US Sailing Multihull Championships 2021 Alter Cup!

 

The Drive - Check your Trailer!

I know... I know... We loaded everything up. Checked almost everything. Noticed that the wheel looked weird, but we were already 6 hours late leaving from CA, and the last trip had been back and forth to Mojave, so if it were loose it would have already gone right? Nope.

350 miles later, we're filling up and while doing the standard walk around, I see grease all over the wheel and on bits of the boat... what the... and no grease cap, and some excessive shadows around the lug nuts. The lugs had been snug enough for awhile, but with the 8" wheels and hundreds of miles, they worked themselves loose. The loose nuts allowed the wheel to wobble on the studs. The vibration from the wheel shook the grease cap out and made a hell of a mess, in addition to slinging grease everywhere! Had we missed that development much longer, we would have had a fried spindle and that wheel would have taken off on its own. We located some bearing grease at the gas station and found another grease cap. An hour later we were back on the road! The Stud threads were a little marred, but the only real casualty was the wheel. The spare got us the rest of the way to Phoenix.

In Phoenix I learned that the 3/4" spindle that was pretty normal on the little wave trailers, was deemed dangerous a number of years back, and as such, spindles, hubs and axles all became relatively unobtanium. There were a couple of special order bearings available, but no hubs or solutions shy of getting a new axle fabbed up with larger spindles. Since I didn't have the time to mess with that, I opted to commandeer my recently rebuilt H16 trailer. I'd hoped to put some pads on the frame and "just sort of fudge it" but with well over 2k miles to go, it had to be a bit more solid than that. With the simple construction of the wave, we opted for a widening mod! We unlaced the trampoline and stretched it out to an H16 width. The larger H16 trailer had two cat boxes, new HD bearing, hubs and tires. And I was off again...
1,125 uneventful miles, a couple of fuel stops and a quick nap later I found the staging area for the 2021 Alter Cup boat assembly.

Setup!

There was a healthy spread of partially assembled boats, RVs and multi-boat trailer rigs as you would expect at any national championship event. Every 15 minutes or so, Xander Wessels would blast through on a side by side dragging a trailer and boat down to the beach for the competitors. They kept that up all day!

 

 

Practice Day

The actual event was setup to have 4 fleets race in two days of qualifiers and then split into gold and silver fleets for two days of championship racing. Buuuuuuut when you have 78 boats show up all in the same class, there has to be a photo op! On Monday everyone was encouraged to participate in the practice starts and practice race. The conditions were a little light and lumpy, but enough to let the RC get some practice setting the jumbo course, and some racers got to see the biggest Wave starts in years, If not ever! There was a cheeky skipper that made for a dramatic port start on the practice race.

Qualifier Day one

Day one had some light breeze, with moderate chop. The 40 boat starts took a little getting used to, but were fantastic to be a part of. In order to split the group up, the course had two weather pins and two gates. The first start would travel up to the first weather mark and then reach over to the second weather mark and run subsequent laps on the left side of the course. The second start would run their laps on the right side of the course, until the last leg, which would reach over to the left side, down to the left gate, and back over to the finish. I had a lot of fun with the reaching legs, the waves could surf the waves, and the shifts in the apparent wind required a lot of trimming, which quite a few competitors were not taking advantage of. Quite a few of those that I passed on the reaching leg, would in turn pass me back on the down wind, so the success was short lived. A few of us got romped on the first couple races during the final reach back over to the finish area. There was a leeward rounding before going upwind for a short burst to the finish. If you could manage to achieve an overlap coming into that mark, you could control one or more boats with ease. With the large fleet, it was easy to stack the overlapped boats, and that reach became a lot more interesting. Boats coming out of the gate would often be getting almost close hauled to come up and over the boat in front of them, and somehow able to maintain the overlap to achieve room at the next mark. Big fleet tactics!

Qualifier Day Two

Day two had similar conditions to day one, the breeze and water were pretty warm. Everyone was pretty relaxed and casual. It quickly became clear that many of us were not used to racing in such large fleets. Breaking through the starboard boat parade to the weather mark on each lap would be pretty exciting, but not nearly the yard sale that could be found at the gates! Gate tactics with a 5-15 boat fleet are very different when you can be coming into the gate as part of a 40 boat fleet with 15 overlapped boats forcing you 4 or 5 boat lengths downwind of the gate before you can made your turn to the weather leg.

Day One of Finals

The first day of the finals lit up the course with some good breeze. The RC postponed the start in a cautionary move considering the strong forecast. It looked pretty moderate on the beach in the morning, but the breeze had switched directions and was coming over the city. The water was calm at the beach and the breeze was protected. Out at the course, there was some pretty significant chop and gusts well over 20 kts. I was eager to get out in the breeze early on, so I took the opportunity of the delay to go for a wing foil ride. Once out on the water, it was clear that the PRO had made a wise choice.
As the time came closer to the day's first start, the neoprene and jackets came out. Skippers were de-tuning their rigs in anticipation of blasting around the course. The offshore breeze made for some nice launching as the lines of boats blasted off of the beach. With little room to whip up the chop, the water was pretty flat... until we got out to the course.

Day Two of Finals

The day seemed to start with a similar strong breeze as the day before, but it was tapering off and a bit shifty. The RC got partway through a start before throwing up a postponement and considering adjusting the course. I believe they ultimately saw the breeze shift back and started the race. The silver fleet start saw that shift come back about 30 seconds before the flag went down. The fleet bobbed, and a few lucky or skilled sailors made the break away! Then random gusts seemed to come down the course and lift, head or blast Waves up the waves. The gusts filtered through at times like a canyon lake, and groups hunting for their lay line, suddenly found themselves overstood by hundreds of yards.

Ultimately there were lots of moments to be frustrated by, but the conditions presented an opportunity for sailors to compete in a variety of conditions. Breeze was light, strong and shifty.