The Lake Ontario 300 was one of the highlights of my sailing season. Chris gave me an opportunity to experience the premier long distance race on the Great Lakes. Thanks Chris! Here is a summary of our odyssey from the Skipper of Big Fun:
We finished at 1:46 AM Thursday after a somewhat grueling 111 +
hours nonstop (4 days, 15 hours, 6 minutes). We were disappointed
for our race fans that the transponder malfunctioned and you were
unable to track us - several boats were affected. Some thought we had abandoned, missed marks or gotten lost at sea. However, we were reporting our position every six hours to the Coast Guard as per race requirements. Even so the Race Committee had the Coast Guard check in on us and our intentions when someone reported us missing in action.
The race is truly a test of equipment and crew and we saw all weather conditions. Before reaching Main Duck Island we experienced light to no winds: zero knot boat stopped and even drifted backwards! (Skippers note -- next time use the anchor!). Along the south shore and in the west end of the lake we experienced very strong winds and big was where we got a chance to try out the double reefing system installed specifically for this race.
After the initial day and a half of rain, and relatively light winds, w were treated to several hours of sunshine to dry out. Unfortunately, no winds meant it took forever to reach and get around Main Duck Island. I was glad to have a J 24 kipper and crew aboard who applied all the focus and attention needed on sail trimming to get our much heavier displacement boat moving.Early on in the race the automatic bilge pump malfunctioned and drained the batteries which subsequently killed our GPS, auto helm, computer and navigation lights. Race rules allowed us to run the motor (in neutral) but the now heavily discharged batteries would not come up fully so we resigned to reserve all remaining power for GPS and navigation lights and didn't use the auto helm .. we hand steered the rest of the race and Richard kept navigating using our paper charts. During the second night, the halyard holding the radar reflector parted company (we were sailing through the shipping channels) but luckily the reflector was retrieved by crew. On the third night the water pump was left on and we ran out of fresh water - we could still bucket and boil water from the lake.
On Tuesday night we had to sail creatively (crew says it was in circles) into the middle of the lake to avoid the severe thunderstorms we were heading into. We understood most other boats would have been finishing by this time so we truly had cold and wet comfort in that fact. This was a huge weather system and one of the more spectacular light shows I have ever sen. Unfortunately it cost us several hours and miles to avoid these storms. The skipper and crew considered the options ... go back to Main Duck - no appetite for that; find a storm Port - nearest was Rochester 17 miles East with one of the blackest clouds and most lighting over it; next nearest US port 32 miles ahead directly into the lighting storm; cut and run to Cobourg, 30 miles north (which another boat sailing north of us did) but this seemed like a bad idea as other storm cells seemed to be heading in that direction. We opted to continue to head westerly but move into the centre of the lake and look for the "friendliest looking clouds". The avoidance strategy worked.
Next day, we had very strong winds rounding Niagara Buoy and had to take a second reef in the main, yet our boat speed was still in the sevens (highest was 8.5 knots). At these boat speeds we were pretty sure that we would finish on Wed.. About 10 miles from the Oakville mark the wind once again died. I thought some of the crew were going to swim for it, or some sort of mutiny. I wouldn't have blamed them - no winds is a huge frustration for sailors. I made a "last supper" in 6 foot swells watching the waves outside the boat through a porthole in order to "gimbel" the pots. After dinner I fell asleep exhausted A couple of hours later I was wakened by the sound of the crew on deck getting the boat underway again. The wind had freshened. (I am not sure whether the crew were being kind to let me sleep, took heart in my exhortations to finish with or without crew or just really wanted to get off the boat as fast as possible!)As we raced raced for the Oakville mark the wind shifted again, this time in our favour, and we had a great night time reach up the coast to the Port Credit finish line. (About 15 minutes before the finish mark line the computer batteries died killing our electronic navigation system. Dead reckoning prevailed until we had the flashing strobe of the finish mark in sight. The Race Committee had gone home by this time but a very loud cheer went up in the Coast Guard' station when we made or final report at 1:46.
Being first timers in the LO 300, our team's shared goal was to finish and do as well as we could (admittedly some additional goals of doing it in less time!). There were about 126 boats entered in the race, of which 24 did not finish. In our division of 7 boats, we placed 4 th and raised several hundred dollars for the charity.
Skipper Chris
Skipper, Big Fun
Aftermath:
