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E-33RH Race Winner

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
https://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/applet_regatta_results.php?regatta_id=18160

Winner in PHRF class B is "Margaret", and it sails out of our club, RCYC in Portland.
This is an Ericson 33RH, and has been pictured in the splash screen rotation on this site for many years.

:egrin:

Previous owner sailed it locally for well over twenty years, and I have had the pleasure of helming it quite a few times..

The Oregon Offshore race was sailed in mostly light air this year... and that boat does well in light conditions.
I hope we can get David, the present owner, to check in with a race report one of these days.

He plans to also race the Swiftsure Race, coming up immediately.


Recent picture of the boat here:
http://www.oregonoffshore.org/2019/03/margaret-margaret-is-ericson-33.html

(click on the picture for the full size version)
 
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Geoff W.

Makes Up For It With Enthusiasm
Blogs Author
Fantastic!! I love seeing Ericsons out there still making a showing. Nice pic of the boat, too.
 

shepherdsond

Member I
Thanks for the plug Loren!

Yes, we had a great race, first offshore race for the entire crew of 6!

The 2019 Oregon Offshore started at 0900, Thursday May 9th after a bumpy Columbia Bar crossing at almost max ebb tide. Boats behind said they could see almost the entire hull as we crested the larger waves (fresh bottom so nothing to be embarrassed about). Wind was very light at the start and for the first 4 hours and we were doing fairly well (we used a 140% headsail which gave us a 141 PHRF rating). The wind then filled in from the NNE and we slowly lost ground to one of our closest competitors in speed (C&C 35 "Thirsty") but stayed equal with the only other Ericson in the race, AJA an Ericson 34 MkII out of Astoria. One big starboard tack about 60 miles out to sea on Thursday to take advantage of stronger offshore wind and one port tack back to the race mark at Duntz Rock near Cape Flattery on Friday. At dusk on Friday the wind died coming into Juan De Fuca Straight as it often does, a fog bank rolled in and we had an anxious hour while the wind circled us and the current drew us relentlessly towards Duntz rock but we passed eventually with room to spare. About an hour into the Straight the wind gained considerably in strength from the West (not in the forecast) and at 0200 we raised the spinnaker. From then until 0900 was a wild ride with true winds approaching 20kn by the end. Crossing the shipping lanes on a beam reach with the spinnaker pulling hard was particularly memorable (Seattle traffic were notified and declared it safe to cross). Broad reaching towards Race Rocks at one point we briefly hit 9kn surfing down a wave (highest speed seen by me to date on Margaret), 7-8 knots was about the average for a while. We could see from the AIS targets on the chartplotter that we were doing well with respect to the other race boats. We doused the spinnaker at Race Rocks and turned North outside the rocks for Victoria. An hour later we popped out of the fog into a beautiful sunny day with blue sky, deep blue water and behind us the white fog bank topped by the snowy Olympic Mountains. The wind gradually died as we neared Victoria (as it often does) and the chute went up again. About 100yds from the finish the very light wind did a 180 and the chute started pushing us back, we got it down asap and a very slight current just barely pushed us over the line. Customs, followed by wife and friends, champagne and hot towels in front of the Empress Hotel - lovely! We didn't know we had won our division until the awards ceremony the next day at the Royal Vic Yacht Club, a great Mother’s day surprise, Margaret is named after my departed mother who loved to sail and was a successful dinghy racer, I think she would have loved it. A big thanks to all my crew and especially “1[SUP]st[/SUP] Mate” Justin.

Margaret (formaly J P Foolish) had not been sailed offshore for a good 25 years when I took charge of her last year (my first boat) so getting ready for this race was a marathon involving hundreds of hours from me and my willing crew and plenty of boat dollars. Prep included new main, AIS, plotter, Garmin GND10 to communicate between the existing Nexus system and NMEA 2K, wind transducer, jack lines & pad eyes, replacing most of the fresh water system, mostly new running rigging, storm jib, sail repairs, heat exchanger, batteries, two pipe cots, EPIRB, hull polish, bottom paint, rebuilt max prop, pedro hose, holding tank through hull, Dan Buoy, acrylic hatch board, crash kit, water heater, lazarette latches, ditch bag and over a hundred other assorted tasks needed to meet the race SER's.
 
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