Mixed results this weekend. Gloria and I raced in the Sunday afternoon races. There were two races and 3 C-22s were in the fleet. We finished a solid last place in both races. That's both disappointing and disturbing because I have raced better than that in the past. But upon arriving back at the dock, I noticed we have some “lettuce” growing on the hull at the transom. I guess the antifouling paint I used wore out. Can't win races with a garden growing on the bottom. If I get time, I'll raise it on one of the club hoists and power wash the bottom.

More unsettling is the fact that when it was time to come in, the outboard wouldn't start. Again! (Read the earlier posts to get a feel for how frustrating this situation is for me.)

Suspicion is once again on water in the gas somehow. The external tank is about half full at this point, so maybe there is enough air (and exchange of air) to allow water to accumulate. Also if water had gathered in the “reserve” area, the sloshing around the tank took as we heeled and tacked, could have stirred things up. I'll try draining the tank into something where I can see if there's a layer of water. I'll probably need to drain the carburetor bowl also. Then fresh gas and a double dose of Sta-Bil ought to do the trick.

At my boat club there are at least two other owners of Tohatsu-built outboards experiencing the same “water-in-the gas” issues I am fighting. Maybe Oklahoma City has just had a lot of water-laden gas delivered to us? Maybe the unusually wet spring and summer have resulted in water seeping into the holding tanks at the gas stations. Who knows? But it seems odd to me that we're only hearing about it from the owners of Tohatsu built engines. Do other small outboards have a fuel/water separator in their lines? The Tohatsus don't. I have been told by a rep at their support line that they have a separator available for $117. That seems like a lot, so I'm going to try other things first.

Sunset on Lake Hefner, 7/21/13

It was a great weekend!

Our club scheduled the annual Long Distance race for Saturday night. We sail on a lake (Lake Hefner) that is basically a 11/2-mile diameter circle. The club places up to 9 semi-permanent marks around the lake each year. The long-distance race has us zigzagging from mark to mark across the lake following a designated course. The race committee reported the course was 15.2 miles long.

Now, when you think about that, the common response would be that doesn't sound like much fun or much of a challenge. But did I mention the race starts just before sunset and takes place mostly at night? It teaches skeptics just how easy it is to get totally disoriented at night. To make matters worse, two of the marks haven't been re-installed after being pulled during last year's drought. They were temporarily replaced by large inflatable yellow tetrahedrons.

Problem: No lights on the tets.

Solution: chemical glow-necklaces like you might see at a concert. Once you got within about 50 feet of the mark, you could see the glow, but by that time you already knew where the mark was. In fairness, the race is always scheduled for a weekend as close to the full moon as we can get.

The net effect is that GPS systems are almost essential. We have a combined GPS/depth sounder/fish finder on Serene Dream. So Friday evening my wife and I decided to sail around the lake and set a waypoint for every mark that was out. Upon arriving at the boat, we realized we'd somehow lost a spreader boot, so the Genoa was out of the question. We used the standard Catalina-issue jib. It was a very nice evening, we got the marks put in the GPS, and we enjoyed a wonderful evening sail, with Gloria getting a lot of time at the tiller.

Gloria at the tiller

On Saturday the skipper's meeting for the Race was at 19:30 (7:30 p.m.) There was what they called a “LeMans” start. What that means is the Race Committee looked up the PHRF handicap for boat in the race. They sorted them by handicap, with the highest handicap (slowest boat) at the top. They then did some sort of calculation to apply a time-offset for the length of the race. The slowest boat would start first and others would start some minutes later, based on their rating. If all worked as planned, everyone should finish just about the same time. The order of arriving back in the harbor would also be the order of finish without further handicap calculation. As the slowest boat in the fleet, we were the first to start, to be followed shortly by a San Juan 21.

Moonrise over Lake Hefner, 7/21/13

The two temporary marks weren't set until just before the race, so we had to waypoint them as we passed them for the first time. But it was still twilight then and we could see the marks to find them. It was a beautiful night to sail. Winds were moderate, 8 to about 13 mph (we're inland, so rarely use knots or nautical miles). When we got back to the harbor at about 23:40 a couple of the club members were cooking up breakfast tacos. The results showed our lowly Catalina 22 in second place in the 11-boat fleet! I'm happy!

Sunday afternoon is always a low-key race that our club is using to try to encourage new racers (and specifically Catalina 22s) to try racing. I went out for the first race, but wasn't really gung-ho about it. That was in part because it was blazing hot and also I was single-handing the boat for one of the first times ever. I quickly realized that diving to leeward to adjust the jib was not a good idea, especially if there was a gust. We've never tried cross-sheeting but it seemed a good idea. It worked well for me. Even with just the jib (hadn't had time to replace the spreader boot) I kept it competitive with the other 2 Genoa-flying 22's, although I came in third (last) place. But the heat was getting to me so I retired and didn't do the second race.

And then, Sunday evening, the Catalina Fleet had a moonlight sail to take advantage of the almost-full moon. When I showed her my “improvement”, Gloria didn't like cross-sheeting at all. She said the line made her feel hemmed in and crowded. So she will trim the headsail on the leeward side. To each his(her) own.

Serene Dream sailing into the sunset

Since we were not racing and were interested in a relaxing, pleasant sail, we reefed the main so boat heel would be less.  We only stayed out until about 22:00, but it was relaxing, peaceful and a beautiful night to sail.

Just the kind of night for a Serene Dream.