Gregg Carville - My Fastest Manana, a wet and wild ride.

It was 2006 and I was sailing on Roach Coach, and Olsen 30 with Rich Stevenson. Normally we raced with 4 people, but someone had dropped out and we ended up going with 3. Pete Faris completed our trio and the forecast was for a fast race. We were in the Manana Race (90 nm) and the course took us out the Hussey to the Pilot Buoy, down to Monhegan and back to finish at Portland Head Light. The forecast was for a strong NW breeze and it was right on the nose.

The downwind start was a bit chaotic, boats reaching across the line and then trying to pop the chute at the right moment. We flew our jib to give us some control and decided to hoist the chute with the starting signal. The wind was blowing 15 with gusts in the low 20s. We had a decent hoist and we were off. There was one boat ahead of us who had flown their chute from before the start. We watched them wipe out before they got to the Hussey, and we were off in the lead.

The Olsen is a ULDB - ultra light displacement boat - and screams downwind. It was designed for the TransPac race and loves to surf. We were in control heading to the Pilot Buoy, we gybed around it and headed off towards Monhegan. Now the wind picked up and the waves were such that we started to rock and spray was everywhere. At this point Rich was on the helm, I was on the main and Pete was on the chute. Rich spoke up and said “If we broach, ease the wet side” Pete looked back at me and Rich and said “Which side is the wet side?” Shortly after that we doused the chute. We looked back and the boats behind us were doing the same thing.

After eating we could still see the boats behind us on the horizon, and soon I thought I spotted chutes going back up! We had a short discussion and the chute went back up. Soon we were hauling again towards Monhegan. We managed to keep things under control and the wind eased some too. We rounded before sunset and then started back upwind, though as we did the wind eased some and shifted more to the W, SW. We managed to hold off the rest of the fleet upwind and finished before midnight!

In sharing this memory with Rich, he mentioned that in one of the reviews of the boat they said “The Olson is just as fast under the water as it is on top!”