Harvest Moon Regatta 2008

Intro

Going on the Harvest Moon Regatta has been a dream of mine since learning to sail. My first instructor, Pace Bonner, talked about the race. I'm not even sure he's done it, but just the mention of it has stuck with me.

So, I bought a boat! Unfortunately, it was only 26 feet, and the lower limit of the HMR is 27 feet. Six years (and a few boats) later, I had the necessary waterline. Coincidentally, since my first interest in the regatta, two of my brothers have become accomplished sailors, so it was somewhat fate to have them come as well. We also invited two of my good friends, Rob Rich and Mike Hovis. While five crew is a bit heavy for a 27 foot trimaran, we got great advice to just take it slow, be safe, and enjoy our first HMR.

The race is interesting in terms of logistics. We trailer the boat from Austin to Galveston, sail to Port Aransas, and hopefully, trailer back to Austin. Our plan was to take the truck and sailboat to Galveston, followed by the car. Once to Galveston, we would dunk the boat and leave a few to defend Venta for the night. The rest would stay with Janna's brother/family in Baytown for the night. In the morning, Janna leaves Kaylee with her parents and drops the remaining boys off at the boat. We sail to Port A. Janna takes the truck and trailer to Port A. Janna's friends meet us in Port A (with another vehicle). We party. Hard. A boy goes back to Austin with the girls and the rest bring Venta and truck back home. On Monday, Janna flies to Houston to get the car and Kaylee.

What could possibly go wrong?  Amazingly, our plan worked out wonderfully.

Preparations

Since Venta previously lived near the coast, she came with quite a bit of the necessary safety equipment.. but not all. For instance, I had never even seen jackstays before. So, we went through the list provided by the race committee and made our own list. The list mostly consisted of personal safety items (inflatable pfds, harness, tether, strobe, foulies), boat items (jackstay, man-overboard pole, radar reflector), and first aid (sea-sickness pills, kit). It was not a list for the faint of wallet.

Hurricane Ike was also a big factor. Ike damaged the hosting marina, many of the participating boats, and most of the ramps we would normally use to launch Venta. Further, Ike had left debris in the Gulf which could damage a fast moving trimaran. We had too much investment (emotional and otherwise) to not participate.

Rob and I went through most of the list and determined what was missing. Probably the biggest issue was the jackstay and tether situation. Thankfully, my boat designer has a wonderful supply of information in his forum's archive. Based on advice from the forums, we bought enough webbing to wrap from the port stern cleat, to the bow cleat, and back to the starboard stern cleat. Using our harnesses and tethers, we were able to clip into the boat and walk from the cabin all the way to the bow. One issue with this method is that someone could fall off the back of the boat just behind the nets. This is a likely and dangerous situation. We remedied this with some great advice from the forums as well. We sewed large rings into the webbing near where the cabin meets the cockpit. Then, when we left the cockpit, we would clip our tether forward of the ring. The system worked perfectly! Big thanks to Art for letting me borrow his sewing machine and to Steve Keever for knowing how to sew. Maybe I should thank Mom for teaching Steve how to sew!  The finished product here ->

Interestingly, we also had to have jackstays on the bottom of the nets, in case the boat flipped completely over we could still clip in. For this we bought more webbing and attached it to the folding mechanisms of the beams. Certainly a piece of safety equipment I never want to use.

Getting There

Getting Venta on the trailer is old hat now. We can get her on in under and hour now, especially with two people.  Hovis helped out, so it was a breeze getting her home.

Having Venta at the house is always fun. Folks just stare at her with complete confusion. I like Rob's explanation - "I've built a rocketship, and she's ready for take-off!" I think people look even more confused with the explanation.

The last few days were pretty hectic. Thankfully my oldest brother had come down from Seattle a few days early and was able to help get all the last minute preperations done. For example, it was an unpleasant surprise to find out that the brand new porta pottie's clean water holding tank was leaking. This is the part that is mixed with the nasty blue stuff.. so we have lots of blue stains in the front berth now. Nonetheless, after a few runs to West Marine, we had everything we needed.

Steve and Mike K helped remove everything from boat. It is amazing what you can acrue in only 10 months. My lawn looked like I was having the most bizarre garage sale ever.

Wednesday morning, we all convened at the house and repacked the boat.  Hovis was gracious enough to let use his truck as the tow vehicle.  A full size truck tows Venta with ease!


We called the Lakewood Yacht club on the way to confirm the use of the ramp.  Once there, we began working to get the boat in the water. 


After dunking Venta, the plan was to stay at Janna's brother's for the night.  Since there was limited room, Rob and Hovis agreed to just stay on the boat for the night.  The rest of us drove up to Baytown and had dinner with my in-laws.

The boys on the boat.. well, they had a bit more eventful night.

Since they were not part of any yacht club, they were not allowed to eat at the Lakewood Yacht Club and had to walk to somewhere else. It probably didn't help that they were wearing tattered shorts and t-shirts.  Nonetheless, it wasn't very cordial.  Luckily, Hooters was just down the street and was probably more their speed anyway. 

Note - a member of the yacht club informed me that they have limited resources due to Ike and that using the yacht club membership system is currently the only system available for them to charge food/etc.

Starting

We, the brothers trio, woke up around 6am, and Janna delivered us to the boat before 8.  Once to the boat, we verified all the equipment aboard and made way.


Once outside of Kemah, it started to feel more like an offshore race.  We had 50 boats in front and 25 behind all the way to Galveston.
On the way out, we finished getting ready. We put the jackstays on and set the bowsprit. We had a few issues getting the bowsprit connected correctly, so I had to lean out in front of the boat connected by my harness to the spinaker halyard.

The startline was awesome.  All the boats dancing about was great to watch.


I should state now, that I've never raced this boat. Honestly, I've never really raced on any boat besides Paul Horton's Tribology. I've done a few other small things on Rob's boat (who was on board), but we basically had no idea what we were doing.

So.. the gun fires.. and we were near Abandonded Assets (the overall winner) for the start. After crossing the starting line we tried to raise the spinny.. only to have a comedy of errors.  I ended up having to, once again, attach to the spinnaker halyard and suspend in front of the boat to fix the issue.

Almost an hour later, we finally had the spinnaker up.  We left most of the big cats and started passing monos quickly. As mentioned, we were heavy, so we would plane down each wave and then slow to 6 knots.. speed to 14.. slow to 6. After freeport, the wind picked up enough that we stayed at 12-16, but then we chickened out a bit and put the 100 jib back up.

Sailing at night is a bit surreal. Sailing at night without a moon (it was raining) is scary. Sailing 16 knots during a moonless night with unlit oil derricks was terrifying. But, like most situations, we adapted pretty well. I will mention that Mike Keever put it best - "it was like riding the mechanical bull with no chance of getting off."

After we all settled down a bit, Steve and I decided to rest a bit. Since the boat was rocking, starting, and gyrating; it was difficult to sleep. Add the oil derrik terrification, and it was impossible. But, Steve was able to lay down in the stern berth, and I was in the settee.. dry and comfortable; so it definitely helped.

After midnight, we got up and made some coffee. Even though the water was fairly warm, it was actually quite chilly out there. I had four thin layers on below my foulies. Once we got settled, the other three went down below to warm up and try to rest. Like us, I doubt they slept a wink.

Overall, we were going pretty fast.  There was even a point where we hit 18 knots for over 4 seconds: 

For the powerboaters out there thinking "18" isn't anything interesting.. you need to come out on the boat sometime... because 15 feels VERY fast.  18 is flying! 

We had some waypoint issues. OK.. I'll admit. I had some waypoint issues. I know.. it's a straight line.. but we basically got lost. I had added waypoints on the chartplotter for the nav bouys. After freeport, was left all the boats that were around us and started heading about 5 degrees closer to shore. And, unfortunately, this is when I went down below to try to rest so I could take the early morning shift. You can see when I got up and tried to correct back to the rhumbline.. but it really hurt our speed (we were almost directly downwind afterwards) and distance.


Also, you'll notice a sharp right turn. We came very close to hitting an unlit derrick. There was a string of them that ended in a lit derrick. It was scary and made us even more interested in trying to get back with the pack. When we returned back to the herd, we were back with the same monos we flew by before freeport.  I'm guessing we lost at least an hour due to this meandering.

Getting In

As we were sailing into Port Aransas jetty, the highest tide ever was flowing against us.  Luckily, we got in just before the tide became unbearable. We had to take 5 tacks to cross the finish line, but it was apparently better than most. We finished in just under 18 hours.