Commodores Cup 2025

 That sail was a Blast

Champagne Sailing at it's best, 5-8' seas, Ongoing Storm, Boat failures - but we had a blast!

Let's get the Boat failures out of the way.

When putting in the 2nd reef, I screwed up. When I loosened the lazy jacks with the intent of tidying up the sail shape after dropping the mainsail for the 2nd reef, I did not secure the bitter end of the port side Lazy Jack halyard. Later it ran out of the mast block and wrapped itself around the port Gib sheet, a big bundle of Dhoby hitches. The Genoa furling line jambed in the drum. That was probably due to the furling line not being taught enough to force the line to lay neatly inside the furler. I need to replace the furling line as it should be about 10' longer so that it's easier to manage when furling and unfurling the genoa.

Ok, that's it, considering the weather, easily solved issues:

• Secure the ends of the Lazy Jack halyards
• Keep the tension on the furling line when unfurling the Genoa
• Mark the reefing points on the Main Halyard and all 4 Reefing lines.

Thursday morning, a fellow member of the HISC assisted me climbing the mast to re-thread the Lazy Jack line, I plan to assist him when he has to scale his mast for the first time next week. Thanks Jim.

Friday morning I fixed the Lazy Jack lines, with stopper knots that prevent the line leaving the cleats. I hoisted the sail bag so that water drains out. All of the running rigging looks good, I inspected the shrouds and the attachments at the mast, all look good, however, my plan it to replace the standing rigging this winter. 

I also measured the Genoa Furling line and purchased 80' of StaSetX 1/4" Red & White line from the local marine store ( WM ) ready to install next week. The new line should have a significant tail on it so that it's easier to handle at the cockpit end.

Now for the fun part.

Our first crew for a race arrived early at the boat so were were able to leave at 8:55am to make the 9am Atlantic Bridge opening. Carol & Gail brought their own lifejackets, we had lunch, snacks and water/juice drinks in the cooler. Peggy & I had stopped by Publix on the way to the boat to pick up some Sandwiches and Fruit & Crackers, we would not starve.

The wind was expected to pipe up around noon. NOAA had forecast 10-14 knots of wind, so we set the 1st reef in the mainsail. Motoring up towards the start line we pinged the Port & Stbd pins of the line. The outer mark was a committee boat and the inner mark was a swim buoy. Our Starting line program was running on our Garmin Chart Plotter. 

Our start was the last of 3, first warning was at 10:55 for an 11:00 start, second warning was at 11:00 for an 11:05 start and our warning was at 11:05 for the 11:10 start. We nailed it, crossing line within 20 seconds of the gun. It was an eventful start for the other fleets but I'll leave them to write up their story, it was definitely eventful.

Even with the 1st reef, we flew down towards the first mark which was to be somewhere East of the Commercial Peer. The race committee said "The last known position of the South Mark was Somewhere East of the Commercial Peer", probably because we have had to chase that mark in some pervious races due to it not holding it's anchored position so well. Oh Well.

The night before, Peggy & I had reviewed the potential race courses and had figured that if it was a Southerly marked course, then the mark would probably be in the first deep water East of the Peer. We nailed that too!

Ok, back to the sailing. So we were flying down and holding our own, but the leading boats seemed to be heading quite close to shore compared to us. I should have held to my plan, instead I doubted my own plan and we gybed to head closer to shore and had to head back SE to where the mark was, pretty close to where we had put the mark in our plotter.

As expected, the wind was piping up, we were seeing steady 14knots of wind, gusting to 17 and heading up the scale. So we decided to put in a second reef once we had rounded the South Mark, which we did nicely. The wind had backed so we rounded the mark and then turned to 80ºm and worked at putting in the 2nd reef.

Carol, soaked but smiling.

The new crew had been great, Wet! Worked but still smiling. We plowed along nicely but then I screwed up. 

The process of putting in a reef on Eximius is:-

• Tighten the Topping Lift to stop the Boom from falling
• Lower the Mainsail to just below the next reef point
• Tighten the next Downhaul reef line
• Tighten the next Outhaul Reef line
• Raise the Main to the next reef point
• Ease the topping lift to improve the sail shape.

Easy! Unless someone ( me ) had screwed up  earlier. I had not secured the ends of the Lazy Jack lines and the Port side line had exited the mast block above the spreaders and then had tangled around the stbd lazy jack lines and the port side genoa sheet. Concerned about that, I had followed the reefing process but unable to get the sail down to the 2nd reefing point and unable to raise the sail back up. Now we had a wind bag instead of a sail! And the wind was now exceeding 22knots. Oh! When I tried to reef in the Genoa, the furling line became locked around the drum and so we could not reef the genoa.

At this point we basically had a wind bag for a mainsail and the genoa was fully deployed, this made controlling the boat a lot of fun.

The crew were still smiling.

Three times I went forward to try and release the lock in the furling drum but  the wind was just too strong. I made the decision that we should alert the race committee that we were starting our engine and bowing out of the race. Then we turned for the inlet.

For the next half hour, we fought the weather, waves and the squally conditions and did not make progress North, our intent was to anchor of the Hillsboro Beach till the weather dropped and then motor into the inlet, however, the timing was not good, Low tide was at 2:30pm, the waves were over 5' and the depths in the inlet were less than 6' in places and were were having sail issues that meant going in the inlet was risky. So I decided we should head south to Port Everglades and take the ICW north to our dock.

During all of this, we broke out the Lunch sandwiches and multiple rounds of hydration, we started to dry off too.  

It was about a 2 hour motor to PE, but enroute I was able to calm the mainsail and tide the sail into the lazy jack bag ( Cradle Cover ) and I was able to untangle the Genoa furler and get it fully furled.

It was lumpy and bumpy all the way until we were inside of the breakers of the Port Everglades Inlet. Of course, a giant Cruise Ship was heading out as we came in, but timing worked out and we had no issues. 

In very familiar waters for Peggy & I, we turned North on the ICW, we navigated under the 17th Street Causeway bridge, around the East bend and then North again up to Los Olas Blvd Bridge, we had to wait 25minutes but plenty of room, very little traffic. Up throttle and head to Sunrise Bridge, Oakland Park Blvd Bridge and finally Commercial Blvd Bridge. 

All of us were pretty tired but we got to the dock even if we did have to try it twice. 

I suggested to Carol & Gail that they didn't need to hang around, we were planning on securing the boat and heading home before it got dark. I think we got home around 6:15pm  Left over sandwiches for dinner and then an early night.

This was the most fun I had on the boat in a long while, self inflicted issues but we overcame them, everyone was smiling and the crew both said they would do it again. I hope they do. It was a great day.

See you on the water.

Paul