PSSA Guadalupe Island Race - ANyone ?

[Critter]

Originally Posted by Culebra

Actually the operative phrase, for the first option, is "between two ports." Which implies pretty clearly that you don't have to start or stop in a port.

Paul (oh boy, I love discussions of semantics), I would argue just the opposite. There's more than one meaning of "between". I would submit that the context of the sentence "The qualifying cruise may be between two ports or may start and finish at the same port", implies the inclusion of the endpoints. That is, the gist of the sentence (to me) is that you can sail from port A to port B or from port A to port A.

Just to be clear, I'm not belittling or trying to disqualify Lou or Rob in any way; that's water under the bridge anyway. It's just that in all the years that I've looked over the TransPac requirements, I had no doubt about my interpretation of that requirement, and I was very surprised to see that there is a different interpretation.

Bob the race chair having weighed in, anybody who doesn't have the qualifier done should certainly follow his interpretation.

Max

[Culebra]

Well said, Max. But there is still ambiguity in the rule, and it doesn't specifically state it must start or end in a port.

Semantics aside, because we won't solve the riddle this way, the rule isn't meant to be arbitrary. If the rule means to say that the qualifier must start and end in a port, then there had to be a good reason for that, a reason related to the qualifying of the person and boat. I don't think there is any point to demonstrating one can start and stop in a port, for the reason I mentioned before. (Perhaps the rule should include demonstrating one can anchor in a breezy, sandy bay?) Bob, was your earlier take on this the definitive answer? That it doesn't have to include the port?

Thanks, and yep AJ, I got the joke, and it was funny .

Paul

[seabird51]

Well gentlemen I feel compelled to have one last say in this semantic mental masturbation. I was not around when the rule was written but I think it is safe to say that people considering the SHTP could leave a dock, anchor and get into a harbor. Thousands of boats in San francisco do this routinely as do even more in Southern California. Very few ever go offshore. The qualification rule was probably crafted to gain some evidence of the offshore sailing ability and endurance of a boat and skipper, and not as a test of piloting and seamanship 101.
That being said, I will let you sea-lawyers debate the finer points that may have been omitted by the authors of a simple requirement. Are there any attorneys or congressmen out there. Perhaps we could expand those several lines to 20+pages in the interest of clarification!
BTW it is 140 nm from Guadalupe Island to the Baja coast. If you are 20-99 nm from Guadalupe do you satisfy the 100nm clause? Perhaps we can chew on that for a while. Every time I go by that island it seems pretty far offshore to me.
Enough of my rant, I'm going back to Mexico in the morning.

[BobJ]

The point of the qualifying cruise is to expose yourself to situations you will encounter during the race. There is a good chance that completing the SH TransPac will include making landfall at night in "sporty" conditions. If you don't have that experience then you should gain it, perhaps by building it into your qualifier.

At the end of my qualifier, I nearly put "Ragtime!" on the rocks below the Pt. Bonita lighthouse. The chartplotter was mounted on the hatchboard right in front of me but due to lack of sleep my mind wasn't telling me to look at it. Ahead of me were two rocks. In my mind, one of them was Alcatraz and one was YBI, and I was going to sail between them. When I saw breakers I made a hard right and soon saw the Golden Gate.

One conclusion I reached from this experience was that for my first SHTP, since Hanalei Bay would be an unfamiliar port I would not attempt to enter it at night unless I was rested and visibility was excellent (full moon, etc.). Otherwise I would cross the finish line and turn North back out to sea, and make landfall the next morning.

As to the wording of the rule, see my original response to Max. Perhaps the next Race Chair should rewrite it to include the words "passage," "harbor," and/or "landfall." I suspect this may create new problems of interpretation.

[FRakaFDR]

As someone who has sailed 4 Guadalupe Island races and one SHTP (’04) I can tell you the GI race is much tougher than the SHTP. For one thing in the winter in SoCal the weather is either nothing or survival conditions. For another, the GI race is “downwind/up wind”. 300 miles each way. Three days of beating into 25-30 knots is a lot longer than the 14 day downwind slide to Hanalei Bay, even if you have to leave San Francisco Bay under storm conditions like in ’04.
The GI race should be scheduled in the summer months when conditions are more predictable and milder. If the GI race were held in the summer of the odd numbered years it could still be a qualifier for SHTP and PacCup. It would even give you a few more months to reinforce whatever weaknesses were discovered coming back from GI. I have recommended this to the PSSA BOD every year for the last 20 to no avail (and I'm a board member!).
Thanks for letting me put my $0.02 in. You may now resume the discussion of how many angels can dance on the head of an SSS rule.

Frank Ross, Prankster

[Thom]

Originally Posted by tiger beetle

Interesting conversation.
So I do not hold with the port to port, and instead stick with the numbered points above. The key to the LongPac is that it forces you to singlehand long enough that you must sleep while the boat is sailing - if you can handle that, then you've demonstrated that you can handle sailing to Hawaii. Everything else is bolting gear to the boat and breaking as much stuff as you can in order to replace it with something that doesn't break during your race.

- rob/beetle

Speaking of port to port... again, very tongue in cheek... what if you have a glass of port at each spot where you start and finish...does that count?

[Ragnar]

So, back to the question, yes, I'm going singlehanded.

I'm looking forward to being out for a while and being sleep deprived, watching gear break, getting seasick, growing a scratchy beard, and getting boarded by the USCG and the Mexican Navy.

Now this race is going to be living!

Whitall

[Runaway]

Those considering competing in the Guadalupe Island Race may be interested in the actual wind conditions we encountered on Runaway in the 2008 race. It is only a snapshot of just one year, and obviously conditions could be considerably different year to year, but it is good data, the hourly entries transcribed directly from our ship's log. I've attached the file as a .pdf.

I think it illustrates why the GI race is such a great race: all the major food groups of sailing are represented. I know of no other race that so rewards the all-round boat and the adaptable skipper.

Cheers,

Eric

[brianb]

Thanks ERic,

Useful info. Also, I have been reviewing several years of buoy data in the region, great info. You seem to have had pretty good wind most of the time . Better than what several years of buoy data indicates.

Brian