The Mud Monster

Vallejo Day 1

Beautiful day on the water. A weird port start (we were on starboard along the line and already beating hard, normally, you go along a start line on a reach and then you harden up when you're ready to cross. Not so in that race) - a so so but OK first leg (we had a #1 up, it was a bit gusty but we felt that the first leg to the turning buoy was very short and worth it) - good boat speed on one tack, some inexplicable slowness of the other tack, but overall mid fleet rounding and ready to take up the fleet on the downwind. Definitely much more experienced in downwind driving and Elise is at her best with the spinnaker up!

Also fun to hear the committee boat say on the radio to the J105 fleet 'be nice today please, we don't really want to have a total recall...'

Our start was an hour or so after the first warning, there were some 200+ boats registered for the event. Massive fleet!

Downwind was going OK - it was very tactical. We spotted some positive current close to shore (Great White was smoking past us by being the inside boat there) so we shot for that. There was a really close contest between various E27, the fleet kind of got together around that area.

Elise was caught in a duel with Xena (the inside boat, going in to get current relief) when the Mud Monster attacked. It launched its net at Elise even though we were not yet the boat furthest inland with that kind of draft and gently but firmly attached itself to the keel. Elise fought fiercely to try to loosen up the tight grip of the Mud Monster. To no avail.

Unfortunately, encounters with Mud Monster, even though they are rare, have a very dramatic effect on boat speed and eventual race results. 

Elise then decided to save its energy and gather its troops and brain power to devise a plan to beat the Beast. It first involved trying to fly the kite high to try to use brute wind force to escape. That did not work so well. We tried kite surfing (Nathan's idea), eg fly the spinnaker backwards with no pole, like a kite surf. Our attempts at looking Hawaiian-cool made me gain 1 pound of muscle weight on both arms as I was the acting pole but did not lift Elise off the cruel emprise of the Mud Monster, the offspring of the Dragon of the Depths of San Pablo Bay. 

Note that the Mud Monster is normally contained by an invisible magical field installed by the Wizard Diving and designated by channel markers. Unfortunately, undercurrent movements by the Dark Forces of Evil Bay Floors managed to gradually encroach upon the Land of the Free.

The Spinnaker, our fierce stallion, had to be put down. The Genoa, our Magic Wand, was flown.

This genoa, tightly trimmed, with a loose main, managed to turn the boat around and direct her away from the ugly arms of the Mud Monster. With our weight on the leeward side, Elise managed to crawl out of reach of the evil and slimy obstacle and run to freedom, some 20 minutes after it was first made prisoner.

We nearly caught up to the last Express 27 finishing only a couple of minutes after that boat, despite a 20+ min delay.

The second day was less eventful - after so much messing around with the main in heavy-ish breeze, my hand was full of blisters! I still need more practice upwind to maintain good boat speed. We had hit and miss luck with current on that day, seeing three boats slip right by us because of that.

But, as Roger the Great put it, we BEAT the Mud Monster.