It’s pretty safe to say that for most of us, sailing is critical to feeling alive. But as performance sailors will tell you, pushing one’s limits in big breeze is about feeling really alive, whether it’s on an Opti going 7 knots or a foiling cat going 25. Andy Mack, a performance sailor if there ever was one, pushed his limits on the Columbia River Gorge on Labor Day in his RS Aero. He told his tale to fellow Aero sailors and has graciously allowed us to share it here. Read on! -KH
Feeling Alive
By Andy Mack
Around 2:00 pm on Labor day I was noticing the breeze from the east was picking up and started to think maybe it would be worth considering trying to make a run at the Hood River YC 20/20 record, Hood River to Cascade Locks. The last record was set in 2014 by Bill Summerfield and crew on his Express 27, 1:54:38. Doing the math; for 20 miles you need to average better than 5.73 minutes per mile, which is an average of 9.1 knots. After pulling up the charts and a calculator for some quick estimates, I figured it could be possible in the Aero. The challenge to being successful is to be able to keep the overall average speed up high enough to make up for the typically slow first 3 – 4 miles where the wind is barely enough to get on a plane. You start out at a deficit to the average since the wind builds as you go west through the Gorge, so you have to be really cooking in the second half to make up for the early lost time. I did some quick estimates for where I would need to be by what times for the first half, after that, it doesn’t really matter. Just get there in one piece. It can get pretty sketchy for the second half, not much time to think other than 100% focus on staying upright and in one piece. This day was especially unique. The forecast was for a once in a 50 year easterly blow. The i-windsurf forecast had estimates of 40 – 50 knots. How likely was that going to happen? I was convincing myself that those peaks would be further west of Cascade Locks, not through the mid-Gorge corridor.
I sprung the idea of the downwinder on my wife, Jaime. To my surprise, she thought it was a great idea and said to “go for it”. She offered to help support me in a power boat, but I talked her out of it. Once I’m in 20+ knots the RIB could be a liability. The next best plan would be to track me through my phone location and meet me at the other end. Worst case, I could haul out in Viento or one of the other beach launches. I’ll call for help if I need it. Everything is within 30 minutes by car. So, I packed my dolly in her car just in case.
I’m not the most tech savvy, other than I can run an app on my phone. I had made sure “Find My Phone” was working for Jaime to track me and “Race Qs” to record a GPS track record. Then, I put my Velocitek SC-1 in the cockpit, which I hadn’t used in about 11 years. No video or GoPro on this excursion. If I had more time to prepare I would have put one on my boom. Another non-typical added environmental condition was forest fire smoke that had started to blow in from the east from fires in eastern Washington. Visibility was down to about 3-4 miles. Air quality was starting to be problem, I thought I could deal with it for a couple hours. I was a little concerned about not being able to see barges coming upriver before they could be a problem. However, since it was a holiday, there may not be any barges on the river. Air temperature was about 80 degrees, water temp around 72 and not much current. I decided to go without a spray top or insulating layer. In hindsight, a helmet would have been a good idea. I have a few different rig sizes to choose from and decided to go with the 7 square meter rig.
When I went down to the marina I sent a message to the HRYC group that I was planning to go for the 20/20 record. A few minutes later I got a message that a Moore 24 had already left to go do the run too. Oh great! I wish I knew this ahead of time, I would have tried to join them for at least a little safety in numbers. Maybe I’ll see them with their rig down or some other carnage.
4:00 I rigged up and shoved off the Hood River Marina dock into the smokey Mordor looking scene.
I spent 5 minutes getting mentally ready, setting my phone tracker, watch countdown set to 1:54:00, just under the last record, then deciding the best position on the start line and angle to begin my run. Double checking with myself if this is really a good idea. Of course it is!
4:07:50 Bore off and went for it. I had some nice initial puffs over 15 knots and flat water, hitting 12 knots over the bottom. That was a good start.
4:10:50 I was hit by a puff which must have clocked to the south a little and caught me off guard, leading to a deathroll. That was dumb! Fortunately, I was able to climb over the rail and get on the board quickly while the boom was still up in the air. I lost a little time. As I got back upright I heard some cheering from some people that had walked out to the tip of the sand bar to enjoy the awful weather and air quality conditions. Immediately after recovering I was hit again by a 20 knot puff, sending me back up to 14 knots.
4:12:00 I had to luff up for a few seconds to put the main halyard back in the sail pocket. I figured I better stop now to take care of it before the wind got too crazy.
4:17:00 Mile 1, I needed to average better than 6 minutes a mile to break the record, I was over 1.5 minutes behind.
Slow going the first 2 miles.
4:25:30 2 miles down, passing by the Hatchery Buoy, 4 minutes behind the average. My mantra for the run was to focus on keeping my average boat speed up over 10 knots, “Keep the average up”. As I was going through the corridor from the Hatchery to Viento, the halfway point, the wind was steadily picking up over 20 knots, my average speed getting closer to 10 knots and trending up. The waves were kicking up too keeping me cautious to not stuff and wipeout.
4:45:34 First heavy air jibe, resorted to a chicken jibe. I didn’t want to risk another capsize to keep my average up. The waves were getting bigger, forcing me to slow down and steer around more. I was easing my vang a little for safety, trying to keep control over where I had to steer to avoid stuffing the bow.
4:50:19 Waves and gusts were getting bigger, forcing me down the troughs into the backs of bigger and bigger waves, I had to resort to burning speed by luffing up to avoid stuffing. Not fast, but still better than a capsize.
4:50:07 Chicken Jibe #2. My strategy was to stay to the leeward side of the channel on the Oregon side of the river as much as possible to avoid shifty and disturbed wind on the north side of the channel. On final approach to Viento Park, it was WINDY, gusting well over 30 knots, waves were getting bigger. My goal was to pass Viento before 5:00.
4:58:15 Passing by Viento, the midway point. Now, I was about 5 minutes ahead of the record and feeling kind of crazy, but more confident I could make it. As I was cruising by the park I only saw one windsurfer braving the conditions, and he was headed back to the beach in retreat.
Lulls were 20 knots, gusts up into the high 30’s. As I made the commitment to proceed past Viento I was extremely focused on not dropping the mainsheet, oversheeting to reduce power and keeping the loads balanced, easing vang to let the top of the sail twist off, pulling controls on and steering with deliberate precision. Stuffing waves and filling the cockpit was a regular occurrence at this point. After I passed the park, to my surprise, I experienced much flatter water, and the boat lit up planning much more steadily, helping the average. For 20 minutes I almost never dropped under 10 knots and hit one peak of 16.3 knots. This section was a blast.
5:20:00 Settling into the start of the Home Valley stretch where it can get squirrely from the wind pinching between Wind Mountain and the Oregon hillsides. As I was passing by the Wyeth park and launch area I looked to my leeward side and realized I was only about 3 boat lengths from a long native American salmon net. At least it was strung along the current, not across it. The thought of running over a net in these conditions was not a good one.
5:23:00 Conditions were now getting very lively. I was hitting new high speeds, surging to 15 knots then hitting 16.5, with a short burst to 16.7, my peak for the whole run. And then, I don’t know what happened. Next thing I know, I’m in the water and my boat is pitch poled in front of me completely straight up in the air with only one foot of the bow in the water. That would have been a cool photo! My first thought was to start swimming towards the boat quickly before it blows away from me. The next thing I realize, my ride is falling back towards me, on to me. I managed to not get hit in the head by the port side rail as the boat fell back down into the water. My left shoulder and thigh took a blow from the hull or rail. Fortunately, I was able to quickly reach up and get on the board and get going again. Needless to say, I was a little shaken up wondering how much windier it was going to get and what else could go wrong. At this point, I was straight across from the Home Valley park boat ramp. As I looked down river the smoke was obscuring the next point where I would be hanging a left into the Cascade Locks/Stevenson stretch. As soon as I got going again the breeze dropped, big lull. More encouragement to keep going!
5:30:00 the breeze came back on hard. I have been out in big breeze and waves many times in the Aero, but this was different. I was worried there was a lot of potential to brake something as the puffs kept getting well over 30 knots, driving the bow down and loading up the rudder. I did my best to not push it too hard. Hiking off the back corner was helpful and necessary to keep the bow up.
5:31:21 Any time I felt the boat was getting overloaded I purposely rounded up to burn off speed and unload the rudder. As I bore off and got going again down the Home Valley channel, I was in more of a “safety” mode, trying to stay in control as the puffs got bigger and the waves were stacking up.
5:34:34 A huge gust hit me, I jumped to 16 knots again, stuffed the bow and capsized. This time I was getting concerned about what to do next. Once I got the boat back up, I cranked on controls to flatten my sail as much as possible. In the process, I was hit by a huge puff, and had to hike out just to stay upright while I was luffing on a beam reach angle. Not good! When I looked out into the channel it was knarly; big breaking waves, with the gusts blowing the tops off the waves. There was no way I would be able to go upwind in these conditions. With no boat launches or beaches nearby to pull out, I had no choice, but to keep going. I bore off in the next lull, with the belief I may be able to still make it. Success! I proved I could still bear away and survive. It didn’t take long before I had to do another round up to slow down. Then I decided to tack to stay closer to the Oregon shore. One of the awesome features about the Aero is, it’s very light. The downside is it doesn’t carry much momentum through tacks, especially when it’s blowing over 25 knots. The tack took me two tries to complete. Worst case scenarios were starting to cross my mind. Where could I bail out? About now, I knew Jaime would be either close or already in Cascade Locks to pick me up. As I approached the Oregon shore, I knew I didn’t want to get too close to the lee shore or shallow water, so I tacked again and bore away.
5:42:48 Capsized again. Shifting priorities, I have given up trying to break the record and focused on trying to survive and keeping my boat in one piece. I noticed my rudder was starting to kick up a little, so I had to cinch down the tie-down line. If the rudder kicks up too much, it increases the weather helm and could over stress the rudder and rudder head. I managed to bear away again in a lull and kept going. I was thinking, if I could just get downwind another quarter mile I could duck into the coves at the east end of Cascade Locks for shelter. Once I got going again, I kept in control enough to keep pushing towards the finish. In these conditions, when I was stuck going up the face of a wave, all I had to do was sheet out a little to power over the wave and sheet in again to slow down on the backside. Now that I was pointed towards the Stevenson kite launch area I knew I was almost home free. This section was 7 minutes of high averages and almost no dips below 10 knots. As I approached the Stevenson boat ramp area a few kiters were ripping around, smiling, having a ball as I was trying to loosen up and enjoy myself. The wind had moderated a little more, gusts in the low to mid 30’s, lulls around 20. The tracking data of this 25 minute section really revealed the extreme up and down conditions and wave action.
5:53:24 As I was bombing towards the Stevenson shoreline I found the lull I was hoping for and went for a legit jibe, barely landing it. Knowing I was potentially on final approach to the Cascade Locks beach, no more jibes were necessary, I was starting to relax a little more and enjoy the ride. I looked at my watch one more time and realized I could still potentially make it under the previous record. Hard to believe it was possible with all the flailing around I had been doing. Port jibe was more challenging with the wind and wave angle, I was having to spin up a couple more times to keep from going down the mine in the big puffs. At least I was getting quicker at the recovery and bearing off again. The last four minutes were really fun, with higher averages and awesome surfing conditions. As I came up on the Cascade Locks park I was thinking a photo or video to capture the occasion and accomplishment would be cool. Nope! Just me, myself and I. With the smoke filled air and gale force winds, who would want to be going for a walk to the beach on a day like this?
6:01:07 I finished this crazy adventure! Broke the old record by a little over a minute. Nothing broke on my Aero and I was in one piece.
Jaime got there a few minutes after I landed at the dock. She had pulled off the highway a few miles back looking for me when the phone tracker showed me flailing around. She took these pictures while looking for me. Not much to see with the heavy smoke screen. By the time she took these I must have got my act together and carried on. When she met me at the dock, she said I looked like Gollum; pale, shaking and my eyes bloodshot from the smoke.
I didn’t realize until a couple days later how hard my boat had hit my shoulder.
The Moore 24 “Nice One”, owned by Andy Estcourt, with crew Sean “Doogie” Couvreux, and Mike “Spike” Slater managed to smash the record by a little over 10 minutes, 1:43:20. They left Hood River an hour before I did, around 3:00 pm. When I look at the wind data and my GPS track, I am confident if I had left when they did, it would have been a very close race. Nice run and perfect timing guys! It doesn’t hurt to leave the task to a couple of veteran pro’s and an experienced Gorge sailor. I hear they had their own harrowing experience during the second half of their run.
Obviously, it was not blowing 20 – 30+ knots yet, cocktail hour on the back deck!
Final Conclusion: I am completely impressed with how well the Aero is built and handled these extreme conditions. I now know I can trust my boat to hold together, should I end up in these kind of conditions again. Looking at my recorded track I followed very close to rhumline, only crossing the river four times and staying close to the channel to maximize the current push. While I am disappointed I missed the new record, set an hour before me. I can look at the data and know if I had not capsized, I would have easily saved 10 minutes. If I had left an hour earlier, I would have had about 10 knots less wind on average, which would have made a big difference. It was a bit much to expect to survive every massive puff and pearl into the waves ahead of me, which lead to most of my capsizes. Maybe the 5 rig would have been easier to control in the 25+ knot conditions. I’ll have to test this out for future attempts. All I can say is, this experience left me Feeling Alive! I loved it! Can’t wait to try again next year and beat the new record.
Link to GPS track: