim got on the VHF to announce the MOB, the jib was coming down, the motor was on, and we were headed to where we thought he was. 30 seconds, not a mountain of time by any stretch, and we were already late to the party. Dave was already attempting to get John attached to his boat by this point so we swept in behind them to leeward prepared with a life ring in the event they were unsuccessful in getting him on board. Dave was successful and could tell his part of this story far better than I could. We are all lucky he was there. Getting into the analysis part of the evening I want to start with the decision to race last night. WE decided to go out. The RC of BHSC did not make us. Sailing has always been very clear about this being an at-will sport. If you want to be out there, great. If you want to stay at the dock, great. It has and will always be a personal decision to go out on the water. I don’t believe last night’s racing conditions were dangerous. We have all raced in more wind and bigger sea states. The mandatory life jacket call was correct, nice job Alan Adema for recognizing that. We regularly saw the masthead touch off 25 knots of wind but the wind didn’t swing out of the South until almost 2PM, significantly limiting wave heights. Charles Obersheimer told me this morning they kept moving the car forward to power the #3 up, they were looking for more breeze. What conditions you choose to sail in is yours alone. HOWEVER And this brings us to point number 1 of our post-race pizza and beer debrief, the daylight situation was poor at best. Had the incident happened 10 minutes later all of us would have had one HELL of a time locating John as the sun set. I have long been a proponent for finishing all competitors before the sun sets, this incident has greatly strengthened my feelings on that position. It’s an unnecessary risk, plain and simple and I think the Club should make a stronger effort in the future to get us all over the finish line and headed for home before dark. Understanding that this year has been an anomalous scheduling nightmare when it gets to be late August/early September, we have a problem with the amount of available light. A 45-minute complete start sequence is just plain too long this time of year and there is definitely room for improvement. Point 2. We all need to do a better job picking our attire to race in. John went in the water in heavy leather topsiders, jean shorts, an expired SOSpender Auto inflating PFD, and a dark red jacket. All of those worked against him. Heavy waterlogged clothing and dark clothing are a recipe for disaster. Polyester fabrics, light sneakers, anything but water holding clothing, and don’t be afraid to get naked once you are in the water. Shedding weight will help keep you alive. Buy orange, white, neon green, anything but red, black, or blue. It isn’t about how fancy you look, we need to be able to see you in the water. Stop buying the cheap garbage, pill style jackets. Your life is literally at stake. No manual jackets, no waist packs, no dissolvable pills. Mustang Survival makes a hydrostatic inflator that trips via water pressure. They are the only brand inflatable my family trusts and that was reinforced last night. If you are too cheap to spend the ~$275 on it, stay home. I have no desire to fish your dead body out of the lake because your pill inflator didn’t work. Point 3. If you have people sitting behind the driver, they are not allowed to be alone. No one is back there to see them if something goes wrong. All eyes were forward. We won’t be doing that ever again. Buddy system behind the driver in big breeze or you are getting jammed in with the foredeck team upfront, sorry. Point 4. ALWAYS BE SCANNING THE WATER. The boat that loses the MOB is rarely the boat to pick up the MOB. Be the next Dave, save the next life. It is our hope that our experience last night can alter the way all of you go about things. Rarely, do we as sailors take this stuff seriously because it's "always someone else". Last night was our turn and even with the hundreds of years of combined experience we could all add up, there is room to do better. This sport isn't dangerous, but it isn't safe either. Safe Sailing Slider USA 54770

Full Moon registration ends Thursday, September 3RD. BEST race of the year!

Even though the winds weren't with us both days, it was still a GREAT time in honor of a Great person, Mark Harris! If you missed it this year, there is always next year.

Those that don't know Dunkirk, here are some images of the marina we hope help.