The NCYC Commodore Perry Race Comes Back with a Vengeance! - June 3, 2007 
 
When KEITH GILFORD, NCYC YACHTING ACTIVITIES CHAIRMAN invited the Multihulls to come back to the COMMODORE PERRY RACE this spring, I was concerned we might not get a good turn out, so early in the season.  It's been a problem in the past.  But, I needn't have worried because the Lake Erie Multihulls showed up in numbers! 
 
We had 6 multihulls registered and on the wall by Saturday afternoon:  Bruce Geffen's Crowther 38, Nice Pair was first on the wall.  Jim and I motored, then sailed our F-28, Big Storm into North Cape Yacht Club Saturday afternoon, arriving just ahead of a nasty squall.  Patrick Quinn and David White on their C-31 UC, Trippple Trouble rolled in right behind us. We helped them tie up and David showed me on his GPS how the thunder cells were sprouting up all over. This thunder cell blew over NCYC with a fury, with tendrils reaching towards earth like fingers, ready to pluck any unsuspecting boat.  There was chaos out on the lake as boats with their sails still up, struggled against the strong winds and white capped waves to reach safe harbor. Gary Hall and crew were in the midst of rigging the F-31R, Moxie, when the squall swept through.  But, it never rained.  Was this a harbinger of things to come?  Frank Andrews and Gill on Frank's F-27F, One-for-the-Road showed up later. Brand new to the multihull fleet, was Walt Norris on his F-25C, 9th Circle.  They were registered , but we would not see them until race day morning. 
 
We would have had an even bigger fleet, except that the 2 multihulls which were previously committed to do this race, Alacrity and Runaway, simply were not ready on time. 
 
Along with registration, NCYC put on a good feed for the racers, and the bar was open!  Afterwards, a group of us multihull sailors headed over to the local watering hole called Trappers, to watch the Cleveland Cavaliers beat Detroit.  We were slightly out-numbered by Detroit fans....we kept a low profile.   We discovered that they also have great food and some unique items on the menu.  We did not want to become the main dish.
 
Sunday, Race Day at North Cape Yacht Club 
 
The first warning was at 8:55am. The start and finish line was located 1nm east of the NCYC entry channel between the NCYC West Mark and the orange flag on the RC boat.  The course length was 24.6nm.  The Race Committee had a Course 1 posted on the race committee boat.  But the PHRF and Multihull fleet had a different course from the JAM fleet.  The JAM fleet started in between.  The Multihulls started last. 
 
Although I had entered all the coordinates for all the marks in my GPS, it was hard for us, as the newcomers, to wrap our brains around this course.  They were using all the NCYC Race Marks (N,S,E,W) plus two navigational Buoys: Toledo Harbor Channel R"6" to the east and Monroe Harbor Buoy G"1" to the north.     
 
There was threatening weather in the forecast for later in the afternoon.  We all hoped it would come after the race was over.
 
The Start
 
For the start, we had S winds at 8-10 knots and overcast skies.  On board Big Storm, we hung out at the West Mark until the start of our starting sequence.  We sailed in from the right and the F-25C, 9th Circle, driven by Walt Norris approached from the back.  He was already yelling overlap when he was well astern and demanding that we take it up, which we did, but it wasn't good enough for Walt.  Once he established an overlap, he demanded that we do our turns, or he would protest us.  Having no protest flag, he pulled out a red life jacket instead. 
 
Despite the fact that the red life jacket is not a valid protest flag, and despite the fact we really hadn't fouled the other boat, and despite all my objections to the contrary, Skipper Jim Frederick did the turns anyway, stating that he didn't want to spend the later part of the day in a protest hearing.  Jim was pretty confident that he could beat this boat on the water and he set out to prove that.  
 
East Mark Rounding
 
9th Circle shot ahead at the start with Gary Hall's F-31R, Moxie ahead of us and to weather and Pat Quinn's C-31UC, Trippple Trouble, ahead of us and to leeward.  Frank Andrews' F-27F, One for the Road was behind us. Bruce Geffen's Nice Pair was not among the starters. It was a close reach on starboard tack to the first mark.  Moxie eventually took over the lead from 9th Circle and Trippple Trouble passed them too.  Meanwhile, 9th Circle was pointing up in front of us.  We furled our screacher in advance of the very busy mark rounding.
 
All the fleets rounded the East Mark to starboard first.  The breeze had gone light, less than 3 knots. So each of the fleets sailed into the hole and died. It was a very crowded mark rounding, with much yelling because most of the boats came into this mark on starboard tack with rights.   Moxie was well ahead and tacked on to port right away at the mark, and got caught in bad air. Trippple Trouble was inside of them and followed suit. Neither boat could get out of the way of the starboard tack boats.  We came in to the East Mark right behind 9th Circle, saw the situation developing.  9th Circle had to bear off substantially to avoid a collision with Trippple Trouble and Moxie.  Walt Norris called starboard on them both and quite vociferously demanded turns.  (I'm assuming he pulled out his red life jacket again.) We also gave them a wide berth and carried out on starboard tack until we were in clear air, well to weather of the fleet ahead of us, before we tacked to port.  9th Circle carried out on Starboard tack much further, perhaps a quarter of a mile, before he tacked back.
 
Meanwhile, Moxie and Trippple Trouble, got stuck on the leeward side of the monohull fleet and could not do their turns until they were clear of the congestion at the mark rounding.  They eventually crossed behind us on the southeasterly beat back to the S mark.  Orange Crate (JAM A) was well to weather and abeam of us.  There was a few other monohulls around us, going the same way.  We were ghosting along at 1-3 knots. 
 
S Mark Rounding 
 
We tacked on the starboard layline for S Mark.  Trippple Trouble was ahead of us and first around the mark.  9th Circle was trying to carry his screacher to weather and wound up tacking in behind us, as did Moxie.    Race instructions called for the PHRF/Multi Fleet to round S Mark to port.  But, Orange Crate and a few other monohulls tacked early and rounded this mark to starboard ahead of us. 
 
I reread the SI's 3 times to make sure I had read them correctly.  They read, "NCYC South Mark (port)"  Why would three boats go around S Mark in the opposite direction?  They must be JAM.  Sure enough, the SI's for the JAM Fleet had them going around the South Mark to starboard then north to Monroe Harbor G "1". 
 
This is where it got really interesting.  The Monohull directly abeam of us, I think it was a JAM boat , White Star, was rounding the mark to Starboard on port tack, and we were rounding the mark to port at exactly the same time on starboard.  As the two boats passed beam to beam(we gave them the inside), I said something like, "What an interesting mark rounding."  And they commented back, "Very". 
 
The entire fleet ahead of us had  their chutes set for the broad reach to R"6".  Once around the mark, we did the same, but we couldn't carry it for long.  By this time, the thunder storm cells were all around us and the breeze was shifting left.  We were the first multihull to douse our chute and switch to a screacher, then Trippple Trouble, then 9th Circle.  Within 15 minutes of our mark rounding, we also had to furl the screacher and set the jib.  We caught another huge knock on starboard tack.  It was a persistent shift, so we held onto it for a while longer.  Trippple Trouble and Moxie went right before we did.  9th Circle went way left, and when they finally tacked back to port, they were forced to bear off hard to avoid us.  We actually crossed 9th Circle twice on the beat to R"6".  The breeze finally filled in about 11:40am.  In the distance, you could hear the thunder and see lightening, and we were headed right at it!
 
And All Hell Broke Loose...........
 
Trippple Trouble was the furthest right.  They got the new breeze first and took off.  Then Moxie. They made R"6" to port, set their chutes and were off to the races.  9th Circle rounded R"6" shortly ahead of us.  The entire fleet ahead had their chutes up and were carrying them without any problem.  We set our chute after the mark rounding and immediately had problems carrying the chute and our jib at the same time, while trying to beam reach on the rhumbline to the next mark.  We stuffed the bows big time.  I brought the jib down to the deck.  By this time, the squall was catching up to the fleet.  As the storm began to circle us, we found ourselves going very fast(18.6kts) in the wrong direction.  We were gaining on the fleet, but could not sail our proper course to the mark(G"1").  The speed was intoxicating, but Skipper wanted the chute down, NOW!  Kim and I did so reluctantly, but thank god we did!  We barely got the chute down below deck when all hell broke loose.
 
The PHRF fleet ahead was getting blasted....chutes flying off the tops of masts like kites.  I secured our jib on the deck with a bungee.  Our main sail was wrapped around the side stay.  We weathered up and roller reefed the main until we had about 1/3 of the sail area showing, and headed back up to course of approximately 45 degrees NE for Monroe Harbor BB G"1".  Except for one unidentified Corsair trimaran headed in with it's jib furled, we totally lost track of the multihull fleet.  The monohull fleet had completely scattered.  We wondered out loud if the race had been abandoned, but sailed on to the next mark anyway.
 
Man Overboard at G"1"
 
As we approached G"1"  We saw three monohulls circling someone wearing foulies in the water.  We rounded  this mark about 12:29pm, then weathered up again, figuring that we might be of help getting a man out of the water with our low freeboard.  But, we could see that they had a line tied around this person in the water and they were towing him into the boat.  We continued on to finish the race.  We had to work our way up to weather and out of the shallows first.  The winds had not diminished and the waves were huge as the storm continued to circle the fleet.  We were surfing waves in the pouring rain.  We were cold and miserable and all we could think about was getting to the finish and getting in.  When it settled down a bit, we put up our jib back up.  When got closer to the finish area, we could see the RC boat on station and boats finishing. We finished the race under jib and reefed main.  It seemed like we were one of the last boats to finish, but there were boats scattered far and wide. 
 
Back at the Dock
 
Once back at NCYC, we heard that 9th Circle was towed in with a broken mast.  The rest of our fleet retired after failures of equipment and damage to sails, but no major damage.  It appeared that we were the last multihull sailing.  Other fleets were similarly decimated by the thunder cell which swept through the fleet from behind(coming from the southeast) with a vengeance. 
 
We slowly became aware of the unfolding tragedy.  We later learned that the skipper of Send in the Clowns, the J-29, was swept over the side by the boom. Three of his crew went in after him, but were unable to get him back on board in time to resuscitate him.  They were overwhelmed with grief and guilt because they could not save their skipper.  As the word spread, grief and sadness took over the entire North Cape Yacht Club.  71 year old Bruce Goldsmith was a fixture at NCYC.  According to those who knew him, Bruce could tell one joke after another.  The man knew how to have fun!  Goldsmith won 7 small boat class championships and was loved by all at NCYC.
 
Trophy Presentation
 
The Trophy Presentation went on as scheduled, but it was followed by a full minute of silence for Bruce Goldsmith who epitomized the sailing competitor we would all want to be.
 
The Rest of the Story 
 
I got an e-mail from Bruce Geffen shortly after the race in which he told me that the some of the Jam Fleet sailors were complaining that Big Storm rounded the S Mark incorrectly.  So I began to recap the race just as I have it here, to explain the discrepancy at the mark rounding and to tell the story of our experience. 
 
But, it wasn't until I began writing this story and I reread the SI's for Course 1, for after the G"1" mark rounding, that I  realized that we missed the second E mark before the finish.  When we were out there in all that craziness, and pouring rain, we were cold and miserable and all we could think about was getting to the finish and getting in. I thought I knew the course.  I didn't.   I did not recheck the SI's as I normally would have, maybe, because the cabin was filled with wet spinnaker and I really didn't want to go below in those conditions.  There were boats scattered all over the course.  That should have been a clue.
 
We liked the course.  But without a diagram, this course was new and confusing to us. I thanked Bruce for bringing this to our attention.  We thought we raced a good race.  Had we figured it out sooner, we would not have accepted the First Place Flag. 
 
This is a Corinthian Sport.  We returned the Flag to NCYC and vowed that we will be back to win it next year!
 
This was a tough one for Keith Gilford too.  Several of the fleets did not have any finishers. North Cape Yacht Club Race Organizers have vowed to fix the Sailing Instructions for next year and they will include a Course Diagram for next year.
 
Epilogue
 
When the final autopsy was performed, it was found that Bruce's neck was broken by the impact of the boom.  There was nothing his crew could have done to save their skipper.  When Bruce left the dock that morning, he did not know what ill fate awaited him, but he knew, as we all do, that sailing is not a entirely safe sport.  Accidents happen. We all take a risk as we head out on the water.  We can limit that risk by following safe boating practices and/or following the US SAILING Recommendations for Offshore Sailing.  It is ultimately the responsibility of the skipper whether to participate in a race or continue racing.  
 
Our condolences got out to the family, crew and many friends of Bruce Goldsmith.   You really hate to lose the good ones!