Snow TubesDelta Ditch Run 2006
This year's attempt at the Delta Ditch Run was our most successful ditch run ever.
It took a full day friday to move Too Tuff to Richmond, Set up the boat and then drag the trailer to Stockton. Not only is it a long Race, Its a long *drive*!
On setup day, we tried to use my new Honda 2HP to motor Too Tuff over to our spot on the raft up before the race. It would not start. I am still trying to figure out why.
The wind was blowing about 12-15 at the start, and we got a fairly decent start, The other U20 (Ricochet had trouble with there first Spinnaker set, so we were off to an early lead. We waited a few minutes to put up our spinnaker, sailing high until I liked the angle better.
The whole fleet got the dreaded 5 blasts from a small freighter intent on docking right smack in the middle of the fleet. We took his stern with a good part of the fleet. It sure seemed like the captain of that vessel could have held off for 3 minutes while the fleet went by.
As we passed the brothers and entered San Pablo Bay (know locally as the "Foaming Caldron From Hell") the Wind started to build with gusts starting to hit 30-35 knots. We had a couple round ups during the big blasts, and it took a little work to get the boat on its feet and moving again. About the forth one of these, we were not so lucky, the boat stayed rolled over about 45 degrees, and even with the spinnaker sheet loose and flogging, we could not spill enough wind from the main to get the rudder back in the water and get the boat on its feet. After a while of just hanging in this state, I decided that I did not have enough length in the main sheet to let the main out far enough to spill enough air. So I reached down and untied the knot at the end of the main sheet so I could let it run, I grabbed the the next strand and started letting the main out some more. This is when all hell broke loose, my "plan" worked... as near as I can piece together, maybe the boat turned too far and back-winded or something... the next thing I was aware of is the taste of salt water in my mouth and nothing around me but water. I still had the main sheet in my hand, but the boat was not touching me at all. I realized that holding on to the main sheet was critical to my not being left behind! About this time my sospenders auto-inflate life jacket inflated and there I was body surfing behind Too Tuff which was *still* doing maybe 5 knots or so. I think the drag of my body in the water was sheeting in the main and giving the boat a pretty good push forward, By this time I had the presence of mind to yell to the crew (Our friend Phyllis and my wife Rosanne) "climb to the high side!" I was able to pull myself to the back of the boat at this point, but I really could not do anything useful but hang on and yell ideas at the crew. My next "idea" was to yell at Phyllis to blow the spinnaker halyard. It took her about 10 looonnnng seconds to get this accomplished, and the boat finally started to slow down. When the spinnaker hit the water, that finally fully put the brakes on and the crew was finally able to help/drag me on board. The open transom on the U20 makes that a bit more manageable than on other boats.
It turns out that during my time "away" from Too Tuff, Rosanne also get a good dunking, but was able to hang on to Too Tuff and did not get the body surfing experience, Phyllis reported that she got 1/2 the treatment that Rosanne got and so she was still on board and was the first one to get to the high side.
After I got back on board, it took us a long time to collect our wits, and figure how to get the spinnaker unwrapped from around the keel. Once that was done, We got the boat going again -- my wrist GPS was showing 10-11 knots with just the main up! We crossed the Foaming Cauldron with just the main and basically waited for the sun to dry us off.
This is marked as "A" on the chart:
Click here to see the chart
As we headed up the Carquinez Strait, the winds got light and fluky so Rosanne and Phyllis hoisted our soaking wet kite and we were back to "Normal" -- We did ponder briefly the idea of abandoning the race at our home port of Benicia, but that was rejected by all.
The rest of the race was *relatively* un-eventful I made a navigation "ops" and ran us aground in one of the spots where the channel is all the way on the starboard side of the river... I took Too Tuff right down the middle, We bumped a couple of times and then stopped hard. I had the crew do a quick jibe and get the boat pointed at deep water, We sheeted the main and spinnaker in hard and that titled the boat over enough for use to bump-sail-bump-sail back to deep water.
The sad part about that learning experience is that I did not learn my lesson very well and we did the same exact thing about 20 minutes later. At this point I had the crew's full assistance in keeping track of the navigation markers for the rest of the race.
This is marked as "B" on the chart. You can see the dotted line stray out of the deep water.
As we were getting closer to the finish in Stockton, we kept wondering if we were gonna make it to the finish before dark, well as you can probably guess by now, it was not to be. As the sun went down the wind slowed and eventually stopped completely, We were about a mile from the finish when we ran out of "gas" and could not seem to get an movement out of the boat at all. As the two remaining boats in the race ghosted by us, we decided we may have been caught in some seaweed or something. We jostled the rudder enough to get some little bit of boat speed going, but there was so little wind by then that we gave in and broke out the backup to the 2HP that did not work. We paddled for about 25 minutes before we got a horn at the finish and a cheer from shore. I don't know if they saw us paddling in the dark, but they did not DSQ us for paddling. We scored 103 out of about 120 boats overall, and all of the boats that where listed after us on the score sheet were DNF, so we were the last boat that actually finished -- Except we must DSQ ourselves for using the paddle. :(
This is marked as "C" on the chart.
Here are the results:
http://www.stocktonsc.org/ditch/ditch2006-overall.html
We arrived at about 10:45 at the dock, We missed the BBQ completely and we only got to listen to the excellent Blues Band for about 10 minutes before they packed it up.
Our hard earned Ditch Run T-Shirts were waiting for us though, we will where them proudly. My personal goal still remains: Finish the Ditch Run next year.
Hats off to my never say never crew: Rosanne Engelhardt and Phyllis Hartzell
Note: I made the chart that goes with this story using a Garmin foretrex 201 Wrist Top GPS, I downloaded the track from the Garmin with "LoadMyTracks" for the Mac and then I loaded the track data into GPSNavX. I stitched the big chart together with photoshop.
Mark Engelhardt
Too Tuff #2
It took a full day friday to move Too Tuff to Richmond, Set up the boat and then drag the trailer to Stockton. Not only is it a long Race, Its a long *drive*!
On setup day, we tried to use my new Honda 2HP to motor Too Tuff over to our spot on the raft up before the race. It would not start. I am still trying to figure out why.
The wind was blowing about 12-15 at the start, and we got a fairly decent start, The other U20 (Ricochet had trouble with there first Spinnaker set, so we were off to an early lead. We waited a few minutes to put up our spinnaker, sailing high until I liked the angle better.
The whole fleet got the dreaded 5 blasts from a small freighter intent on docking right smack in the middle of the fleet. We took his stern with a good part of the fleet. It sure seemed like the captain of that vessel could have held off for 3 minutes while the fleet went by.
As we passed the brothers and entered San Pablo Bay (know locally as the "Foaming Caldron From Hell") the Wind started to build with gusts starting to hit 30-35 knots. We had a couple round ups during the big blasts, and it took a little work to get the boat on its feet and moving again. About the forth one of these, we were not so lucky, the boat stayed rolled over about 45 degrees, and even with the spinnaker sheet loose and flogging, we could not spill enough wind from the main to get the rudder back in the water and get the boat on its feet. After a while of just hanging in this state, I decided that I did not have enough length in the main sheet to let the main out far enough to spill enough air. So I reached down and untied the knot at the end of the main sheet so I could let it run, I grabbed the the next strand and started letting the main out some more. This is when all hell broke loose, my "plan" worked... as near as I can piece together, maybe the boat turned too far and back-winded or something... the next thing I was aware of is the taste of salt water in my mouth and nothing around me but water. I still had the main sheet in my hand, but the boat was not touching me at all. I realized that holding on to the main sheet was critical to my not being left behind! About this time my sospenders auto-inflate life jacket inflated and there I was body surfing behind Too Tuff which was *still* doing maybe 5 knots or so. I think the drag of my body in the water was sheeting in the main and giving the boat a pretty good push forward, By this time I had the presence of mind to yell to the crew (Our friend Phyllis and my wife Rosanne) "climb to the high side!" I was able to pull myself to the back of the boat at this point, but I really could not do anything useful but hang on and yell ideas at the crew. My next "idea" was to yell at Phyllis to blow the spinnaker halyard. It took her about 10 looonnnng seconds to get this accomplished, and the boat finally started to slow down. When the spinnaker hit the water, that finally fully put the brakes on and the crew was finally able to help/drag me on board. The open transom on the U20 makes that a bit more manageable than on other boats.It turns out that during my time "away" from Too Tuff, Rosanne also get a good dunking, but was able to hang on to Too Tuff and did not get the body surfing experience, Phyllis reported that she got 1/2 the treatment that Rosanne got and so she was still on board and was the first one to get to the high side.
After I got back on board, it took us a long time to collect our wits, and figure how to get the spinnaker unwrapped from around the keel. Once that was done, We got the boat going again -- my wrist GPS was showing 10-11 knots with just the main up! We crossed the Foaming Cauldron with just the main and basically waited for the sun to dry us off.
This is marked as "A" on the chart:
Click here to see the chart
As we headed up the Carquinez Strait, the winds got light and fluky so Rosanne and Phyllis hoisted our soaking wet kite and we were back to "Normal" -- We did ponder briefly the idea of abandoning the race at our home port of Benicia, but that was rejected by all.
The rest of the race was *relatively* un-eventful I made a navigation "ops" and ran us aground in one of the spots where the channel is all the way on the starboard side of the river... I took Too Tuff right down the middle, We bumped a couple of times and then stopped hard. I had the crew do a quick jibe and get the boat pointed at deep water, We sheeted the main and spinnaker in hard and that titled the boat over enough for use to bump-sail-bump-sail back to deep water.
The sad part about that learning experience is that I did not learn my lesson very well and we did the same exact thing about 20 minutes later. At this point I had the crew's full assistance in keeping track of the navigation markers for the rest of the race.
This is marked as "B" on the chart. You can see the dotted line stray out of the deep water.
As we were getting closer to the finish in Stockton, we kept wondering if we were gonna make it to the finish before dark, well as you can probably guess by now, it was not to be. As the sun went down the wind slowed and eventually stopped completely, We were about a mile from the finish when we ran out of "gas" and could not seem to get an movement out of the boat at all. As the two remaining boats in the race ghosted by us, we decided we may have been caught in some seaweed or something. We jostled the rudder enough to get some little bit of boat speed going, but there was so little wind by then that we gave in and broke out the backup to the 2HP that did not work. We paddled for about 25 minutes before we got a horn at the finish and a cheer from shore. I don't know if they saw us paddling in the dark, but they did not DSQ us for paddling. We scored 103 out of about 120 boats overall, and all of the boats that where listed after us on the score sheet were DNF, so we were the last boat that actually finished -- Except we must DSQ ourselves for using the paddle. :(
This is marked as "C" on the chart.
Here are the results:
http://www.stocktonsc.org/ditch/ditch2006-overall.html
We arrived at about 10:45 at the dock, We missed the BBQ completely and we only got to listen to the excellent Blues Band for about 10 minutes before they packed it up.
Our hard earned Ditch Run T-Shirts were waiting for us though, we will where them proudly. My personal goal still remains: Finish the Ditch Run next year.
Hats off to my never say never crew: Rosanne Engelhardt and Phyllis Hartzell
Note: I made the chart that goes with this story using a Garmin foretrex 201 Wrist Top GPS, I downloaded the track from the Garmin with "LoadMyTracks" for the Mac and then I loaded the track data into GPSNavX. I stitched the big chart together with photoshop.
Mark Engelhardt
Too Tuff #2
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