Monterey Cruiser Challenge X

Image Courtesy of Carl



What can I say about this event? It is great fun and the Potter folks are awesome. Even though the venue was the same this year, Monterey, it was against a very different back drop of weather and ambiance. Last year there was music blaring till the wee hours from the downtown, it was warm and there were crowds of people etc. This year was foggy, cold and relatively quiet. I don't know if it is the economy or what that made the town much more subdued this time around.

Matt and I left San Jose later than I had wanted, things just conspired to put us both behind schedule. Regardless, we got in to the harbor parking lot around 1:30pm and got Isabel rigged and in the water without too much drama. Amazing what a years worth of experience can do for one's proficiency in such things. While I was tensioning the rig, the harbor master came out to ask if we could help a potter which had engine issues outside the break water, apparently adrift.

I finshed locking off the turnbuckles and we motored out, raising "Wee Boat" (which I kept hailing as "Weevil" ) on channel 5. A compac was already on scene, but we went out anyway to stand by in case we were needed. The compac had things well in hand and it was a lesson for me to watch the skipper put "Wee Boat" in tow.

We raised sail at that point and enjoyed flukey winds, kelp and large swells for that Friday Afternoon sail.

We returned to our end tie and secured the boat heading into downtown for dinner. We had some great burritos and then went off in search of a tavern. The Brittania Arms (I think) is right there when walking up from the harbor, but is loud with big screen tv's. We spoke with the locals at Hellams tobacco shop and headed off to the Crown and Anchor. I wish we had eaten there because they had some excellent looking food. There was a large beer selection and more importantly, you could actually talk to your neighbor. The nautical theme filled in the sailing weekend perfectly. There are some amazing ship models, I looked over two of three.

The Cruiser Challenge began with a morning skippers meeting at 9ish at the Monterey Yacht Club. These are amusing meetings with short stories thrown in amongst the plan for the days races. I believe there was even some low grade ridicule of the expected speeds of the competing boats as the hull speed of the Potter 14 was compared to the New Oracle Trimaran. During the meeting nary a puff of wind could be seen in evidence outside. The race start time was set for around noon.

Matt went off while I rigged a new used sail for Isabel. I hadn't had it on the boat before and wanted to raise it and look it over properly. After prepping the boat, Matt and I did a last minute dash into town for a bagel, this resulted in our not getting back to the dock till 11:30. It was business only getting us out and I had to raise the sails while Matt did his best to keep the bow to the wind. This was new to him and we did a couple of 360's while he figured it out. Fortunately, the committee boat was still putting out the course marks and we had enough time to get in amongst all the other boats milling about the start. This allowed me to have my one great blunder of the day where I misjudged the distance it takes "Isabel" to turn in resulting ina near miss (which I later apologized for in person in addittion to my shouted apology) with the days fastest boat, a white catboat.

My plan for the day was to stay with the people who seem to know what they are doing. We followed the 19 foot Oday for all the starts and that served us well. Even though we race in a different class, we were starting with the mid size boats and on such a short course we really couldn't be lazy about a good position at the start. Now last year we say only one near or apparent colision ( I mean how could to boats come that close to one another without touching), this year there was no question as a small yellow potter T'd another 14 foot potter with a loud "Thunk" and more shouted apologies. Maybe we all have to agree to go through the starts on the same tack?

Well, I was pleased with how we did in the races, usually finishing in the top 5 of each race, I think except the last where I blew it getting across the finish line which required my falling off and trying to get to the mark. The race committee might have let us slide if we bumped the mark on the way across, but I wanted it to be clean so, we lost many places as I screwed around getting across (up till that point we had been doing great).

The awards ceremony was fun with everyone getting at least a little something via the raffle they had. We got to meet a nice guy who had a S21 way back when they were new and told us about his epic on a lake in Kentucky. That was great fun.