There is a calendar elsewhere on the site of races mainly in the Northeast but also those I know about on the west coast, that offer starts for mainly double handed but a few solo races too. Click here for a copy. Some of them are pretty straight forward and can be done by the average cruising boat with almost no notice or preparation other than what might normally be undertaken for a similar length passage. I am thinking of the Edlu Race, (35 miles) any of the Stratford Shoal Races on Long IS Sound, (60 miles) The Solo Twin (80-120 or so miles) and Doug Pope’s new race in Maine (113 miles) would fall under this heading I think. Other races, for instance the Bermuda 1-2, Newport-Bermuda race and the Bermuda Ocean Race and the Solo Transpac obviously require some more preparation in some cases quite a lot.

New races I have heard about:
Doug Pope a Bermuda 1-2 past competitor has organized a new event hosted by the Rockland Yacht Club in Rockland Maine-a 113 mile race for solo and DH boats. Email communication indicates there are already about 10 interested folks.

I have been advised of, but cannot get any particulars at the moment, about another new race organized by The Corinthians: Stonington CT to Boothbay Harbor Maine.

Stamford Yacht Club in Stamford CT, is offering a DH specific weekend regatta for the second year . Last year's event was well attended and they are excited by the prospect of a rematch.

Possible events or reprises:
Last fall I met with some folks in the Marblehead area with a view to promoting DH kinds of events in that area but I have not heard anything back since I sent an email a few weeks ago looking for updates for this newsletter. If any one knows the status of say the Beringer Bowl, or the Corinthian 200 or Pineapple Cup or any other moves to promote short handed events in the MHD area please let me know.

Stonington Harbor Yacht Club has had in recent years a Rock to Rick race sailing from Race Rock to Execution Rock and back. I am advised it is on again, but I cannot find any info.

Seminars:
A few weeks ago I was introduced to a fellow named Jono Bryant. Jono’s background has sailing in it but his main involvement today is primarily as an expedition EMT. This is a cut and paste from an email of his to me on his background:

"For the last 10 years I've worked as an expedition leader throughout the world, leading college group’s scientific teams and also working for television companies guiding teams in Borneo and beyond. Working in this environment has placed me in the front line for dealing with wilderness medicine situations. I've been involved in many a lengthy litter carry and several helicopter evacuations. 18 months ago I trained as a wilderness EMT and the company I trained with invited me to stay on and teach for them. I still work as an expedition leader although teaching has become more of a commitment lately. I am currently developing a more specialized form of wilderness medical training for people working and playing at sea, in the mountains at altitude and in jungle environments. As well as practical on the job first hand wilderness medical experience I have also worked as part of an ambulance crew in Boston, mountain rescue in the Mount Washington valley, Kataden in Maine and also worked rotations at memorial hospital in Conway New Hampshire. Sailing wise I've about 5,000 sea miles. This was mainly crewing a 30ft wooden ketch (sister ship of Suhali - Robin Knox Johnson's boat) from Wales in the UK to the Med. And a few deliveries around Britain, including a 26ftr in the North Sea, in winter, which was challenging!"

Jono and I were in discussion on the idea of a specialized Medical Emergency seminar for sailors. The main problem was that we started too late for the 2008 sailing season. I believe there is considerable merit in having a seminar like this available to, certainly all sailors, but in particular one who sails short handed. If you are on a 40 footer with 10-12 people and someone gets damaged, it is less of a relative issue (not withstanding the hurt person) than if there are only 2-3 crew or perhaps you are solo….

So I have been thinking that the Bermuda 1-2 group has a fall “Gam” session in early November. It is not outside the realms of possibility that such a seminar could be produced, by the SSA, on the same weekend, and scheduled in such a way as to allow participants to get to the Bermuda 1-2 event, and we might even stick a SSA AGM in there too so as to make the trip to Newport really worthwhile. If you are interested in this please let me know and I will start a file and work on logistics. Ideal group size is 12-24, with a ratio of 1 instructor to 12 participants. It is proposed to be a three day deal and includes activities on a boat to simulate the conditions one might really encounter.

As an additional thought on this very subject, I was chatting with a friend yesterday and she regaled me with a tale of being injured on a delivery from New England to the Caribbean. She was tossed across the boat, crashed into the corner of the stove and was subsequently diagnosed as having busted an artery and broken two ribs. The crew pressed on, on the assumption that she was just banged up and bruised, there not being adequate medical information or skill aboard to diagnose any thing else, the boat had no SSB and the conditions were not good for getting back to Bermuda and the weather info they obtained from a freighter indicated hard weather for the duration anyway. She was fascinated to hear of the possibility of such medical information being available.

Safety for the short handed sailor
A second idea I have had in the back of my mind for a while is a short handed specific safety at sea seminar. I have had discussions with the folks at Life raft and Survival in Portsmouth, RI on this subject and again I would ask for input from you out there so as to try and produce something worthwhile for you all.
 

Many of you may have already heard or read of the loss of the yacht “Daisy” in the San Francisco ship channel a few weeks ago. This Cheoy Lee 31 footer was crewed by two mates; one is his late 60’s, the other in his 70’s and was competing in the local double handed Light Ship race. At the time investigators were unable to pinpoint any particular root cause leading to the loss. This story by the SF Chronicle lays out what is known and appeared on the Friday after the event. There is reference in this story to large chunks of the deck and rigging being found intact indicating, to my eye, that possibly the yacht was rolled (refer to my own experiences in this body of water below) and basically came apart. There is further reference to the issue of lack of communication between the competitors and the RC and eventually the USCG. This of course is closing the yard after the boat has been launched but it is a clear indication that the short handed (racing) communities rescinding of the RRS no “comms during the race” rules by inviting radio comms between competitor’s in short handed races makes very clear sense.

This link is to the Northern California sailing group with general coverage of the race.

Race results with the type of boats sailing are here.

There is also an additional click thru link specifically on the Daisy episode at the bottom of the article. This tragic loss, which I think must give us all pause to contemplate, brings into sharp relief the risks we take when we go in the ocean, racing or otherwise. There appears to be no indication of what really happened to the Daisy and we may not ever know. It is however worthy of note that smaller and some might argue, perhaps less robustly built boats did finish, including Moore 24’s, Hobie 33’s, Olson 30’s, Express and Santa Cruz 27’s and a Black-Soo, a Van De Stadt boat, proto-ULDB from the 1960’s for instance. A Santa 22 did go and won his class. His comments are enlightening in that he is quoted as saying” If you went down the channel everything was fine”.

Speaking for my own experiences in that neck of the woods, the SFO ship channel is dredged to about 60-80 plus feet. I have exited the Gate one February a few years ago when the ground swell was cresting in the middle of this channel. On either side of the channel the sea bottom shoal’s up dramatically, the result of course of ages of silt washing down from the Sacramento River. The locals name the north side of the channel the Cabbage Patch, and on the occasion I mention, the patch was a seething mass of white water. It is on the general order of about 30 feet deep right along side the channel and the swell we were motoring over was breaking in tumult not far from us. In addition the current was run hard south to north on this occasion and we were steering (under power to get to sea) a crab wise across the channel to counter this current. We were 3 or 4 aboard a Santa cruise 52 led by the most experienced guy one could ever go to sea with, Warwick “Commodore” Tompkins, who has made the passage out the gate more times than any 10 guys you can name. It was a clear sunny day with about 12-15 knots of south westerly breeze, so otherwise a nice day for a sail (we were heading for southern Cal for a Mexico Race), except for the huge ground swell on the order I reckon of 25 feet. So it is indeed a gnarly place to sail and if one gets out of the ship channel there ought to be a good reason for it. (refer to the comment from the Santana 22 skipper-above) The pictures on the No-Cal summary show boisterous seas and reference is made to ground swell of 10-12 feet at the light ship mark but photos also show one yacht beating out to sea with overlapping headsail and a full main, so clearly it was not the wind strength was an issue, at least for that boat a Valiant 32 it is reported.

Episodes like this loss and the attendant mainstream media coverage of the train wreck with reporters asking why the race was not postponed because of a small craft advisory merely put pressure on us, the sailors, and the RC volunteers.
 

A last, larger, thought related to this episode, and I recognize that it may not have had any impact on the Daisy loss, BUT:

I have been coaching one of my customers on preparing his boat, a well known “cruising boat” for the Newport-Bermuda Race and one issue that has arisen is of course where to stow the life raft. There is nowhere on this yacht to stow a life raft: that is easy to get to when needed, not exposed to large cresting seas-it is finally going the cabin top-so there is now 80 lbs @ 5 .5 feet above the LWL in front of the mast-and so not really out of the way. He was asking me why this could be so, that his cruising boat did not have a spot for the raft.

A very good question indeed.

This got me to thinking--The last, and perhaps only, US built boat, production boat I can think of that has a dedicated stowage position for a raft, designed from the get go and built in to the boat, is the Rodger Martin designed & Barret Holby built Quest 30 and 33 line of boats. One might reasonably argue this is not surprising given the combined sea miles these two have accumulated. If anyone knows of any other stock production boats in the US with such a provision please let me know.

Minis, Class 40 and Volvo Ocean Race boats

Speaking of dedicated lift raft storage, this is just one area where recreational yacht designers, builders, marketers and consumers could study the present batch of high test boats being sailed in trans-oceanic races. All three of the above cited classes of boats are required by their rules to have dedicated stowage for rafts, as well a long lists of required safety equipment and training. So often I hear folks say to me that they are not racers and thus apparently have no interest in such races and classes of boats, but as noted above these boats are much closer in their DNA to how most folks use their boats, which is of course short handed. And yes even the VOR 70’s are short handed, and are a classic example (like the Endeavour passage) in that here is a 40 knot, 70 footer with only 10 in the crew, about half the crew compliment for a comparable day race or Bermuda race 70 footer. These boats are so close to how we sail compared to many other classes of yachts, that inspection of the requirements for these boats would be excellent supplementary reading for any one contemplating going off shore in any yacht.

All of them require water tight bulkheads; have rigorous demands for, apart from the raft stowage, keeping the water out of the main hatch, thus cabin & emergency steering for starters. When next you visit a boat show and contemplate your ideal “retire & cruise around the world yacht”, keep this in mind. Where will the raft go, how water tight is the main hatch, is there a WT bulkhead and how will you steer when the installed steering gear fails?

It would be a worthwhile trip to visit Boston in late May to inspect the latest open 60’s and then on to Marblehead where the Class 40’s will congregate after the completion of the Artemis Transat race, the latest incarnation of the original OSTAR.

Further there are now about 5-7 Class 40’s in or approaching the US, mainly in the northeast. Another place to see some of these boats will be in Newport prior to the Bermuda Race. I count 23 DH entries including an Aphrodite 101, Beneteau 40.7, J 35, Outbound 44, a Morris, Sabre’s, J boats, a Swan and 4 Class 40’s.

A recent scan also indicated more Minis in the US with now about 8 or so within a 300 mile radius of Newport and the 2009 Bermuda 1-2. The Mini class is also offering a race from Vancouver BC, to SFO and then on to San Diego, CA in July. Refer to the calendar. If you are interested in these little rockets, and the kinds of equipment and systems they use, and if you sail short handed you ought to be because if it is on a Mini now it will be mainstream in a few years, check these boats out. The US Mini Class website is here.

So there you have it. What I know about, and have the time to write on, in the short handed world. If you have ideas, comments, or wish to communicate with me feel free to so! And please, don't forget to bookmark our website. See you out there.

        Cheers,
        Joe Cooper, SSA President
        401 965 6006 (cell)