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Now&Zen
05-23-2011, 12:28 PM
I know Tom from Darwind shot some video out around the rocks. Did any ones else shoot video or take photos? Would love to see them posted somewhere.

You guys that finished are rock stars! I turned back 9 miles out. Boy what a ride!

Tony B.

tiger beetle
05-23-2011, 01:32 PM
Did any ones else shoot video or take photos?

It was too wet for me to break out the camera, so no shots from the race. Perhaps an underwater camera would have done well, given the amount of wet flying over the boat and through the cockpit.

- rob/beetle

Now&Zen
05-23-2011, 02:24 PM
It was too wet for me to break out the camera, so no shots from the race. Perhaps an underwater camera would have done well, given the amount of wet flying over the boat and through the cockpit.

- rob/beetle

Hey Rob,
understood, I had the same problem as well. I got a couple of nice shots going under the Gate but that was the end of it!

Tony B

dhusselman
05-23-2011, 03:58 PM
I took some video, the quality is not great but I will post it anyway. Great day but too much wind for Xpression and the current sail inventory...

Dirk
Xpresssion

tiger beetle
05-23-2011, 08:49 PM
I took some video, the quality is not great but I will post it anyway. Great day but too much wind for Xpression and the current sail inventory...

Dirk
Xpresssion

Hi Dirk -

Not so slow that you couldn't beat me! Great to see you out there. How's Xpression doing these days, and where are you keeping the boat?

- rob/beetle

Jud - Vancouver
05-23-2011, 09:40 PM
I know Tom from Darwind shot some video out around the rocks. Did any ones else shoot video or take photos? Would love to see them posted somewhere.

You guys that finished are rock stars! I turned back 9 miles out. Boy what a ride!

Tony B.

Second that. I'm up in Vancouver, BC and am looking forward to trailering my boat down to SF next May for the Farallones race (would be my first)...so would love to see anyone's video footage and --more so-- read anyone's post-race commentary. Just to get a flavour of the race, never having done it.

I remember checking the weather on line on Saturday --conditions sounded pretty challenging!

Anyway, thanks to anyone who has the time to post any thoughts about their experience with the race --challenges, surprises, sail plans used, conditions, etc. Kudos to all who finished!

Jud

Travieso
05-24-2011, 03:47 PM
http://jetstreamracing.blogspot.com/2011/05/2011-sss-farallones-first-attempt.html

dhusselman
05-25-2011, 02:45 PM
Hi Rob,

It was great to be out racing again. Especially seeing you and Mark out there... Xpression is in great shape, except for the sail inventory. I'm looking forward to the longpac!

See you soon!

ronnie simpson
05-25-2011, 02:46 PM
chippewa will be posting some go pro footage in a couple of days. i got some from leaving the gate, sailing upwind, and rounding the islands, and nothing after that.

ronnie

BobJ
05-25-2011, 03:21 PM
Ronnie, congratulations on successfully finishing your first ocean race on the Albin. You certainly picked a barn-burner for the first one!

Dirk, great to see you back out there. I'm sorry for sailing down on you - I had been up at the mast and you sneaked up under my reefed main. I came up a total of 17 degrees per the autopilot and that seemed to do it - I didn't want to tack away towards the Potato Patch in those conditions.

So there's talk of some photos and video - that would be great to see.

abbarr
05-26-2011, 12:29 PM
Hi All,

Here's a short clip of Voyager just outside Bonita.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWxOBNYMgz8

I've also uploaded my gps track via jibeset. If you have one, please take a minute to upload it. It's excellent.

http://www.jibeset.net/gpsshare.php

Alan
voyager

dhusselman
05-26-2011, 01:16 PM
Hi Bob,

No problem in sailing down, I just wasn't sure you saw me..
You had your boat dialed in nicely with your reefed main and #3?
I was struggling with the "cruising" 110% jib. Can't wait to get new sails...

Philpott
05-26-2011, 06:35 PM
Thank you, Alan, for that video. You make it look so easy and you seem to be having fun, too. How did you do that? Were you on drugs?

Jud - Vancouver
05-26-2011, 10:23 PM
Hi All,

Here's a short clip of Voyager just outside Bonita.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWxOBNYMgz8

Alan
voyager

Wow --what a ride ! Gives a pretty good feeling (two dimensional, anyway, in the comfort of my chair!) of conditions that day. The boat looks very much in control with the reefed main and #3. Reminds me that I need to get a #3 made (it ought to be small and cheap for my Cal 20 !). Looking forward to next May.

BTW, what kind of boat are you sailing?

abbarr
05-26-2011, 11:02 PM
How did you do that? Were you on drugs?

Boat was balanced. I was just along for the ride.

abbarr
05-26-2011, 11:05 PM
BTW, what kind of boat are you sailing?

Beneteau First 345. Video made it look like a dinghy.

Alan

Jud - Vancouver
05-27-2011, 10:17 AM
Beneteau First 345. Video made it look like a dinghy.

Alan

My thoughts exactly --when I was watching, I was thinking to myself, "wow, and I thought a Cal 20/Santana 20 was small...that sure is a small dinghy to be sailing offshore !" Thanks for clarifying...

Anyone else who did the Farallons Race...I'd be really interested in reading accounts of experiences in this year's race. I was just as interested reading the account above on a blog (sorry, can't remember your name) of bailing on the race too...lots to learn there as well, the decision to turn around when in over your head is an important one.

Jud

tiger beetle
05-27-2011, 11:58 AM
From Nelson/Marek 45 Tiger Beetle:

SSS Farallones race was timed to start on a strong ebb, with winds forecast to be NW 25 going 30, increasing through the day. The big question is how quickly will the winds fill around the corner from Pt. Reyes into the Gulf of the Farallones (where we'll be racing), and whether or not I want to go through a sail change on the course from a light air sail in the bay to a heavy air sail offshore.

Given the winds were pressure-driven, not thermal, I figured it would be blowing hard offshore all day and there wouldn't be much of a shift from light air in the bay to heavy air offshore, and I didn't want to do a sail change if I could avoid it. The most recent previous time I did the race in heavy air I went with the no.4 (85%) headsail and we had winds 19-22 knots. I felt underpowered most of the time and didn't want to repeat that.

So I decided to set up the no. 3 on the furler, be underpowered at the start and hopefully have the right sail up for the rest of the day - and there was plenty of breeze, perhaps too much... so at least I didn't err on the side of too little sail.

The start was mellow, 10-14 knots and flat water, Beetle was slow with the no. 3 but most boats were also conservatively set up so I didn't feel too bad. In this race the slower boats start first, so I was catching up with the fleet by Point Bonita and a few boats were already turning around. Conditions were lumpy chop and breeze was already up at 19-20 right at Pt. Bonita, good chop at 3-5 feet on a very small swell (almost didn't notice the swell given the wind waves).

I figured it would be a pretty wet day and had put on my foulie bibs, and was glad I did - water started to fly over the boat almost straight away. Beetle is so big and fat that the water normally stays forward of the wheel - but not this time :)

We took off in the fresh breeze, and two miles out the windspeed was hanging around 27 gusting 31, and I put in a reef (should have put in two) and footed off a bit to keep speed up while punching into the wind waves. Moving a lot of weight out of the bow kept the nose up so at least we didn't spear waves as often as usual, though the cockpit would fill up with a foot of water fairly often. Big drains are nice! (a pair of 4" diameter drains straight out the back dump water quickly).

After an hour the wind died back to 25 and I tried to keep the boat powered up to punch along, and when the wind kicked back up to hold at 27 I decided it was time for the second reef - and we went much faster after that! (next time remember to reef earlier).

Also should have remembered to put on my foulie boots (which I don't particularly like, preferring tennis shoes), as I was standing in ankle-deep water in the back of the cockpit. But the day felt warm, sun was out, visibility about 10 miles (at least that's when I saw the island), and nothing too bad had happened on board. Several big clangs and crashes were heard coming up the companionway, and stuff that normally never falls over was flying around the boat. The tea kettle hopped off the stove and deposited itself 10 feet away on the opposite side and forward - weird, how did it do that? One locker door opened and a bunch of canned soups got loose, a pillow took a dive onto the floor and met up with water under the floor boards... I tried out my special tiny bilge pump (a 1/4" diameter hose connected to a small pump that lets me suck up water from various corners in the boat), but it didn't want to work too well. There was a fair bit of water getting in through the companionway hatch (found a new leak in the interior hatch frame, I need to pull out the sealant and glass the frame in properly, something to do later) and it was making the interior quite damp.

Up top it was wet wet wet, but the sailing was pretty good. I put the autopilot on, went forward to harden up on the mainsail leech cord, retrieved some strings that were trailing in the water (spinnaker pole trip lines that had come undone), and watched the boat banging along to weather. Nice thing that the swell was done and we didn't have a single belly-flop the whole day. It's really unpleasant to fly the boat off a ten foot wave with no backside and fall vertically in a huge crash on the other side, I was pleased nothing like that was happening.

At the island it remained lumpy, I went wide by quite a bit (bad lee shore there), turned down and jibed, heading for the Gate. Right behind me was a Wyliecat 30 with their gigantic mainsail, and I was looking forward when he gybed and the crash that gybe made caused me to jump up afraid that something had broken at the back of my boat! Next time I'll ask the Wyliecats to warn nearby folk prior to gybing, will reduce the number of heart attacks on the course.

Wind stayed on the beam or nearby for the return sail, I dropped the second reef and tacked the no. 3 to the rail and we trundled along downhill towards the Gate, winds holding 25-30 knots, not too much happening in race mode, one boat off to leeward seemed to have a suicidal bent as he had put up a spinnaker and was sailing off towards Half Moon Bay. Nobody else went for a kite that I could see.

It was fun to watch the Wyliecat go by, surfing along, follwed by Warpath (lightweight Farr 36, I believe) - they were going fast downhill. Beetle doesn't surf, but did bit of surging now and again. About an hour after turning the island to head for the finish I saw the last of the boats still headed out.

Halfway back I shook out the first reef as it lightened up a bit around the Lightbucket, then filled in again. It's weird when the wind drops to 24 knots and you start wondering where all the breeze went.

Straightforward sail to the finish, was 8th boat in (I think) and managed to correct out next-to last, which is fine by me. Racing my living room I'm generally not as fast as the rating, and didn't break too much, and it was a nice (if wet) day on the water.

- rob/beetle

Critter
05-27-2011, 12:25 PM
Jud, there are a couple more brief stories on Pressure Drop, including mine (I'm Hanno over there):
http://www.pressure-drop.us/forums/showthread.php?1778-SSS-Singlehanded-Farallones

Philpott
05-27-2011, 01:12 PM
"It's weird when the wind drops to 24 knots and you start wondering where all the breeze went." Now THAT's the start of a slightly scary bedtime story for Dura Mater. Wonder if it will keep her awake at night worrying about next year? I really appreciate the time you take to write about your race experiences. Thank you.

Jud - Vancouver
05-29-2011, 06:02 AM
"It's weird when the wind drops to 24 knots and you start wondering where all the breeze went." Now THAT's the start of a slightly scary bedtime story for Dura Mater. Wonder if it will keep her awake at night worrying about next year? I really appreciate the time you take to write about your race experiences. Thank you.

Yeah --thanks to all who posted pics/links/write ups. Rob, your write up had me right there...great sense of what the race can be like.

Am thinking now that, next year, I'd probably be up to do it doublehanded --if conditions are anything like they were. Hadn't realized that the the Doublehanded Farallons Race isn't run by SSS (not that it matters), and is a month earlier. Must be a cold one...Then again, maybe I'd feel ready for the singlehanded race by next May --but I sure wouldn't be pushing the boat much in those conditions!

Critter
05-29-2011, 03:34 PM
Jud, for what it's worth the Singlehanded Farallones race has traditionally been run in April. A couple of years ago we moved it to May because it was easier to find a date with favorable currents without stepping on other ocean races with shorthanded divisions.

Personally I like the May date, if only because there's more daylight, but I've heard two or three complaints. So who knows, we may be back to April next year.

Max

dhusselman
05-30-2011, 03:47 PM
See link for Xpression video of the SSS Farallones race.

http://youtu.be/MjWAPWQSnUs

It's hand-held footage so not that great..

Dirk

Philpott
05-30-2011, 06:39 PM
That's a beautiful boat and I appreciate the video. You seem to have handled the conditions well - although you say in the video that it is "still blowing", your hatch door isn't even closed. To get a perspective, tell us, how would those conditions be described (e.g. 7 foot swells every 6 seconds)? Thanks

dhusselman
05-31-2011, 10:31 AM
Actually I didn't handle the conditions that well (from a racing perspective). Using a 100% dacron jib, I was struggling with speed during the higher wind ranges (mid 30s app) upwind. I need to get my new sails soon!
I don't think the conditions were that bad overall. However going around the Farallones I got for the first time ever (on my boat) a wave that came over the stern into the cockpit and soaked my feet. I didn't wear boots as my boat is really dry, even in windy conditions.
Your comment on the hatch being open, that was going down wind. Maybe it's better to keep everything closed up but the conditions were not bad at all. I was actually getting the chute ready. I really felt pushing after a mediocre upwind performance. The wind at that time was about 25knots. However it started to increasing again and I decided against it.

ronnie simpson
05-31-2011, 11:46 PM
Chippewa finally edited some video and posted it up.

Super fun day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6REYBImw2LI

ronnie simpson
05-31-2011, 11:49 PM
dhusselman,

thats a sweet video. it looks like your boat handled the conditions really well. look forward to getting to know you and the boat as the SHTP grows closer.

abbarr
06-01-2011, 12:04 PM
Chippewa finally edited some video and posted it up.

Super fun day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6REYBImw2LI

Good stuff as usual Ronnie. Nice work on the race.

Jud - Vancouver
06-02-2011, 07:13 AM
Chippewa finally edited some video and posted it up.

Super fun day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6REYBImw2LI

Great song! Nice work on the video, Ronnie. (Looks like it was a place for voodoo childs, er, children, out there that day! Seeing a video like that makes me wonder how my little boat would fare out there, but it's actually probably a question of how I would fare out there.)

Tchoupitoulas
06-05-2011, 08:03 AM
Ronnie,
Using the 384' height of SE Farallon Island and the 170 degree field of view on a GoPro camera I calculated your distance off to be HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

Nice job.

Stephen