BZ Flexes Her New Sails
When at you first you don’t succeed, try, try again. This was the mantra of Team BZ as it started out a cold, crisp early morning on February 26 to continue the SBYC Mid-Winters race series. The crew spent 45 minutes trying to get the outboard motor started with nothing to show for it. Turns out the vent mechanism in the gas cap was malfunctioning and preventing gas flow. In a last attempt to get off the dock, the Team unscrewed the gas cap entirely, left it loose, and the motor started right up. Go figure and put that one in your quiver of trouble shooting ideas for next time when there appears to be nothing wrong with an internal gas container outboard motor.
Skipper Walt commented to the crew: “Rule 9, Allow time to be your friend, not your enemy” as they took off from Treasure Island. An early rendezvous at the docks allowed for the Team to splash BZ just ahead of over 100 FJs staging to launch for a massive high school regatta. The extra time allowed the team to deal with the engine trouble, and sail at a leisurely pace over to Pier 40 to affect some minor tiller repairs before the start of the first race.
The experience would have been much more frantic if time had been short, stacked behind 100 boats trying to launch. As for BZ’s new racing sails, one could have heard the crackle of the crisp, new Dacron throughout all of South Beach Harbor as the crew hoisted the sails at Pier 40 before shoving off for the starting line. The world champion pedigree sails allow BZ to point higher, move faster in all points of sail, and above all, dress up the look of Team BZ.
Forecast was very light winds, in the low single digits, and a strong 2.4 knot ebb current maxing right during the first race. For once, Skipper Walt was pleased that the forecast was wrong as there was 5 to 8 knots of wind at the start. More than enough with the new sails to overcome the ebb, at least to start. While the race committee may have been trying to discourage port tack starts by situating the pin on the starboard end of the line, Memories of BZ port tacking the entire fleet during a combined division race on the second day of racing back in December came to mind as we set up for the start with the committee boat to port. Hey, no harm, no foul, right?
Anyway, we hit the line right at T = 0 on starboard tack in the middle of the line and were off and racing. In an unusual move, the Race Committee announced a brand new race course over the radio just at the start of the first race: upwind to a temporary mark by the B Tower of the Bay Bridge, a reach over to the YB buoy over by the US Coast Guard station on Yorba Buena Island, then back to the line for a downwind finish.
Half way to the YB mark, we noticed that two of the three prior fleets in the regatta were being sucked under the Bay Bridge due to a lull in wind speed near the Island. Thinking quickly, we pulled out the anchor and planted just as we hit the lull and waited 15 minutes for the breeze to freshen as it clocked around to the West.
When we pulled up anchor, we found ourselves ahead of many of the larger spinnaker division boats which had started 15 minutes before us, but were struggling against the ebb. A quick rounding of the YB mark and then a cruise to a first place finish on a crab vector beam reach. Walt thought they were the only boat to anchor during the first race, and it paid off. During the second race, the wind picked up to 8 – 10 knots with a slack to initial flood current. BZ loved the conditions and she hit the finish line set in McCovey Cove in first place again for the second bullet of the day.
With four bullets so far in the series and only one race day to go, it is likely that BZ and her crew will take home yet another first place trophy for the series representing BAADS on the final day of racing in March. Wish BZ and her crew luck on March 19!