2024 - a race recap from Tamarack
2024 Tamarack Monhegan Recap
By Geoffrey Emanuel
Start was perfect conditions with 8-10 knot Southerly and outgoing tide. Started just to leeward John Wells’ Beneteau 36.7 Barracuda and took a long starboard tack course just south of Outer Green Island. We were first to tack right towards Boon Island, passing Cape Elizabeth approximately 2 miles offshore. We slowly gained a lead over Barracuda and Gremlin based primarily on boat speed while simultaneously slowly were losing to Temptress and Wild Blue. Temptress and especially Wild Blue were primarily offshore of us while Barracuda and Gremlin were essentially in the same lateral position.
As dusk approached, both Barracuda and Gremlin tacked to go further offshore, while we headed WSW. The wind lightened and veered more westerly. Initially, based on compass bearings, it looked like we were gaining on Wild Blue and Temptress. We did not check Yellowbrick at this point, which proved consequential. The boats like Gremlin, Wild Blue, Barracuda and Temptress stayed outside and put 1-3 miles on us. We literally got headed for 1-2 minutes after tacking on a header! The wind was lighter where we were too. We should have tried to check Yellowbrick but to the best of my knowledge no one did. When we finally rounded Boon Island at 12:17am Saturday morning, we were 3.9 miles behind the lead boat, Wild Blue, 2.9 miles behind Gremlin, 2.7 miles behind Temptress, 2.1 miles behind Barracuda.
We set the chute and I went down to bed around 1am. I gave the helm to Tom Hussey when the next watch came up and went to bed at about 12 AM. At the time, I told Tom we were trying to keep the boat speed up and would sail lower when the wind got stronger. We were steering about 075 degrees, and we could see a number of stern lights in front of us that we were gaining on.
TOM HUSSEY-. We kept the boat speed between 5.5 and 6.5 knots and did over 6 knots most of the time. Over the next 2 hours, we steadily gained on Veladare until we were even with them. Unfortunately, we were not able to sail by them to leeward and after sitting in this leeward position for about 10 minutes, we decided to try going above them. I was very surprised Veladare let us go above them without trying to stop us from doing it and then we were back on our way of pulling away from them and going about 6 knots again. At about 2:30 AM, we had several bolts of lightning and thunder behind us and it got very dark, but then all the lightning stopped. We were still concerned the weather was going to be moving in and we had the chute up, so we decided it was time to wake Geoff and the other watch up to take action before the weather moved in
GE- At approximately 1:45am, Jen White woke me up. A thunderstorm was bearing down on us, and we needed to get the chute down quickly. I took over the helm from Tom who then mustered the rest of the crew to drop the kite. We were on the starboard jibe and the chute was just starting to be lowered when the boom unexpectedly jibed over to the starboard side of the boat, fortunately the crew was out of harm’s way. After the main gybed, the wind was now coming from the west and began to blow harder, The spinnaker was no longer being blanketed by the main, thereby exposing it to the increasing wind. But the crew performed magnificently and got the kite down. Then the boom gybed back to the port side!! Thank God it didn’t hit anyone! Roughly 2 minutes passed between the first and second gybe. Almost immediately after the second gybe the wind increased rapidly, and the boat accelerated to a maximum speed of 9.8 knots!!
Lightning and thunder were almost constant, and the rain was monsoon-like. Within 10 minutes, the worst of the storm passed, and we hoisted the #1 genoa. We gybed back onto port to sail close to the rhumb line course to Monhegan. It quickly became clear that we had gained significantly on many but not all boats. At 3:40 am, we passed Veladare and Temptress, were within 1 mile of Gremlin and 1.5 miles of Barracuda. But we lost ground to Wild Blue who was now 5.7 miles ahead of us.
The wind shifted to the east from the southwest around 4 am and by 4:30 am we had caught both Gremlin and Barracuda. We sailed over the top of both boats beating on starboard tack and had gained nearly 1 mile on Wild Blue. We were offshore of all the boats except Wild Blue. Temptress was approximately 2 miles abeam of us inshore going 2.5 knots slower than us. Over the next 3 hours, the wind backed to the NE at 5-8 knots, so Monhegan is now dead upwind. The fleet stayed on Starboard tack and crossed the rhumb line to the inshore side. By 7:30am, we were in second place on the water, only 2.2 miles behind Wild Blue. We were 2.3 miles ahead of Barracuda, which was also 1 mile offshore of us.
By 8 am, we were headed 30 degrees and the wind lightened, we tacked and got crossed by Gremlin which was going almost 3 knots faster than us. By 8:30 am, the wind had shifted 45 degrees to the East, Barracuda got inside the right-hand shift on us and passed us. Gremlin was 0.8 miles ahead and Wild Blue was 2.8 miles ahead. Temptress was 1.1 miles behind.
By 9am, we were 8 miles offshore of Orrs Bailey Island, and we picked up Yellowbrick tracking. It showed two Doublehanded Monhegan racers, the J-99 Eventyr and the C&C 36 Aurora 3 miles offshore of us laying Mohegan on starboard tack going nearly 7 knots. We were headed offshore nearly perpendicular to the rhumb line going 4 .1 knots. We could see a Class A competitor slightly offshore of us, the C&C 110 called Riff Raff, and she was .5 knots faster than us. Offshore looked solid. Meanwhile we were duking it out with Barracuda and Gremlin who were both within a mile of us
By 9:30 am, the wind was lightening but we could now see Eventyr who, according to Yellowbrick was going 2.7 knots faster than us heading right at Monhegan while were 30 degrees below the island. So, we tacked onto port and headed offshore By 11 am, we were 1.2 miles outside the Rhumb line headed at 125 degrees and going 0.5-1.5 knots faster than Temptress, Wild Blue, Barracuda and Gremlin. All but Barracuda stayed on the starboard tack and were all well inshore of the rhumb line
11:30 am- we had tacked back top starboard; we were well offshore (1-3 miles) of our 4 classmates. We were going 6.6 knots only 20 degrees off the rhumb line, Wild Blue was doing 4.5 knots, Barracuda, 5.5 knots, Gremlin 5.9 knots, and Temptress 4.2 knots.
12:00pm- we had passed everybody except Wild Blue, was on rhumb line to the mark, and was going 2-2.5 knots faster than our competitors, all of whom had tacked offshore except Barracuda, who was more than 2 miles behind us.
1:00pm- the wind had shifted 45 degrees from the east to the NE. We were 1-2 miles offshore of our competitors. The boats inside of us were now going 0.5-1 knots faster than us. We became dead downwind of Monhegan while our competitors had been lifted 45 degrees to within 10 degrees of laying the mark.
1:30. The wind shifted left 45 degrees to the left to the North. Our competitors were now doing 2-2.5 knots more boat speed than us and laying the mark at Monhegan
2:00 pm= Wild Blue rounded Duck Rocks and was close reaching with code zero on rhumb line to the finish. We were 1-1.5 miles behind Gremlin, Barracuda and Temptress.
2:30. We were approaching the turning mark. The northerly was dying but our 4 competitors were going 1-1.5 knots faster having rounded the mark and now were close reaching with code zeros. After the rounding mark, we decided to go offshore as fast as possible in the hopes of picking up a new southerly breeze.
3pm. We were barely moving through the water with a windseeker up. We tried to sail on a reach with spinnaker, but we were sailing head on into a 2–3-foot swell and the boat’s motion knocked most of the air out of the chute. The good news was the first signs of Southerly were appearing. The tide was pushing is offshore at 1+ knots and our four competitors were now beating in light air southerly ½-1 mile inshore and 1.3 miles ahead of us.
3:30pm- we lost about a ½ mile to competitors ahead as southerly had not increased. Further we’d been headed down to the rhumb line course.
4pm: southerly was filling in. We had changed to light #1 and then as wind built up carbon #1. We were lifted above the rhumb line (249 degrees course, rhumb line was 272) and going 5.8 knots. But our competitors ahead were going 1.-1.25 knots faster and had increased their lead.
4:30. Now Tamarack was the fastest boat in Class A and other than Temptress at least 1 mile further offshore
5:30. We tacked offshore and sailed a mile. Chicama and Eventyr had previously caught up to us and remained on the inshore track, By the time they finally tacked offshore with us, we had gained 1/2-3/4 of a mile on them. We remained furthest offshore and fastest boat. Both Temptress and Barracuda had tacked offshore but were still inside of us. The tracker stopped recalculating mileage, so we weren’t sure if we had gained on anyone. But we could see Barracuda and it was clear we were gaining on her. Our speed was a ½ knot faster than her with 28 miles left in the race.
6:30 pm. We had gained on all but Wild Blue and started to believe we could beat everyone on corrected time except Gremlin and Barracuda. We remained the offshore boat in our class.
7:30- we were at least 1-2 knot faster than our competitors and gained on everybody, especially Barracuda. We were steering 15 degrees offshore of the rhumb line but the incoming tide was mitigating that gain so we were effectively sailing just 5 degrees outside rhumb line.
8:30 pm- still faster by 1-1.5 knots than our competitors. At first it seemed we could catch Barracuda by G1.
9 pm. We had just about caught Barracuda. And then everything went pear shaped.
Having had 1-1/2 hours of sleep, not taking my meds for 3 days and steering almost the entire leg back from Monhegan, I was way overtired, hyped up on adrenaline and bordering on delirium. I became stuck on stupid.
The circumstances that led to missing the final turning mark included me putting the wrong mark into the GPS as a waypoint, not processing that we rounded G3 which Russell and I knew was the wrong mark and ignoring the fact that Barracuda, a well sailed boat, had continued on the starboard tack after we ducked her.
Then I made a bad decision calling for a spinnaker set. It created a period of chaos as it almost immediately became clear we had to put the jib back up and drop the kite. If we hadn’t put up the spinnaker, Russell and I might have had both the time and a quiet period to process that we made a navigational error. Had we done so, we could have tacked back out to the correct turning mark and still finish third in the race.
I remained in a trance for the rest of the evening, and it wasn’t until my good friend John Wells, the owner and skipper of Barracuda came over to visit us at PYC’s dock when he mentioned he did not think that we had rounded G1 near the finish and intended to protest. At that point, believe it or not, it hadn’t occurred to me. I asked John not to protest but assured him we’d withdraw if that was the case. I then fell back into my trance and didn’t bother to check Yellowbrick until the following morning. It was instantly clear once I checked that we had not rounded G1 and we immediately withdrew from the race.
One would think that such an egregious error couldn’t occur. especially by a veteran of offshore racer. I’m living proof that it can.
My hat’s off to all this year’s Monhegan competitors who stuck it out in one of the most tactically challenging races we’ve ever done! Special thanks to all the boats from Portsmouth, NH and Marblehead that made the trek north and all sailed great races! I look forward to a rematch against all of you and hopefully some new boats in 2025!
Lessons learned:
Create the GPS route using only the five turning marks- G3, Boon Island, Duck Rocks, G1 and finish.
Eat dinner at 5 pm to allow for the watches to begin at 7 pm
Mandate that everyone, especially yours truly, abide by the off-watch protocols (stay below deck and sleep)
When doing well in the early stages of an offshore race, don’t deviate from the fleet!
Brief the crew on the particulars of the course.
Rotate helmsman every two hours before watches and every hour during watches.
Don’t discount your competitors’ decisions.
Be more conservative with when adverse weather is imminent by dropping spinnakers or shortening sail maybe earlier than your competitive juices tell you to.
