My friend John Cahill has been racing the Ross 930 Gaucho very successfully, consistently and quietly for many years. It was great to see him win Class 5 at CYC’s PSSR (Puget Sound Spring Regatta) this past weekend, fittingly by a single point over rival Here and Now. John even answered my request for a report on the event! It’s a great read, you can tell it was a fun weekend of good, hard competition. In short, PSSR at its best. Results for North Course and South Course.
Oh, and enjoy Jan Anderson’s photography, both here and on her SmugMug site. Yep, once again I’m going to remind everyone to go buy her photos.
By John Cahill
First off, fantastic conditions for April racing on Puget Sound: relatively warm, dry sunny days with somewhat light air on Saturday, but not bad (by our standards). At times we felt like the race committee would be crazy to try to pull off a race in existing conditions, but we were surprised how good the racing turned out to be and how fortunate we were that they got races off (and stopped running them) when they did. As usual, the south course got better breeze and more racing than the north course (not sure why that is but it seems fairly consistent from year to year).
On Gaucho we got off to an unfortunate start by being called over early on the first race. We were shocked when they called our numbers and sure that they called the wrong boat over but didn’t have any time to ponder it so we turned back to restart. We managed to stay in the best of the available breeze on the first beat and had good boat speed (for us) in the lighter breeze. This allowed us to claw back into the top four boats around the first mark. We found another shift on the run and finished 2nd for the race (we were very lucky not to be buried deep right at the outset). After several delays we got two more races in the afternoon, again in light air, and pulled off a respectable 1st and 3rd to keep us in the hunt for the first day. I felt we did a great job of picking up the shifts which helped tremendously. Much credit for this goes to Alex Simanis from Ballard Sails for his help. At the end of the day we were tied for first (ahead only by a tie breaker) and only one point ahead of the 3rd place boat. Tight racing but really fun, this is what it’s all about!
Sunday was a new day, 10+ knots in the morning which was more than we saw all of Saturday. Our class was a dogfight for the lead position between the top three boats. In the first race we got off the start line cleanly at the pin end on the first race and managed to lead all around the course with clear air for the win. The second and third races were more of the same and with consistent starts, going the right way and good boat speed, we were able to get two more bullets. Just when you start feeling good things started getting harder, after a less than ideal start we could only manage a third in the 4th race of the day.
I have to say we were really hoping the race committee would call the racing for the day at 3pm but the CYC race committee never considers stopping racing in good breeze, so on to race #5. Shortly before the start we got into a position that forced us to tack close in front of a starboard tack boat. We threw the helm over hard but they called foul and even though we didn’t think we had broken a rule, we likely would have had to gone to the protest room which is an uncertain outcome. We decided to play it safe and do our turns, putting us in the back of the fleet sailing away from us after the start. Much to the crew’s credit, no one gave up. Like in the first race, we fought our way back into 4th by the 1st mark of a twice around race. We picked up one more place on the next legs and rounding the last windward leg were in 3rd. Once again we noticed something the three boats in front of us hadn’t considered, a different leeward mark was closer to the far end of the start finish line than what we had been sailing to most of the day. We took the shorter route and managed to round the last leeward mark in 2nd and closer to the top boat. From there it was a short beat to the finish and we managed hang on to be second over the line. On corrected time, we placed second in that race only 2 seconds ahead of the 3rd place boat for the race. If we had been 3rd we would have been tied for first for the regatta. Quite a weekend for us indeed!
– John Cahill, Skipper Gaucho
Kurt grew up racing and cruising in the Midwest, and has raced Lasers since the late 1970s. Currently he is a broker at Swiftsure Yachts. He has been Assistant Editor at Sailing Magazine and a short stint as Editor of Northwest Yachting. Through Meadow Point Publishing he handles various marketing duties for smaller local companies. He currently is partners on a C&C 36 which he cruises throughout the Northwest. He’s married to the amazing Abby and is father to Ian and Gabe.
Way to go GAUCHO!!! Sweet as, mates…..cheers from the BRAVO crew in New Zealand.