Hey Team,

Thanks for the weekend.

As with all Swiftsures, there was some good and less good.

I choose to remember…
- Friday socializing; re-acquainted with sailing buddies, and new
- Sun, sun, sun
- A great start, outpointing and great boat speed throughout
- Great fun through Race Rocks, banging the shoreline with Atalanta doing the same right on our tail (and we thought we had balls weaving through the rocks on shore!)
- Racing with division one boats to and up the US side (with some of our fellow brothers and sisters who got sewered there too by the 20 degree wind shift)
- Sailboats in and out of the fog
- Sailing under the stars
- Phosphorescence
- A beautiful sunrise, followed shortly by the Orca pod near Race Rocks (1st to sight)
- and kelp! (We picked up more kelp on this run than the last 2 sailing seasons combined including Van Isle 360)

Thanks!
Norm Eldridge

And so you all know it’s not just us, Micah told me this later. Tom Gornall was telling him how Max has the best crew in the fleet, they have fun, great team sprit, great sailors, Max has something that no other boat has” just at that moment as they were returning to the docks from the club house they saw Paul….skipping and singing at the top of his lungs with Sue down the gangway with out a care in the world. He smiled and thought to hisself ‘ya this is the best team we could have.

Lots of us worked on the bottom and the inside of the boat and the results were evident with boatspeed and point. Without blowing too much sunshine up your collective butts, I like how we have so many people who can move around the boat, it seems like almost everyone can step into three or four (or more) positions and do them well and with no complaint, knowing that the guy or girl on runners is just as essential to the boat as the guy on the helm. You all know how hard you worked and now everyone else knows too.

So with that, here is your Straits report. Great weather, super light off the start, took 15 minutes to get across the line, since we didn’t know if we would be in the start until the flags went up, so we couldn’t commit till the moment of. In no breeze. Occam’s schooled the fleet, hitting the line with speed (well, about a knot, which was better than Glory, who was going backwards with a guy up the rig and no headsail, Sue commented that the Kits barge can play has never worked on Straits) then put the bow down and got into the river. Took the sleds almost to Ballenas before they passed them.  We played the middle of the fleet, not trusting the southeasterly until the front was well over us. Yours truly cost us a few lengths by insisting that more north was better, then being humbled by TB on the next crossing. Micah overruled and we headed out into the middle of the strait.

Left DOI and Harwar behind on the Sunshine Coast, when we and the Banditos headed out and they played the shore. The southeasterly filled in and we ran to Ballenas, then split tacks with the Banditos and rounded Flat top just behind. Had a couple spectacular crossings with boats in the night, notably Radical Departure and Mischief. Super Dave got the tiller handed to him in the middle of the night and logged sustained eight to nine knots. He also had the great idea to call Victoria Traffic to find out how many barges a tug was towing, since it was hard to tell. The tug driver lit his tow up like a Christmas tree for us. Super Dave is a pretty smart guy! Well, that’s two thirds right.

Time Bandit legged out on the run to Halibut bank, and we could just see the top light by the time they rounded Ballenas again. We were pretty discouraged as we made our rounding, but lo and behold there they are, just sitting there behind the island. They had sailed into a hole and we brought up the new breeze with us. I guess they just got too close to the island. So it was off again, in a building breeze, so we peeled to a three and beat down to Entrance, went back to the heavy one after the rounding and then it was a two horse race for the reach home. We lost ground steadily but were still hanging in heading for the line when they tested the south once, then again for a long time while we took shorter tacks toward Atkinson. Afterward we learned from Tom Gornall that they tried that as a Hail Mary to get a few more minutes on us. We crossed the line about six minutes after them for first in div and third overall! Fruity rum drinks all around on the dock and mutual congratulations with the Occams bunch in the clubhouse afterwards as we all were more than a little punchy with sleep deprivation.

Great breeze all the way around the course other than the death zone near Flat top, but even that was minimal. Some of the best weather for Straits we’ve had, fairly warm, minimal rain and just under 25 hours to finish. Well done Maxies, we are all looking forward to a great season.

And all you regulars who weren’t there, maybe some motivation to re-prioritize your lives, eh? Heh heh.

So anyway there is your very long winded Straits report. I’m going back to sleep. G’night.

Third in our division, Eighth overall. Yeah Canada! All results can be found here. What a trip.

Thanks Super Dave for putting together the video!

http://www.swiftsure.org

This year was a bit of a driftsure, in contrast to the last several Swiftsures that were characterized by 40-knot night time passages through Race Rocks.

Although winds were lighter this year, MadMax managed to split a spinnaker while racing to the finish line.

Great work team!

http://www.southernstraits.ca/results/Straits2008LongCourseResults.htm

Madmaxians celebrate victory in the 2007 Cadillac Van Isle 360. Sweet.

MadMax and crew is ready and pumped for the Van Isle 360!

Steve and Sarah drove MadMax to Nanaimo from Vancouver. All went well.

Next come the safety inspections, crew arrivals, land support crew (Barb and dogs), and the start of the race on Saturday June 16!

MadMax raced to Cape Flattery (our normal course), and completed it in 15 hours and 39 minutes!

The race began with a lousy start, but that start then had a total recall (yay).

We got our act together for the second start, and made the most of it with clear air at the pin (south) end.

We barely made any tacks on our way to and through Race Rocks, leading our fleet. Then, decided there was no benefit in hugging the Van Isle shore, and headed straight to Flattery.

Duked it out with Declaration of Independence as we approached the Washington coast, and fought them off

Then the fateful moment…a black cloud…Declaration headed out in front of the cloud, we headed behind it to shore. Oops. No wind, and the fleet caught up to us as DI and Time Bandit headed to the mark ahead of us.

We regrouped, got our focus back, and had a fantastic downwind leg running with spinnaker all the way to Race Rocks. (Had some close calls as the wind built from 10, to 15, to 20, then 25 knots as we approached Race. The boats around us had gone to white sails, while we were still gunning along with spinnaker. What a ride!)

We tried to make it back to Victoria before last call in the bars, but 2:30 AM all is closed.

Final results have us as 2nd in division (a good result, since we had to make a bit of a comeback after the dreaded black cloud).

Another great Swiftsure!

Sweet to finally be on the water racing again!

Great boatspeed at all points of sail.

Geat to be out with the team.

The regatta was characterized by light winds throughout, persistent south easterly forecast (although all of Friday saw north westerly), starry night with 3/4 moon, a hazy low/no wind day on Saturday.

After last mark of the long course (Ballenas Island), Max was well in the lead…then…

Light winds and strong currents conspired, and hit us after sun rise in the middle of the strait.

The rest of the fleet sailed the great circle route along Vancouver Island to Entrance then across, and caught up to us. All we could do was watch. Although tried everything to keep it moving.

Finished after dark, and after ducking a tug and log boom crossing directly in fron of the finish line. (Only Harwar was able to beat the tug, although only 100 meters in front of us. Took another 20 minutes for the rest of the fleet to duck the boom.)

Not a great final result. But great moments on the water. Crew and vessel are sailing well.

Ready for 2007 regatta season.