A sailor for many years I used to race my then twenty-five foot boat ‘Quiet Fire’ in a winter ‘snowflake’ series in Howe Sound and associated waters close to Vancouver, Canada. The sound or fjord if you will, is just north west of Vancouver and penetrates northward about forty five kilometers from Vancouver’s north shore into the British Columbia interior. It is the most southerly fjord on Canada’s west coast. One race stands out in my mind in particular albeit for the display of poor judgement and seamanship on my part.
The start/finish line was set at the entrance to the sound with a navigation bouy located in a bay about five miles into it serving as the turning mark. After rounding the bouy, we were then to head directly for the finish line. A simple upwind/downwind course. Enter the word katabatic (from the Greek katabasis – descending) as in gale force katabatic winds. Such winds occur, often suddenly, when cold dense air from high mountains descends downslope to lower elevations and ultimately in this case, to sea level. They form in particular when, along with a cold air mass in the interior mountains with its generally high atmospheric pressure, the coastal pressure is low. The very conditions forecast for the race day.
Relatively inexperienced at the time in terms of both sailing per se and sailboat racing, I and my three person crew had no business being out in such conditions. Regardless we headed out to the start and I assured the crew that all would be fine. I felt my Canadian designed and built C & C 25 foot sloop could handle the already rapidly building wind and increasing wave heights. Two of the crew had about the same limited sailing credentials as myself. The other was new to sailing and in fact to Canada. He had recently emigrated from France with his wife and they had sailed with me several times including on some overnight cruises. The French cuisine his wife brought along was to say the least magnifique. I was keen to cultivate the friendship.
As we headed out to the start, the forecast proved to be correct with very strong northerly and thus outflowing katabatic winds up to, in maritime parlance, Beaufort gale force 8 (62 – 74 kilometers per hour.) The air temperature was around zero degrees Celsius and falling. The lower the air temperature the denser the air and hence the greater the force it will apply to anything in it’s way sails being an ideal target. Knowing this I deployed only half the mainsail and did not fly a jib (the foreword sail) at all. By any measure this would be regarded as very well reefed down. At least I got that part right.
The wind quickly built to the upper limit of force 8 going on force 9. Aided and abetted by a big (16 feet) incoming tide, the resultant wind against tide effect was to generate larger and larger waves. Extremely dangerous conditions. We expected the race committee would call the race off. They did not. We could of course have elected to retire and head back into the shelter of our marina and a number of boats did just that. Given we were at least well prepared by flying a minimum of ‘canvas’ (Dacron actually) and not hearing any objections from the crew, I decided we should attend the start and ‘play it by ear’.
With the retirements, the fleet was reduced to perhaps two thirds of the original entrants as we crossed the starting line and headed upwind into the teeth of the gale. With a masthead as opposed to fractional rig, my boat would not go to windward very well without a jib hoisted even with a full main. She did that day – as stated, on just half a mainsail. The fleet spread out as the larger boats soon pulled ahead, a boat’s waterline length being the hull speed limiting factor of a displacement as opposed to planing hulled boat, sail or power.
Maximum hull speed in knots (mph times 1.15) is approximately 1.3 times the square root of the waterline length in feet. Thus with a waterline length of only about 20 feet we could make about five knots. A boat with a waterline length of say 36 feet can make about 1.3 x 6 = almost eight knots. A handicapping system is used to enable boats of different sizes to race against each other. All are timed to the second from start to finish and judged against the known, long term typical performance of each boat. (By manufacturer and specific model – a C & C 25 in our case.) In other words each boat’s finishing time is ‘corrected’ to determine how well the boat did compared to how well it could have done – as in was it sailed well or was it not. Thus a small boat well sailed will beat a large one poorly sailed.
We tacked our way up the sound in the zig zag way of sailboats going to windward, as the waves and heaving swells became more significant and thus concerning. With every wave we were taking huge amounts of water into the (self-draining) cockpit and over the bow. As the conditions rapidly deteriorated we expected the boats in front of us to turn around and head back to harbour. Very few did so we pressed on.
About half way to the turning mark I started to see blown spume on the surface of the water, something I had not seen since being aboard a transoceanic liner crossing the atlantic from England as an immigrant to Canada. That crossing was also into the teeth of a force 8 to 9 gale. Here was wind-blown spume in Howe Sound! Spume is a mass of whitish/brownish bubbles in long streaks randomly coating the waves. Things looked, felt and sounded as though we were crossing an ocean. Noticing an increase in the already shrieking and howling noise level, we realised the windspeed had increased significantly. We later discovered (we did not have an anemometer on board) some of the boats had recorded wind speeds gusting to 55 knots – 101 kph. Storm force 10. Two notches short of a hurricane at Beaufort force 12. Why I did not turn around I do not know.
As we began to close in on the turning mark and because we were after all racing, we became very focused on minimizing the number of tacks we needed to put in to reach and circumnavigate the bouy. Each tack (changing from a port to a starboard tack and vice versa) costs one time and if poorly executed, also lessens the distance already made good to windward. More tacking than is necessary (e.g. by overshooting the mark) therefore is in effect a self-inflicted penalty.
Some time prior to rounding the mark, my one longish time crew member and I started discussing our tacking strategy for rounding. Looking at the bouy we would say for example “do you think we will make it” or “are we going to make it”, “we might make it”, “I don’t think we will make it” and the like banter. These comments being shouted over the wind and having to do with our ability to round the mark without adding more tacks than were absolutely necessary.
We were all by this time cold and wet. Given we were close to the mark I did not want to throw in our lot and head home. We had got this far and we were going to finish the race period. I sensed the crew was of the same opinion although I did note that my French friend had been very quiet for some time. Perhaps mal de mer I thought although he had not turned green nor moved to the leeward rail.
At last I and my one reasonably experienced crew felt that from our then position, we could make it on one final tack towards the bouy which we executed and closed in on it – close enough to safely not waste any time with the maneuver, but not too close. Colliding with a massively heavy, rapidly moving up and down navigational aid would potentially be a very serious situation indeed. We skimmed by now with the wind behind us. We were very soon surging along at hull speed.
After rounding we followed a reciprocal course directly for the finish line about an hour’s sail away. Down wind we could safely fly more sail area. We hoisted our smallest jib and left the main as it was. We were now traveling with the waves and surfing down the faces of them. Like a sailing dinghy would, we periodically went up on the plane and briefly hit 8 – 10 knots on the front of each wave. We were surfing. The waves were at this point about ten feet in height and breaking. I have never seen such in Howe sound ever again at least not whilst sailing.
About half way to the finish line the wind dropped to a more manageable force 6 about 25 knots and the tide turned in our favour. We continued to fly. Three of us at least were now rather more relaxed going with both the wind and the tide although we still took water into the cockpit periodically, now from over the stern. About this time I became quite concerned as my French friend had become even more withdrawn. The other two crew, finding the going now ‘down hill’ if still boisterous, were by then laughing and joking. I still kept my guard. The sea can be terribly unforgiving of mistakes. The adage ‘it ain’t over ’till its over certainly applied.
We wondered how we were doing in the race. Most but not all of the boats were ahead of us although most of them were much bigger than ‘Quiet Fire’ and hence could be behind us once the handicaps were worked out. This was long before personal computers. We usually did not know the results of races (worked out manually) for a couple of days, sometimes longer. Then with of course no email (imagine!) I would go and read the results at whichever of our local yacht clubs had hosted the race.
We crossed the line still doing hull speed with only three or four boats behind us all about our size so at least we had probably beaten somebody. With the wind finally abating some we made our way back to our slip in our marina, tidied up the boat and went our separate ways. It wasn’t until some weeks later that I discovered the reason for my French friend’s quietude. While listening to the banter as we approached the turning mark as stated along the lines of “do you think we will make it” it’s going to be tight” “I don’t think we are going to make it etc he divulged that he had thought ‘not making it’ meant our demise, as in we would capsize, wind up in the very cold water and almost certainly die if not from drowning (we of course all wore life jackets) then from hypothermia and quickly. No wonder he had become quiet and reflective. He must have marveled at our apparent nonchalance.
It turned out we were second in our class, on the face of it the best finish we ever had. However given there was apparently no third, we hadn’t really beaten anybody unless one counts all the boats the skippers of which had had the sense to withdraw from the race. C’est la vie.
Footnote:
Almost a thousand feet deep in places, Howe Sound and it’s steep sided shoreline is home to a myriad of wildlife. Included are humpback whales, orcas (aka killer whales), porpoises, sea lions, otters, seals, octopus, bald eagles, turkey vultures, osprey, peregrine falcons, red tailed hawks, sandhill cranes, cormorants, snow, Canada and other geese, common and Barrow’s goldeneyes, kingfishers, Steller’s jays, sandpipers, seagulls including glaucous-winged, bonaparte’s and herring gulls, terns, ruby throated and anna’s humming birds, herons, myriad duck types and many other avian species. On shore there are mink, squirrels, raccoons, brown and grizzly bears, cougars, coyotes, snowshoe hares, bobcat, deer and many other land animals.
Fish in the sound include several species of pacific salmon, ling cod, rockfish, ratfish, dogfish, red snapper, wolf eels, sole, herring, occasionally anchovies, just re-establishing halibut and various others.