Afterburner gets the chocolates

Navigator Mark Michaelsen describes their demolition of the Tommy Bahama Newport Ensenada race

Just getting to the start line was no easy task for the crew of the 52ft catamaran Afterburner. We broke both of the rudders the weekend before when winds of 20+ stressed them out and we had to arrange for a new set to be sent from New Zealand.

Afterburner's owner Bill Gibbs was able to purchase the rudders at what seems like a fair price. The overnight International DHL costs weren't so reasonable but given we needed them from to be taken off another boat, delivered to the airport, airfreighted to LA, cleared through customs, picked up in LA, transported to Newport Beach, fitted into the existing sleeves, raked the required three degrees - all this in four business days - it's frankly amazing we got to the start line at all.

Everyone in the regular crew, from the owner to Don Meifert (helmsman, main trim), Mark McNulty (spinnaker, screacher, jib trim), Vincent Schmitt (Communication specialist, foredeck) Mike Dobbs (main trim, traveler, electronic tracker set up) and Mark Michaelsen (tactician, helmsman, weather routing) busted our butts to make a go of it and while the rudders were not perfect, they didn't break and they roughly steered the boat and were good enough to get us downwind at an average speed of 18 knots for five hours....

We started the race 2.5 minutes late as planned. This may seem strange to some of you who take great pride (as do I) of having your nose on the line at the gun on the favoured end but with this year's unusual downwind start and with many boats far more manoeuvrable than AfterBurner on the line, it wasn't worth risking someone in a leeward (right of way) position taking us up in an uncontrollable situation as the boat was hitting speeds of 23 knots as we wound it up in the fresh WNW breeze. The wind had filled in just as the ULDB A class ( Magnitude, a Transpac 80 etc) started 20 minutes before us at 1200 noon.

I would have preferred a much hotter (faster) approach, but frankly lost the line in the maze of boats that filled the starting area outside of their own sequence.

As we crossed the start line and wound up the Burner we immediately sped up to around 19-21 knots with main and jib only and headed out to the 118deg longitude line that we had selected as our base line for the building breeze. 25 minutes after our start we had caught the lead boats which had started 22 1/2 minutes ahead of us and were driving in dead flat water at 18-20 knots of boat speed.

We continued down course as the wind would allow and continuously found the edge of the windline which put on the brakes several times.

We arrived in the Coronado Islands southwest of San Diego in Mexican waters around 4:45pm and set the screacher for the first time. This took us just 10 degrees high of course and still moving at between 19-21.5 knots. At around 7pm the wind started backing way off and we had to set the spinnaker to maintain anything close to course for Todos Santo lighthouse. The wind varied in both speed and direction from 7:00-8:15 pm at which time we were nearly to the outside of Ensenada Bay. We knew at some point the wind would shift and shut off and just our luck it happened about 8 miles from the finish line. For the next two hours we sailed upwind in very light and shifty conditions.

On final approach we looked hard for the finish line but unfortunately it had not yet been set by NOSA. We observed a boat underway with a red strobe and correctly assumed this to be the finish line. One more tack and we sailed through the line at 10:17pm, 9 hours and 57 minutes after we started the race 125 miles up course in Newport Beach.

By sailing the course at this pace Afterburner swept all of the awards it was eligible for:

- Tommy Bahama first place corrected overall trophy
- Gill Knudson award for overall 1st place on actual elapsed time
- President of NOSA 1st place ORCA handicap award for first on corrected in class
- Alice Pursell award for 1st on elapsed time in class
- Stern -Choy ORCA award for 1st catamaran on handicap
- Jeff Deaver award to Pierpont Bay Yacht Club - This award is given to the club who's members won the most perpetual trophies in all classes in a given year.

The conditions were great for most of the race and we'd like to thank NOSA and all of the related clubs, volunteers and associated people who made this a fun event for all. Many thanks too to our sponsor Gill North America for great foul weather gear and to the Sailing Pro Shop in Long Beach.