Celebrating 100 Miles with friends

17 oktober 2016 - Darkness comes earlier each evening though the land still holds the warmth of a long summer. The train heads North first toward Amsterdam, though orderly Holland fields now flecked with straw, or plowed again ......

deep brown and raw. From Amsterdam a bus ride along the North Sea Canal, past working harbors and otherworldly cranes loading freighters under spotlights and on to Ijmuiden, where Maverick and 20 other sailboats are neatly lined along one of the marina piers, ready for one last race.

Walking down to the docks, sail bag slung over one shoulder, I encounter Jesse Mulderand from Push Up heading the other direction. “We’re next to Maverick, didn’t seeRaymond Roesink but we’re going to check in at the race office” Jesse noted. I tagged along for the short walk to a harbor office; for most races the registration process is friendly, brief and clinical, and while the 100 Mile organization is no less thorough and organized, it embraces a relaxed and welcoming style. A warm greeting from the race director Joop ten Bokkel and the YSY volunteers, and an invitation to join the committee and a few crews around the table for some snacks and refreshments.

We walked back to the marina and along our reserved dock, admiring the depth and diversity of the Dutch doublehanded class. Shiney modern racers next to aging but beloved older boats, a host of big boats with massive loads and smaller boats with more forgiving traits, all well sailed and carefully set up for doublehanding. Familiarity and respect, greetings and chats on the dock as the class gathers for a final deciding race to close a long season.

The 100 Miles Doublehanded holds a special place, one of the oldest Dutch shorthanded races with a storied history. First held in 1951 for crewed boats and revived a decade ago as a shorthanded event, it traditionally routed the fleet 40 miles out to the middle of the North Sea, around two solitary buoys marking the ‘Brown Bank’ -- an undersea ridge once rich with fish -- and back to the Dutch coast. In the intervening years the Bruine Bank marker buoys have been retired and a new course devised to keep clear of the busy shipping lanes into Ijmuiden, skirt the ever-growing offshore wind turbine parks, and rout the fleet past anchorages.

Mid-summer Ijmuiden harbor is busy with transiting sailors and holiday revelry, impromptu parties in cockpits along the docks, shouts and music until a very late sunset. Early September the docks fall silent early as the doublehanders rest for a tough overnight race. A still morning brought the sounds of crews readying sails and running lines, the smell of coffee and the sea beyond the breakwaters. The organization reflects the race, and instead gathering in a tent or boatshed to hear a few dry speeches on the rules and weather, the 20+ crews and race committee gather outside around a picnic table, chatting and sipping coffee while Joop offers some updates and encouragement. Each boat is called out and receives a goody bag from the lead sponsor, Tuned Rigging, and best of all, breakfast pastries.

One by one the fleet exits the marina and hoists sails, heading north across main channel and trying to avoid long ear-splitting warning horns from pilot boats or the fast-moving freighters. We enjoy unseasonal sunshine and a modest breeze, warm enough for shorts and tee-shirts, and the fleet crosses back and forth behind the start. Several years ago the Royal Ocean Racing Club Race Director complimented the Dutch doublehanders on a competitive yet undramatic start as compared to some of the crewed boat classes and with a full season of competition we know each other’s tendencies and limits.

In this case a very short line was laid, so that all 20 boats just might fit in side-by-side, and we decided to work our way from the start ship end and find an open slot along the line. In a superb example of herd mentality 19 other duos had precisely the same idea, and we approached the start ship end en-masse. Not enough room to duck the scrum, no room to tack out, we soon luffed up as Sparklings was luffing up to port, Sail Select and Barracuda wedged in from the start ship end, and we all endured a few sharp words from Junique Raymarine Sailing Team as they approached and veered away from a wall of boat. On the plus side Mabel’s video of the start has garnered many views on Facebook and YouTube, and somehow contact was avoided and the fleet made the dirtiest of clean starts.

Just after the horn we lay a few inches behind Sail Select, and could nearly touch Sparklings alongside, and again luffed off some speed before tacking to port. The first mark lay upwind a mile off, and in clean air we held speed and height. Tacking back to the mark we lay ahead of most of the fleet, and rounded just behind Junique with Batfish leading the parade and the J-111 Sailblij just behind them. We cleanly hoisted our big blue running spinnaker and settled into a long 26 mile downwind run along the coast. The four big J-boats led the way, with Endorphin keeping pace, Maverick looking a bit flash with the colorful blue and white kite among four plain white spinnakers. Hodspur and Pushup trailed and a gap opened up as expected between the higher rated big boats and the smaller competitors.

The wind shifted periodically and we expected the tide to turn against just before the next mark, so we worked to run as deep as possible. Though slightly behind the three other large J-boats and Endorphin we lay slightly deeper and as we approached the mark they had to beat further against tide to round the buoy. We made up time and rounded close behind, and set off on a 15 mile upwind leg to the next mark.

We appreciated our light clothes when running downwind with 13-18 kts wind and sea on a warm fall afternoon, but as we rounded the mark and hardened up we drove through the waves and chop that had built through the day. Raymond sits next to me on the upwind side, and as I saw the first sheet of water break over the bow and fly toward us I reflexively hunched over. Raymond is a big man and successfully blocked all of the spray, but grumbled about needing to change and headed down below. I managed a minute or two of sliding off or around waves before we caught another, with a broad sheet of water soaking me. Raymond soon returned and it was my turn to trade summer wear for heavy foulies.

Prior to the race we work through the course and consider the effects of tide and any expected changes in wind strength and direction over the course of the race. Our navigation software and instinct told us to first tack south after the mark to gain from the earlier tide change at the coast, as well as a component pushing westward. The rest of the lead group tacked over and we followed suit, but as the wind was expected to shift and tide would build as we aproached the mark, we soon tacked back. We held good speed and sailed close to the wind but increasingly felt very much alone.

Tacking back a few hours later we would soon have a chance to see if either route held an advantage. Batfish and Junique held on the southern tack the longest and emerged further ahead than expected, followed by Sailblij a few miles ahead of us, while Endorphin had also tacked west earlier and lay closer. We crossed just ahead of Endorphin but held a significant upwind edge, opening up a ¼ mile advantage over the next half hour and confirming our fears about taking the disadvantaged tack too early. With 60 miles to go we still had time to catch up with the leaders, but we would need to race hard and smart through the night.

Rounding the mark in the weakening late afternoon light we eased the sheets ever so slightly, and Maverick picked up pace as we headed west to the next mark. The tide was still running across our line from the North, and we took a heading to bring us to the mark. As the wind shifted we sailed higher to the wind, ever so slowly gaining Sailblij and Junique, with Batfish sailing fast and alone far in the distance.

We approached the next mark, rounding smartly and hardening up again for an upwind leg to the South. While we had gained incrementally on Sailblij and Junique and put Endorphin even further behind, we could make out the sails of the next group – Hodspur, Sparklings and PushUp – far behind but too close based on our ratings. While there is much motivation to catch leaders and faster boats, it is only exceeded by the desire to outrun boats that are chasing you.

Through the evening and into the night we tacked south, slowly gaining on the boats ahead. We settled into comfortable trim and took breaks on the helm, trying to maintain focus and fight fatigue. We watched Batfish, and later Junique and Sailblij rounding the mark ahead, and took some measure of pride that we lay closer.

The final two legs bring the fleet back from a starry night far offshore and back into the modern world of offshore platforms, wind turbine farms, freighters moving quickly along the shipping lanes, flashing buoys and the odd fishing boat working through the night. We eased of to a beam reach, and weighed fatigue and night work on a bumpy foredeck with getting the A0 set. We matched speed with the boats ahead but would not gain further and still needed to increase our lead over the lesser rated boats chasing us. Raymond readied the sail, I hesitated, and halfway through the leg I said “Why not” (or something coarser but similar) and up went the small reaching kite. Mav leapt ahead, a slightly mocking ‘Why didn’t you do this an hour ago?’, and we stated to take a serious time back from the lead boats.

We neatly hoisted the jib and dropped the big sail just before the next buoy, and trimmed to sail just off the wind. We sailed close to the flashing red masts of a wind turbine park to the North and past a field of anchored freighters to the South, the lights of Ijmuiden growing clearer ahead.

The very last few miles of the course is sensibly designed to minimize encounters with massive steel boats, routing us north of the breakwaters and then due south to cross perpendicular to the shipping channel. As we neared the penultimate mark we heard the traffic center trying to reach some of the boats ahead, who were no doubt monitoring the race channel instead. Think of kids on stingray bikes, crossing between trucks while listening to music in their iPhone. Raymond has a particular gift for calming agitated traffic masters, explaining that the racing boats were likely on another channel and noting we would monitor his channel until the finish. This earned a warm compliment from the Traffic Master, and no doubt a number of freighters took comfort that at least Maverick would not be lolling about ahead, oblivious to several thousand tons of freighter bearing down on them.

We crossed the finish, a line between small red and green light houses on either side of the inner harbor, the fourth boat home and fourth big J-boat each of them higher rated than Maverick. We dropped sails and motored into the marina, tired and satisfied but realistic we may have set ourselves back too far early on. We tied up and filled in a finish declaration (an anachronistic form, no doubt given a new lease on life by lawyers), and set off toward the marina end of the finish line.

We walked in the darkness toward the red breakwater light, gravel crunching underfoot, and greeted Joop and Mabel de Vries. The trailing boats were arriving, voices crackling over a handheld VHF and flashlights briefly illuminating their sails. They duly recorded the finish times, but also greeted each one back. Bart Desaunois from Batfish joined us, and we enjoyed watching our doublehanded family coming safely home after a long night on the North Sea.

Crews slept through the morning, and later in the afternoon mixed and matched for a now traditional competition in the marina on Optimists – small dinghys used to teach children to sail the world over. Before the prizegiving most of us gathered by Batfish, the biggest and fastest boat among us serving as our unofficial flagship. We enjoyed music, race stories, tales of earlier 100 miles, teasing and affection. Finally someone said “Shouldn’t we all be at the prize giving?”. For many races the prizegiving is the focus, the reward at the end of the day, but for the 100 Miles it is another element of a special weekend, secondary to the race and time together celebrating the season and our special discipline.

Under one rating system (ORC) Hodspur earned the win on corrected time, bringing then to equal points for the season with Ajeto but second for the Shorthanded season based on tiebreakers. Batfish earned line honors, second in ORC, and first place under the IRC rating. Junique made a clever change to improve their rating before the race and nipped Maverick in ORC for third place, while Maverick took home a handsome second place trophy in our preferred IRC rating.

We said our goodbyes after the dinner, soon returning to our home ports, back to club races and winter series. We’ll cross tacks again next year in the 50 Mile season opener, shouts across the water and vying for position and points, the promise of a new season and renewed competition. And just as surely in September we will all come together again for a warm welcome, a fine last race, grown men and women splashing around in Optimists, perhaps a prize, and a circle of friends on the dock talking late into a cool fall evening.

Chris Schram o/b Maverick

ORC IRC 2H

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