The Definition of Insanity on Can O'Whoopass

January 17, 2011

The Definition of Insanity:
Repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results...

Saturday's Corinthian YC Midwinters race started out fine enough. We on the Can patroled the line, started a countdown watch to know when to start, checked the flags for the course, wrote the course on the Cal 20's bulkhead for future reference and started the race downwind! Huh? Downwind in a strong ebb? Well, okay, the bulkhead says course #6 is Start, 12 (Little Harding buoy), AZ (Alcatraz), Y (Elephant Rock), Finish: 5.9 miles.

Can O'Whoopass reaches along waiting for her turn to start. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

With the strong ebb and a poled out jib, we made it to Little Harding pretty fast. Boats from the previous divisions were there also. We rounded in about third place. The C&C 30 Meritime and two other Cal 20s were in front of us along with a lot of other boat traffic that was disturbing our air. We were staying 'high' so we wouldn't end up too far south of Alcatraz Island, like on the Cityfront, and passed both Cal 20s. The C&C took us a little longer to grind down.

We were ranging to make our port rounding as close as possible. Staying close should give us some tide relief. One of the Alcatraz ferries actually reversed and came to a stop because there was so many boats in his way (with no toots from his horn). After we rounded, the wind was getting lighter. We saw Q and Shameless and a few other of the 'fast' boats near Angel Island and rounding point Pt. Stuart, and we thought that if it worked for them it would work for us.

Nope, the wind was still getting lighter as we neared the island and there was a HUGE eddy swirling around the point. We tacked in closer to shore and got pushed backwards, then tacked away in light air and got pushed backwards again. The C&C had followed us and got caught also. In the next hour and a half we tried over and over to get around. And every time, we were shut down. It drove us INSANE!

Cal 20s in the mist: Can O'Whoopass and Raccoon. ©2011 norcalsailing.com

Sunday went better - a shorter course, but with just as weird wind. The finish was tough because there was a hole in Belvedere Cove and nobody could make it to Y (Elephant Rock). I believe they were sailing backwards with the spinnakers up! But when we saw the parking lot, back we went to Angel Island again. Some Moores and a sportboat were there, and we short-tacked the shore of the island so close we could almost touch. My GPS actually shows us on land! We went further upwind than most and started to cross the ebb, found out that the wind was filling, and finished.

We had a small heart pounder at the awards ceremony, when they called us up as finishing in second place. But the boat listed in first place, the Cal 20 Chica, did not start or sail the course. After the brutal beating that we took on Saturday, it was nice to get the upper hand on the massive tides and flukey winds that occured over the weekend.

Lesson learned: If what your doing is NOT working, try something NEW and don't keep repeating your mistakes.

- Paul Sutchek, Cal 20 Can O'Whoopass

For complete results and more information on the series, which continues next month, see www.cyc.org. For our overview of the weekend's racing and photos from Sunday, please see the previous story. For 150 photos, please visit our gallery section.