Monterey Cruiser Challenge IX

August 25th

On the 25th around 2pm Matt and I headed out for the Monterey Cruiser Challenge IX. The event is put on by the Potter Yachters and hosted by the Monterey Yacht Club. The ride down took about an hour and after some confusion getting to the harbormasters office we got a slip assignment and figured where to rig "Isabel". Many friendly "Yachters" came and spoke with us about the boat and general items of interest. I think the first person to say hello was a nice guy in a blue Guppy.

We had been told we might have to raft up on the end tie where we landed so I took great pains to make sure I was well tied up, even broke out my sailing text just to double check. Needless precautions as we were fine. The end tie had three boats along it, one Sanibel, one Potter 15 and my SJ21. Fisherman's wharf was a stones throw away and downtown Monterey a short walk up a couple of blocks.

We went over and met some of the folks on the Potter 19's where they were holding court before venturing into town for what turned out to be the most expensive cheap burrito's we've ever had. Later he held down some bar stools of a while at the Brittania Arms or some other pseudo english tavern. There were bands all over the place and when they cranked it up, it became evident it was time to head back to the berths.

It was not the sea lions, the sirens or the mad revel rousers that kept us up till the wee hours, but the seagulls. They would kick up a racket intermittently and didn't really settle down till about 3 am. Thus my previous note about ear plugs.

The event on the 26th began with event sign in. After that was over, it was a short time before the skippers meeting and we went to get breakfast. Matt was trying to go on the cheap and was nearly incendiary after shelling out over $7 for two eggs and a up of coffee. It's something of a vacation, what can one expect. I was happy with my pancakes for the same amount. Then the skippers meeting in the club. I haven't been in a yacht club that i can remember. This was very informal. The room held about 50 men, most older and I would be pushed to say that i saw any women there, though I'm pretty sure there must have been. The day before we saw a nice lady fall off the dock trying to help her husband in a small potter whom had sailed down from Santa Cruz either dock or push off his boat. We took specific note of the radio channel the race committee would be monitoring, channel 68. This was important to me because this was my first sailboat race and Matt is a novice sailor. I thought the chances of my having to call to ask a question or something were good. We got to find out the order flags would go up etc. everone was very low key.

We motored out before the start when we saw the other boats leaving. The activity around the line was insane. There were 31 boats total. I think 19 in the medium and large class with the remainder being the small boats. Everyone tacking back and forth around the line, we saw many near collisions, but there was no yelling or flaring tempers that I could see. Either during one of the starts or during the racing I did see tow Potter 19's collide, or do their best impression of a collision. They did a nice dance around one another with less than 6 inches between their midships, before one of the two nearly hit us as they bore away from the previous mishap. Eye's trained aft as opposed to infront. It took both Matt and my full concentration to keep off of other boats.

We got a reasonable start and finished about 5th in the group. It was only later that we discovered we were not actually racing anyone as we were the on boat in our class. We had a devil of a time trying to read the committee boats sign, where they were to tell us if we were to go around the course once or twice. We tried the radio, but either there is a code of radio silence concerning race matters during a race or the committee boat didn't have the radio on. We did hear from several other racers with the same question and we just opted to keep going around the course until we heard the horn. This resulted in our going around a few more times than necessary. We later found there was a 3rd race, via the radio, which was fortunate as we were ready to head out to larger territory.

The second race saw us further down in the field as I opted to change for a smaller jib with the wind increasing a bit. The 3rd race was better and i was getting the hang of things. We managed to pass several folks, which was good fun for us and ended up doing another gratuitous lap as the committee boats horn had run out of air (I'm guessing here).

We did then follow Howie's Sanibel with it's striped sails out into the bay for awhile. The hazy day made for low visibility of the Santa Cruz end of the bay , so it looked like you were sailing out in the middle of no where until you looked behind you, then you could see how close or far we had come. The sea swells were very different than the SF Bay chop and wind waves that i normally deal with and it made for a pleasant sail. We saw a couple of friendly harbor seals and Matt saw a moon fish. The majority of wildlife that i got to see was in closer to shore. Otters and Sea Lions and Birds of course.

After we had pulled the boat someone said we had a trophy. Matt relayed this to me and i thought this to be one of his more transparent jokes. But truly, we got first place in our class a class of one, truly a ship of fools.

What a great time.