Runaway in the 2010 Guadalupe
Island Race
The Pacific Singlehanded Sailing Association (PSSA) Guadalupe Island Race for single and double handers is deceptively simple: start at Marina del Rey, round Guadalupe Island to port, finish at Cat Harbor, Catalina, for a total course length of 588 miles. But there can be a whole world of drama in those miles, with a great range of sailing conditions and a course long enough that pacing and sleep management skills become significant.
The race is held every second year during the March full moon. Runaway had won the 2008 race by dint of being the only finisher, but we did set a corrected time course record so we were not just doing it as a cruise. Runaway is a 36 foot sloop, impeccably built of cold molded plywood and epoxy by Gary Titchenal. Like Ragtime, she’s a John Spencer design, albeit with some astute modifications by the builder. Gary built her for himself, and cruised her some 35,000 miles over nearly 20 years before selling her to us. We are Eric and Robin Lambert, long time cruisers who sailed our previous boat most of the way around the world. Financial reversals have put similar cruising plans for Runaway on hold, but as long as we are stuck here working, we may as well have fun. And fun we are having since discovering the wonderful world of racing and the friendly, supportive folks who are the PSSA.
Friday, March 26th, 3PM, and we are off. Ragtime sliced by, leapt over the horizon and was gone, never to be seen again. The rest of us, mostly in 4KSB's, plod away. There’s a good sailing breeze out of the SW and the fleet can fetch the West End of Catalina, but I’d noted the hint of a Catalina Eddy, and feared that a wind hole might form at the island. Accordingly, directly after the start, we tacked and put in a mile to the west, a move so ostensibly stupid, only an idiot would follow us. Damn, Whitall Stokes on Slacker followed us! I wanted to clear the West End by at least five miles, so sailed slower and higher with Slacker doggedly following while the rest of the fleet footed off, intending to cut the point more closely. Darkness fell with us clearly behind, but we stuck to our plan, and sailed through the night with good breeze all the way. By 6AM roll call, Runaway and Slacker were 30 miles ahead of our main competition. Hah! It worked! The fleet had fallen into the hole, and while the big boats Ragtime and Tenacity managed to extricate themselves fairly adroitly, the smaller boats had a much tougher time.
But no lead is big enough to give safety in this race. Rod Percival on Rubicon III is notorious for overcoming huge deficits to snatch victory, and I knew he’d be gunning for us. As it happened, that Saturday and Sunday of the race offered the kind of sailing that makes every expense, every hassle, of boat ownership worthwhile. Halcyon days, no-place-in-the-world-I’d-rather-be days, gliding on smooth seas under blue skies by day and spectacular canopies of stars by night, somewhat washed out by the big fat friendly moon. But our breeze was dying, and a fresh, stronger breeze was filling in from the north, bringing Rubicon III and Thriller with it.
Guadalupe Island is about the size of Catalina, but at 4000 feet high, it is twice as tall. Rounding the island makes for a difficult battle with the wind shadow, and while Runaway and Slacker were parked in the dead zone, Rubicon III and Thriller swept around on the breeze and joined us. After 300 miles of racing, we four were looking at a virtual restart, with all four boats in a line. Since all four boats have the same or similar PHRF ratings, you do have to give some credit to the rating board no matter how popular it is to malign them.
The Mexican Navy maintains a base on the island, and a naval ship approached from the mainland. The ship was curious about this invasion of foreign vessels, and interviewed Rubicon III and Thriller on the VHF. The naval officer spoke perfect English and was crisp and professional, and I guess having determined that we were harmless but probably insane, wished us a good voyage and offered the services of the Mexican Navy if we required them. All in all, it was the sort of encounter that leaves one with warm, positive feelings toward a country.
Back to battling the dead zone, which was dead only with respect to wind. The sea was littered with whitecaps from steep, nasty little two-foot breakers, and the boats were bucking and kicking, making it difficult to nurse progress from the occasional zephyr. Finally, we broke free into a sustained NW wind of some 20 knots. Through the day and into the night, the wind steadily built. Runaway does not have wind instruments, but when she is heeling over 40 degrees with just a #4 jib up, you can figure that there is rather more wind than we really need. Once the wind dropped to the low 30’s, we hoisted the triple-reefed main, and started our beat to weather, 280 miles to go. The seas were steep and blocky; Runaway would fire off a wave and smash down, hitting the water with a tremendous crash. I don’t know how mere fiberglass boats could take it, but Runaway is insanely strong, and offered no complaints.
Our bearing to the finish was pretty much north, and the wind was pretty much NW, so we could almost fetch it on port tack. But the winds become more westerly near the finish, so it often pays to get some westing in as soon as possible. Indeed, the words of Frank Ross on Prankster rang in my ears. He, a veteran of many Guadalupe Island races, had said, “The hardest thing you’ll ever do is to tack west after rounding the island.” Our routing on Expedition concurred, so we tacked off to the west, picked what turned out to be a perfect layline call, and raced for the finish, changing between the #4 and the #3 jibs and the second and third reefs every few hours as the wind varied.
On Wednesday, we’d rounded the east end of San Clemente Island when the 6PM roll call positions came in: that fiendish Rod Percival, whom we thought we’d put safely behind us, had made a huge gain and was set to pass the west end of the island. He was just 12 miles further from the finish than we were, and we owed him two hours. With the #3 jib and the second reef, Runaway was overpowered, but we couldn’t ease up now. We hammered through the night in a mad dash to the finish, boat heeled over 30 degrees and spray everywhere.
There was huge shipping activity, lights galore, mostly off to port as we proceeded across the channel between San Clemente and Catalina. But one set of lights had turned and was bearing down on us, on a collision course. With the thought of Rubicon III breathing down my neck, I did not want to tack away, so I hailed the vessel on the VHF and shined a high-brightness flashlight at them. The ship slowed and we barely crossed their bow. They came up on the VHF, identifying themselves as a warship, part of the battle group to port. Even though they were part of the protective escort for a carrier, they had not seen us on their radar. We have a big aluminum mast, and had a carbon sail up, but at our angle of heel they gave no return at all. Our radar reflector is a good sized octahedral, and it gave no return either. I know we have shown up on radar very well on other occasions, but perhaps we were more upright then. It is worth noting that we run a 25-watt bulb in our tricolor, and show up better than other boats in our fleet, and that the warship did not see the tricolor either. It was the VHF hail and the flashing of our flashlight that finally caught their attention and identified our position.
We swept across the finish line at 10:44PM, dropped the sails, grabbed a mooring and a bite to eat and crashed into bed, too tired to stay up for Rubicon III’s imminent arrival. The next morning at daybreak we were underway for Marina del Rey when the 6AM roll call positions came in: Rubicon III was still at sea! It turned out that his position report of the night before was in error a whole degree of longitude, and he’d never threatened our second place finish.
So there it is: John Spencer designs take first and second in the Guadalupe Island Race doublehanded division. Old wooden boats rule!
Eric and Robin Lambert