ZEPHYR WINS IN CHICAGO

Chicago… Chicago.. you’re my kind of town…   Zephyr smoked em’ this past weekend at Chicago Yacht Club’s very prestigious “VERVE CUP”.  This regatta had over 203 boats which included  Great Lake 70’s (has-been west coast Trans-Pac boats),  Farr 40’s, OD 35’s, Mumm 30’s, J-125’s, J-145’s, Tartan 10’s etc.  As far as I can tell, it’s a condensed three-day Yankee version of Key West race week.   Zephyr raced in PHRF  CLASS 8 which was made up of six J-30’s,  three S2 9.1’s, a Soveral 27, a Pearson 36, Olson 911s and a Beneteaue 381.    The J-30’s included past North American Champion Dorsey Owens sailing Sea Biscuit.  The J-30’s were the most affordable and slowest rated boats on the entire race course!  The one thing I noticed is that this town has money!

results
In Race One, the breeze was blowing 8-12 knots out the West and the weather mark was set about a mile off the mouth of the Chicago River in the lee of the city. Zephyr had a great start but missed the first shift as we had some major troubles with the leech line in the genoa.  Missing the first shift forced us to play the not-so-favored left side of the course as we rounded the weather mark a distant fourth.  After setting, jibing and playing the waves we quickly ground our way back to third.    At the leeward mark we tacked to clear our air, and found our selves back in fourth and going to the not-so favored left side once again.  We could see the right paying with more breeze and lift, but just couldn’t get there as the five classes that started ahead of us gave us no lanes for clear air on that side of the course.  Here comes the “ESPN PLAY OF THE DAY”:  we got a 10 degree throw and started to tack, half way into the tack our skipper noticed the jib was not back winding, he pulled the helm back to stop the tack and faked out his entire crew.  We were now lifted forty degrees on the same tack.  About 150 yards later we got thrown forty degrees and tacked.  We were now on port lay line, we went from fourth to first in two shifts.  We had also just past 11 boats with lower ratings that started five minutes ahead of us.  We got the gun and won class by over three minutes.   Our new J-30 friends were quick to congratulate us after the finish with “Nice race guys… the left never pays here when it’s blowing out the south east….you lucky bastards”.   We’ll take luck over skill any time especially when we had no local knowledge on the boat.

In Race Two, the breeze started out in the same direction as the previous race.  We had a good start but the breeze started to crump.  We went from first to last place four different times on the first beat.  We rounded the weather mark a very distant third and remained there the entire race.  The breeze velocity and direction changed constantly.   The beat became a run and the run became a beat, the RC did the best they could do without abandoning the race.  This race was a real “crap shoot”, all to similar to a typical day on Lake Pontchartrain.    Local J-30 sailor, Dennis Bartley sailing Planxty won this race by nailing every shift on the first leg.  The Soverel 27 finished ahead of us in second (the Soverel 27 is a light air machine, it would be a perfect racer for Lake Pontchartrain).

In Race Three, Zephyr won the start and caused havoc at that committee boat end by forcing two of our competitors to the windward side of the boat.  The two boats that we “squeezed out” jibed out and were forced to the right.  They went from last to first with one lucky shift,  boy oh boy, we know that feeling!  We worked the left side of the course again and stayed bow out.  We could see a big lefty up the course and figured it would pay if we could just be patient.  We had to sail through to lifts to get there, but it worked out. We finally got the header that we were looking for and rounded the weather mark in second place behind a S2 9.1.  We jibed inside of the S2 soon after rounding and lead the next two legs with a very comfortable margin.  With about a ¼ of mile to the finish, the breeze began to build from behind which pushed the entire fleet up to us.   A squaw/front/lowpressurefeederband was approaching and we had about fifty yards to finish with two other J-30’s on our breeze.  About five boat lengths before we finished, lightning struck close, very close, all over us as matter of fact, it knocked the numbers off the sail comp, made the hair on arms stand up and tingled everyone’s fingers that were holding onto wet lines.  Even with the lightning strike, we protected our lead and finished first.  We reset the instruments and sail comp came back on, so it must have just been a near strike!

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