Friday, June 29th 2012 was the Constitution Yacht Club’s June Moon Chase Race, a 40 nm pursuit race from Boston to Gloucester and back. This is the third year the race has been held and for 2012 it has been included in the Mass Bay Pursuit Championship as the first pursuit race of the year. The first boats to start were Richard Sides’ Atalanta and David Winkler’s Iphigenia which both rated 207 and started at 5:42 PM; the last of the 19 boats to start was Rob Gorman’s Vida Zee, a Thompson 35 rating -9 and starting almost two and a half hours later at 8:06 PM.

The course was as follows:

Start - Between G “5” in the North Channel (to port) and R “6” (to starboard) in the South Channel.
Leg 1 - Leaving R “6” to starboard and G “5” to port, sail 1.35 nm at 15° to Mo (A) “NC”. (NOTE: Stay closer to the R “6” as it is a shorter course and a hotter angle to the next mark)
Leg 2 - Leaving Mo (A) “NC” to starboard, sail  5.4 nm at 90° to Mo (A) “B”. (NOTE: Make sure you leave The Graves G “5” whistle to starboard to honor the restricted zone)
Leg 3 - Leaving Mo (A) “B” to port, sail  13.1 nm at 20° to RG “RR” in Gloucester Harbor.
Leg 4 - Leaving RG “RR” to starboard, sail  13.1 nm at 200° to Mo (A) “B”.
Leg 5 - Leaving Mo (A) “B” to starboard, sail  5.4 nm at 270° to Mo (A) “NC”.  
Leg 6 - Leaving Mo (A) “NC” to port, sail  1.35 nm at 195° to R “6” in the South Channel
Finish -   Between R “6” (to port) and G “5” (to starboard) between the North and South Channels.

Here is a little play-by-play for you on what we THOUGHT happened on my boat, Superstition. If I get any of the other boats wrong, well, it was dark and I was concentrating on going fast!!!

We started on port tack with our spinnaker flying right at R 6 about 20 seconds late of our 7:16 PM start time, as that end of the line was 0.08 nm closer to the next mark then the other end of the line and would let us sail a hotter (i.e. faster) angle to the first mark. We carried the kite deep to the first mark, then gybed and came up to a hot reaching angle on starboard tack. We had passed Moose on the second leg, then Migration when we gybed back to port tack at the second mark. We passed above Vigor on the long third leg (where we saw a gust of 20 true and hit 10 knots through the water!) and either Summerin’ or Arial right at RR, which is where we finally took down the kite. I believe it was Agila that rounded RR right ahead of us, if they have a red kite. Superstition rounded RR at 9:50 PM.

After that it was pretty hard to tell who was who, but that was a nice close reach back with our medium #1, with average speeds of about 7.5 knots through the water. This long leg also gave us a chance to fire up the propane stove so we could bake up a nice pan of homemade mac and cheese (thanks Kim!). It was ready to go about 3 miles before we had to go to close hauled, so it gave everyone enough time to enjoy the “cheesy goodness” as we called it!!

We rounded Mo (A) “B” about a minute behind The Cone, but we able to pass them on the beat to Mo (A) “NC” after a pretty intense tacking dual and a nice little lefty. As we came into the penultimate mark we leebowed Vida Zee in hopes of leading them to the finish (I was perhaps delirious at this point), but they just shifted into a gear that we don’t have, rolled us about 4 lengths before the mark and continued on their merry way. We were able to hold the chute on the very final leg between Mo (A) “NC” and R6 and stay ahead of The Cone to finish in second place overall.

Funny thing is that we thought The Cone was Shout the whole time. Like I said, hard to tell who is who in the dark unless you shine a light at them, and that is just bad form!!

At any rate, it was a wonderful evening, a beautiful sunset, and as it just so happens was also my 46th birthday; what a way to celebrate!! We are already looking forward to next year’s race…