Harvest Moon Nightcap

[Mickey McHugh]

The full moon had just set and in total darkness I tracked the strand of glittering pearls – the lights of oil platforms and gas wells that were scattered before me off the coast of southeast Texas. It was mid-October and I, with my crew of Debbie my wife, Dan Fuller a C36 owner, Chris my son and Tonja a friend of Debbie’s, was nearing the end of the Harvest Moon regatta. I used the tiny beams as reference to keep Yaga’s bow pointed toward the distant Port Aransas sea buoy 6. The 20-knot winds had kicked up the Gulf of Mexico into 5-foot seas that made steering a straight line a challenge. Letting our course become too serpentine would have cost us precious seconds. I had already caused a bad takedown of the chute near the Freeport sea buoy at sunset. I say I because, except for Debbie, my crew had never raced or flown a spinnaker before. We had only an afternoon practice sail the weekend before. While adjusting the fore guy on a close reach, I lost control of it causing the spinnaker to fly aft and hang up on the mainsail’s full battens. My crew, with Debbie steering, did a super job of clearing the fouled sail, getting it down and bagged and setting the Genoa. We had lost a lot of time but knew if we (I) could avoid any more mistakes there might still be a chance for some hardware.Even though I had shown occasional foolhardiness as skipper on other past sailing adventures, I did show excellent intelligence when I followed Debbie’s advice to look at Yaga, a Hunter 40.5, as our possible new home back in 1997. Once on board, I knew this was not the boat that I expected based on the reputation of Hunters made infamous on the Cruising World bulletin board. She was a beauty to behold with her tall fractional B&R rig (with backstay) and clean racy lines on deck and with lots of well-crafted teak below deck. She was built with a thick solid hull with inner structural pan and 7000 pound ballast giving her a beefy 20,000 pounds displacement. It was love at first sight of the walk-thru transom since we are both divers but the many design features below that could have only come with the addition of a woman’s touch plus the large aft cabin with a queen sized mattress sold us. After 3 hours of indoctrination by the dealer, Debbie and I were sailing our dream home around the bay and have sailed her nearly every weekend for the past 5 years. Yaga has taking us cruising in California, the Baja, from Texas to the Chesapeake and back with two Gulf of Mexico crossings. Now our home had become a race boat for only the second time. We placed second in the Hunter Chesapeake Bay Rendezvous Regatta in 2000. The added excitement of the race provided us with yet another element of sailing that we want to share with our kids and grandkids.With the wind just forward of the port beam and Yaga racing along at hull speed there was little to do but for the crew to hang on and for me to steer. As the sun rose out of the lumpy sea behind us, the thin line of the coast came into view as well as many other yachts all racing toward the final mark, the still unseen buoy 6. Thank God for GPS. With the increasing light also came increased wind and swell. Yaga took green water over her side and bow from several large waves and Chris and Tonja also felt a little green. Even so, they would howl with joy as spray would sweep across the cockpit covering them from head to toe. Their smiling wet faces told me they were having a hell of a good time. Since the turn downwind for the final leg up the channel to the finish was quickly approaching, we held off reefing the main sail. Over canvassed and smacked by large breaking waves, Yaga wanted to round up and sometimes took full rudder to keep her on course. It made for a few hairy moments, but after all, it was a race. Once around the mark and inside the jetties with the 25-knot wind astern, we surfed the swells along with the local dolphins and crossed the finish line at 0942. We had made a perfect start in light winds off the Flagship Hotel in Galveston at 1400 the previous day and covered the 150 nautical mile distance in 19 hours 42 minutes. That meant an average speed of 7.62 knots. Not bad for a 40 foot live aboard cruiser. We were all tired but also excited that we had finished just behind of and in front of the bigger go fast boats. Race results were kept secret until the awards ceremony and party the next day. When they announced that Yaga had placed fourth in her PHRF Cruising Spinnaker Class, you would have thought we had won the lottery! The fifth placed boat was just 15 seconds behind. There were lots of hugs and kisses, something we all need every now and then. Now Yaga has a new cup gracing her salon and we all look forward to doing it again next year.

 

[Rick D]

Way To Go Mickey!!

Just a few weeks ago, I entered a cruising class race. About a dozen in the race including some fast ones. Anyhow, we had a good start and ran the course in first, catching and passing the early starters. It is the second time we were first to finish. The other was in the MDR to SD race. Winds in the recent one were much like yours, running about 20-25 knots. Probably should have reefed. But, your conditions for 150 miles were really great! We corrected out way out of the money in both cases. Handicap is a killer. Rick D.

 

[Jim Seamans]

Way to go Mickey!!

Keep praticing Mickey, the Chesapeake Rendezvous is coming in 2002 and I'll give you a better shot at me. I've traded in my H260 for a H356. Sounds like you and your crew had a great time.JimS/V Java