We wrote about Ambivalence’s first Caribbean passage in the last newsletter, and perhaps you’ll be interested in how we fared at the 13th Annual St. Croix International Regatta. The St. Croix Regatta is the first leg of the Caribbean Ocean Racing Triangle series, and you might want to read more about it at www.stxyachtclub.com.
Our 7.9 is a 1982 inboard, and while we had good success with club racing on Lake Pepin, we were never as successful when we traveled. Some of you may remember seeing us at the back of the fleet at several CCR’s before decided to move WAY south almost two years ago. So it was with some trepidation that I considered going racing with the “big boys” and there was some relief when I couldn’t line up crew or find a measurer for last year’s event. But this year, our son, Alec, who is usually seen on Lake Minnetonka on the foredeck of Wavelength decided he’d like to come down, and so I started to look for crew.
It seems that most of the sailors at the Salt River Marina, Ambivalence’s new home, spend much more time on boat repairs than on sailing, and almost none on racing, so I put together a crew of novices. (See Alec’'s sidebar on “racing with geezers”). [Ed note: he never wrote it]. Wayne had been in a regatta once, but he’d never sailed with us and was only available for one day. Dave is living aboard a Freedom 32 while fitting it out for major cruising. Larry gardens with my wife, and Ron – a 20 year Navy veteran – had only been sailing one day in his life!
We also had to get Ambivalence measured for the Caribbean Racing Rule. They don’t do PERF down here. The CRR is a measurement rule, and Tony SanPere took about three hours measuring all there was to be known about a sailboat including exotic specifications like the distance from the center of the motor mounts to a point 55% aft of the bow. (Why? Don’t ask me.) We’re apparently only the second 7.9 to be measured and by the time the numbers were cranked through some esoteric formula, we were awarded a rating of .760 (or .743 without a spinnaker). By comparison, a J24 typically has a rating of .779
The St. Croix regatta is truly an international event with boats from Antigua, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, St. Croix, the BVI and the US mainland. Probably for the first time ever, there were two boats from WISCONSIN. (Indeed the winner of the skipper’s weight in rum was a Farr 395, Chippewa, out of Bayfield, here to campaign the entire CORT series.) In addition to five fleets racing in the channel between Buck Island and the reef, IC 24’s and Optimist dinghys had races going on Teague Bay inside the reef.
The first thing we had to do after beating up from the Salt River was to find out which fleet we were in. For unknown reasons we were classified as a "performance cruiser", which put us in a five boat fleet with a J120, a Soverel 27, and Alberg 35 and an Erickson 35. We were clearly the slowest boat in the combined fleets, and we figured that if we could keep the J120 (PERF ~ 55) and the Soverel (PERF ~ 140) in sight we’d be doing well. We decided to maximize our rating “advantage” by declaring to race main and jib only in deference to the age and inexperience of the crew.
The official regatta begins with the opening party sponsored by Cruzan Rum. They were pouring generous quantities of all ten of their rum varieties at an open bar, followed by one of the best buffets I’ve ever eaten and dancing under the big tent to the light of a half moon.
Racing began after a rain squall moved through the area on Saturday morning. The race committee and all of the attending workers were very professional and very helpful. The course set up allowed for several variations and the various fleets were able to sail different courses and the faster boats got in more races. Winds were from the ENE at about 12-14 knots in 4-5 foot seas. We had only a decent start in the first race, a WLWLF course, crossing the line in a solid third. The J and the Soverel were ahead of us and the two 35 footers behind. We were third on corrected time as well. A better start on an Olympic triangle course got us a corrected 2nd place finish. Racing was over early enough to allow generous time to lounge on the beach, and we felt good about our performance which put us in a tie for second place.
Winds were lighter and seas calmer on Sunday. The Alberg unreefed her mainsail, which gave her enough boat speed to catch us when we both went downwind, wing and wing. We could pull away upwind however and finished the day with another second and third, but we dropped to third place overall, behind the Soverel, by one point.
The winds and seas picked up a bit on Monday, tracking a bit more northerly. We had noticed that many of the local boats seemed to favor the Buck Island side of the course, while we had tried to stay in the middle. It being virtually impossible for us to drop below third place, we decided to take the flyer and went to the island while the rest of the fleet went right, as we had the two previous days. It paid off with a second place finish on corrected time. Alec took the helm for the final race and practiced some of his Lake Minnetonka prestart maneuvers, which must have confused the southerners because they all got hung up with protest flags flying at the boat end of the line while we sailed off the pin. The J120 still beat us to the windward mark, but not by much, and we held off the Soverel until the second windward leg. She had problems with her spinnaker pole after the last rounding which kept her on port tack almost to the layline. That allowed us to top off the entire regatta by ducking the Soverel just below the finish line, beating her across and taking a 1st place on corrected time. We finished 3-2-2-3-2-1 and 2nd overall and are mighty proud of that!
It’s ironic that that Tony, who determined our handicap, skippered the Soverel that we beat out for second place; I think I need to buy him another rum drink! It’s probably not too practical for you northern sailors to trailer down here for the next regatta, but it's a great venue, great parties, and great sailing. (Oh, and did I mention you can go diving too?)