To Chute or Not to Chute?

Oxford 2007

Well, the weather guessers were right.  They called for N to NW’ly wind of 15-20 and gusting higher.  Small craft warnings were posted.  The cold front had brought beautiful clear, sunny skies and cool temps.  Great fall racing weather.

Ducks picked the #2 for the race, as did most others.  We put in a reef during the prestart but shook it out before the start.  We had the chute on the bow ready to go, although we thought we were near the upper limit for flying it. 

Pussycat got the best start, right at the pin, with Ducks 2-3 boatlengths back.  We set the chute immediately and tried to sail over Pussycat.  However, Mark turned his boat up in front of us so we made a hard dive down and went under him.  After we got settled down, we looked back to see Jolly Mon and Redrum with their chutes up.  They were close to each other and tussling a bit, which probably helped Ducks extend a little.  As we all sailed down the Bay, the breeze picked up and the gusts seemed to become more intense.  For the most part we were able to keep Ducks under control by keeping both twings on hard and quick action on the sheets and guy.  Redrum separated from Jolly Mon, sailing above rhumb line towards the eastern shore.  Ducks enjoyed 4 roundups but recovered quickly from each of them.  Looking back, we could see that Jolly Mon and Redrum were having lots of trouble with their chutes.  Redrum eventually dropped their chute, sailed back over to rhumb line to rejoin the bulk of the fleet and then reset.  The only other boat to set a chute, that we saw, was Odyssey.  They only flew it for a brief period.

Ducks suffered a fifth roundup, which was rather nasty, with a big gust followed immediately by an even bigger gust.  Ducks laid over on her side, with more water in the cockpit than we’ve ever seen before.  The skipper was thrown from the starboard side of the cockpit over the tiller to the port side, dragging his butt in the water and hanging onto the lifeline.  As an aside, we were all wearing PFDs.  After the skipper, with help from John Potvin, hauled himself back aboard, consensus was quickly reached to drop the chute and continue on wing-on-wing.  During that evolution the guy flogged itself off to join Davy Jones and one leach was torn just inside the tape for about 4 feet.

By now Jolly Mon had also doused their chute for good.  Ducks figured we had about a mile lead and that we would not fly our taped up chute again unless we needed to defend.

Redrum kept trying and trying with their chute.  Eventually they broke their pole and called it quits. 

The rest of the run down past R80A to G7 and the reach up the Choptank was basically a parade.  We could see that Swell was in second and Pussycat third.  From there, it was hard to tell boat positions.  Turning the corner at Choptank River Light for the beat up to Oxford quickly reminded us that the breeze was in the low twenties, with lots of shifts and gusts.  The wind was lighter on the right, or Oxford, side.  Even though port tack was very favored and you could almost lay the finish it was better to clear out of the light stuff on starboard tack, get above the line of bigger boats and into clear, fresher breeze.

Ducks took the gun, followed by the pack of Swell, Pussycat and Jolly Mon, in that order.  Next came Snagglepuss, Redrum and Alleycat followed by Odyssey.

Back to the question – to chute or not to chute?  Four boats did and four didn’t.  Second and third place went to boats that did not.  Go figure.