Day 1, The race is on

As we motored south along the Chicago Lakeshore, we encountered several Tartan-10 boats. The Tartan-10 is the largest one-design fleet in the Great Lakes, and as such they have their own 37 boat section in the race to Mackinac. The Tartan-10 boats have a slightly slower rating than the boats in our section (Section 7). Knowing that the Tartan-10’s start the race exactly 10 minutes before we do, we followed them to Navy Pier and eased ourselves into a space between some of them for the parade past the East end of the Pier.

When we were close enough to see people standing on the Pier, I called my parents to let them know to start looking for us and where to look. It was difficult to see individuals in the crowd through the fog and misty rain, but I hoped that the boat was large enough and distinct enough for them to identify. We passed once, headed south, at quite a distance. Then we lined up to head North right alongside the east end of the pier. The captains of each of the boats in the race provided the Chicago Yacht Club with a paragraph of information about their boat and crew that could be used to talk about the boats as they passed by during the parade. As we approached the pier, I could hear the announcer commenting on how he recognized certain boats and trying to read the names off the hulls of the boats he didn’t recognize. Clearly he wasn’t making use of the provided information. A few days after the race I learned that the printouts of the boat information had been destroyed in the rain, and that the announcer was doing what he could with information from the spectators near him, and what he already knew about the various boats.

As I could hear the announcer talking about the boat in front of us, I noticed my mother standing near the announcer on the pier pointing at our boat and talking to the announcer. In the background over the public address system I thought I could hear her voice excitedly asking him to talk about “Cyclone”. He made a comment about how she seemed more excited than anyone else there, and asked her if she’d like to introduce the boat. She agreed and took the microphone.

Everyone on Cyclone seemed entertained by the fact that we had our own personal announcer and that she sounded so excited as she announced our sail number “51804” and explained that this was Cyclone’s first time competing in the Race to Mackinac. My family snapped off a few pictures and a short video, as we all waved to the crowd. We turned east and received an acknowledgement from the committee boat as we made our way out of the breakwater and joined the growing numbers of boats in the starting area.

In the low visibility it took us a short while to find the markers that identify the start line, but we had it all figured out, had our watches synchronized with the race committee starting sequence, had our mainsail raised, and our engine turned off before the 10 minute warning for the Tartan-10 section. Once the Tartan-10 section crossed the start line, the starting area became far less crowded and we found plenty of room to get lined up for our start. We were surprised to hear over the radio that there were less than 5 Tartan-10 boats recalled for crossing the line early. We heard the race committee announce to each of the early boats that they were clear as they returned to the start-line.

When the 5 minute warning sounded for our section we raised our jib. Two minutes before the start we headed parallel to the start-line and checked the time as we passed beyond the floating mark that indicates the end of the line. The “P” semaphore flag indicating “prepare for the start of the race” is dropped from the starting boat flag pole along with the sounding of a horn at exactly one minute before the start of the race, and we used this signal as our indication that it was time to turn the boat around 180 degrees and head back toward the start-line. With 15 seconds until the start for our section, we sailed past the near marker of the start-line and continued parallel to the line for the next 15 seconds. I was surprised that we had such a wide open area at this time. I’m accustomed to a much more crowded start-line with our weekend club races. I suspect that we were fortunate to have a larger than necessary line for our 25 boat section to provide enough room for some of the larger sections that would be starting before and after us. I also suspect that the terribly light winds made it difficult for many of the boats to time their approach to the line. As it was, there were no boats over the line early in our section and moments after the starting gun, we were headed downwind across the line.

Once we were clearly across the line and certain that we weren’t going to run into any issues where we might need to avoid another boat, it was time to launch the spinnaker. We extend the bowsprit, reel in the tack-line to bring the tack of the sail out to the end of the bowsprit, and quickly use the halyard to raise the head of the sail up the mast. I run around to the upwind side of the boat as Holly hands me the Spinnaker sheet. Then I quickly look up at the sail to watch it take shape as it fills with air so I can trim it for the best possible speed given our current heading.

Only it doesn’t fill with air or take shape. It just dangles there like a flag on a windless day. I try pulling it in tight to stretch it as flat as possible in hopes that a light breeze will catch it. I shout to John to head further upwind in hopes that any breeze that might exist will catch it at a good angle. I try letting it out completely in case I’v got it pulled to tight to take shape. I beg for wind and I start pulling it in again. With less than 5 knots of wind and the boat moving at over 1 knot, the breeze just isn’t enough to work even this light-weight sail. After what was probably less than a minute, but felt like twenty minutes, the breeze picked up just enough to fill the sail and we worked our way down the course. Before we had worked our way north back up near Montrose harbor where we began our day, we had already passed several Tartan-10 boats (remember they started 10 minutes before us), and had others that we were catching up to. There were J/105 boats that started after us (they are rated as slightly faster) that were unable to catch up to us. This was a great start to the race, and what little wind we had was coming from the south like we had hoped.

We were aware that the weather report called for changing weather conditions before the race was over, but we were sure feeling good about our accomplishments at this point. The race continued like this as we headed north-east. After several uneventful hours of passing boats and watching the fog get thicker, and knowing that we had days of racing ahead of us I handed off the Spinnaker sheets to Nora and headed down below to get some sleep. My next shift would begin at 8:00pm.

Pre-Mac Prep.

7/6/2008
I had decided that my relatively long hair was going to be a hassle for the race to Mackinac. So I asked my sister Ginette if she would mind using the trimmer she has to buzz cut it for me. I wanted it to have time to grow out just a bit so I arranged for her to cut it about 2 weeks ahead of time.



7/17/2008
I had this “great” idea that since my hair is so short and buzzed in the back, I could get the team logo shaved into the hair on the back of my head. I talked to a hair stylist and she said to make a copy of the logo, enlarge it on a copier and then cut it out to be used as a stencil. So, Thursday night, I stayed up most of the night cutting stencils into plastic transparency sheets to be used to shave the boat logo into the hair on the back of my head.




7/18/2008
I stopped off after work with my stencils to get the boat logo shaved into the hair on the back of my head. The person who did the work didn’t realize that the connecting pieces of the stencil weren’t part of the logo and that they were just there to hold the letters together, so I had what really looked like a stencil on the back of my head. When I got home, Lisa cleaned up the logo so it would stand out better, and shaved the hair all the way down to the bare skin. Then she used a red Sharpie permanent marker to color the skin and hair to match the boat logo.



I went to sleep and when I woke up the next morning, I found the pillow case stained with red permanent marker.



I took a shower and discovered the “permanent” marker wasn’t so permanent on scalp skin and hair. I was left with a slight pink color on the skin, and no color in the hair at all.

7/19/2008
I overslept and got ready to go as quickly as possible. The schedule called for everyone to meet at the dock by the boat at 8:00AM. In order to make it to the boat by then, those who were leaving a car at Capt. John’s house needed to meet at his house by 7:30. Since Lisa needed to be at work by 8:00am, there wasn’t time for her to drop me off at the boat or at John’s house, so I made arrangements to ride to John’s house with another crew member, Holly, who lives in Orland Park. To make it to John’s house on time we needed to leave Orland Park by 6:30am. Lisa said she could drop me off in Orland before she got ready for work, so I needed to leave home by 5:45am. I was supposed to wake up at 5:00am. This did not happen.

After waking at 5:28am, I quickly took a shower and finished up some last minute packing. There were a pair of sailing gloves I really wanted to bring with me, that I had to search the house for before they finally turned up. Then Lisa offered to quickly touch up the logo in my hair with the red “permanent” marker again so it would at least stand out until the race started. I’d need to wash it out before my first sleep shift so I wouldn’t stain my sleeping bag or anything on the boat. It didn’t look as good as it had the night before, but it was better than nothing. Everytime I thought I was ready to walk out the door I thought of something else that I needed/wanted. As we backed down the driveway, I realized that I had never printed out the directions to Holly’s house and I didn’t know where she lived. I ran back into the house to look up her address on the team website and write it down along with her phone number. By the time we were actually on the road, it was a few minutes after 6:00am.

I called Holly to let her know that we were running later than expected, and that I wouldn’t be there early like I had originally intended, but that I should still make it there by 6:30. I asked for directions to her house and as she explained, I realized that with all the stoplights on LaGrange Ave by the mall, we’d need to get pretty lucky and catch all the green lights to get to her house by 6:30.

After catching the eighth stoplight in a row, I called Holly again to explain that we were going to be a little late, and to ask if there is somewhere along the way that we could meet up to reduce the delay in getting to John’s house on time. Holy suggested a gas station on LaGrange avenue a bit north of the mall, and we agreed to meet up with her there.

When we got to the gas station, Holly wasn’t there yet, and I noticed it was a convenience store as well. I took a look inside and found they had red permanent markers. Since we had a bit of time while we waited for Holly to arrive, and since Lisa was disappointed with how the logo looked this morning when she quickly traced over it with the marker we had at home, and since I had already committed to washing it out after the start of the race, I purchased the marker and brought it out for Lisa to touch up the logo and make it look better.





Holly showed up shortly after, and the rest of the morning was relatively uneventful. We got to John’s house on time, where we met up with Scott, and John. Then we headed down to the pier where we met up with Wally and Nora. Wally’s family came with him to see us off, as did John’s girlfriend. Nancy, a member of the usual Cyclone crew, was originally slated to be a member of the crew for the race to Mackinac, however due to an injury she had to withdraw a few weeks before the race, and Scott took her place. Capt. John Madey has a friend John Frendreiss who is a hobby photographer and maintains the Cyclone website for him. Nancy and John F. agreed to be our “shore crew” to carry equipment not needed for the race, but that would be needed after the race up to Mackinac for us. They both showed up at the pier to see us off. John F. got a few good pictures, and then everyone who came to see us off headed to Navy Pier to see us in the boat parade. We fired up the diesel and cast off, in the dreary gray drizzle and the barely there breeze to head out to the pre-race boat parade at Navy Pier.

MasterCard

• Life Jacket - $
• Harness -$
• 6 Foot Tether - $
• Emergency Strobe Light - $
• 2 Pair Sailing Gloves - $
• 2 Pair Sunglasses - $
• 1 8-oz. Bottle Sunblock - $
• Team Shirt - $
• Team Cap - (free)
• Pocket Knife - $
• Foul Weather Gear - $
• Sleeping Bag - $
• Entry Fee - $
• Provisions - $
• Lodging on Island for 2 nights - $

Participating in the 100th running of one of the oldest and longest freshwater sailboat races in the world. . . .

Priceless.

Where's Waldo (Danny)

For the first time in the 107 year history of the race, every boat in the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac will be supplied with a GPS tracking system. This means that for the few who are interested, this can be a spectator sport. This link should take you to a website that will allow you to identify the current location of all the boats participating in the race. To find out where in Lake Michigan I am at any time during the race, you'll need to choose our boat, Cyclone, from the selection list. I've never used this tracking system before, so I can't offer much advice on how to use it. I've been informed that right now you can look at the "2008 Newport Bermuda Race" under the "View Past Races" to get an idea of how the website is supposed to work for the Mac race once the Mac race begins.

Information you may (or may not) find useful when attempting to determine how well we are doing, and where we are located:

Our boat name - Cyclone
Our sail number - 51804
Our section - 7
Our Division - Chicago-Mackinac Trophy Division
Our start time - 12:10pm
Our class flag - Pink

Our rivalries - Dos Aguilas, Most Wanted, Pegasus, Vayu

Boats with a similar ORR rating - Drumbeat, Sociable

Slowest boats in our section (they better be behind us, because their position will improve on ours after the race due to the ORR rating adjustments) - Celerity, Foray

Fastest boats in our section (they need to be way ahead of us to beat us, because our position will improve on them after the race due to the ORR rating adjustments) - Madcap, Windrunner, Challenge

ISLA GIATT?

It seems the name I chose for this blog has revealed itself to be somewhat prophetic. For those who haven't figured it out yet, the blog title "ISLA GIATT" is an acronym for the phrase "It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time". There are a variety of things I've done in my life which in hind-sight appear to have been a rather poor decision. I never intend to make a poor decision, but at the time when a decision is made, it isn't always obvious that it will be a poor decision. As such, when asked about the reasoning behind making the decision, frequently phrased along the lines of "Why (exclamatory remark such as 'in the world') would you do such a thing?", the best answer I can offer is, "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

When considering creating a blog, I figured this title served two purposes. First, I assumed that some of my most significant and interesting posts would be written about these "seemed like a good idea at the time" events in my life. Second, I was somewhat aware of my personal writing skills as well as the difficulty of keeping a blog updated on a regular basis. As such I realized that while blogging seemed like a good idea, the blog itself just might be one of those ideas that only seemed good at the time the decision was made.

I began the blog with the best of intentions. Shortly after the new year, I rededicated myself to a renewed attempt to posing on a regular basis. I always assumed that once sailing season started up, I'd post weekly updates as to the results and events of the weekend races, as well as frequent updates on preparations for the Chicago to Mac race. Clearly this hasn't occurred.

I have not yet given up. I really do want this blog to work. I want this to be a creative outlet where I can write interesting things others want to read. While this blog itself is beginning to show signs of "Seemed like a good idea at the time", for me it still seems like a good idea at this time.

The Chicago to Mac race begins in less than a week. I've wanted to participate in this race ever since I discovered that I enjoy sailing. I've been urging the owner, Captain John, of the boat, Cyclone, to enter the boat in the race (at significant cost to himself) during every one of the 5 years I've been a member of his racing team. I have a lot I want to say about this race. I don't know yet if it will all come out in one long post, or if I'll find a way to break it up into reasonable daily updates. Either way, you'll hopefully find that I've posted quite a bit about the race between now and 5:30am Saturday morning.

Mmmm, Cookies

Last weekend, I attended the annual Cyclone crew BBQ, the last Cyclone crew gathering of the year. Reminiscing with everyone about the past season and discussing plans for next year wraps up the sailing season nicely. The captain provides the location, the gourmet burgers, and a selection of beverages. This year he requested that the attendees bring an appetizer or dessert. I brought THE COOKIES.

Ok, for those who may stumble across this blog and not be familiar with desserts that are commonly popular at events attended by any of my family, I don't mean that I'm the only one who brought cookies. What I mean is I'm the only one who brought THE COOKIES. THE COOKIES have a history. They have a reputation. There is a certain mystery surrounding them. They are desired by many, but they can be elusive and difficult to obtain.

These chocolate chip cookies are no ordinary cookies. Two to two-and-a-half inches in diameter, and nearly a half inch thick, the soft and almost cake-like texture practically melts in your mouth into a melody of scent and flavor. The soft brown chocolate chips matching the light tan cookie's texture are evenly distributed in a nearly perfect cookie to chip ratio. The cookies are neither excessively sweet nor salty. Not only the taste and texture, but the light scent of the component ingredients can carry your soul through time and flood your mind with memories of past celebrations.

When I was a child, my father baked THE COOKIES a few times a year for family events. Typically a single batch of about three dozen cookies stacked neatly on a plate, then covered with aluminum foil, would sit on a table or counter-top teasing and tempting everyone until the end of the main meal. The cookies would vanish quickly once the foil was removed and after they were gone it could be a few months before the opportunity to have another. I suppose that the anticipation enhances and increases the allure. The waiting months for another batch to be made, and then hoping to get one before the rest of the family finishes them off brings about a certain sense of contentment with the successful acquisition. Many people have tried to duplicate these cookies, but very few have succeeded in perfectly replicating the taste, color, and texture. The recipe is no secret. Whenever anyone has asked my father for the recipe he has been willing to share it. However, those few who have succeeded have discovered that the secret is not in the recipe. Follow the recipe to the letter, using the exact same ingredients in the exact same proportions and the results will disappoint you.

A few of my siblings have mastered the recipe. In the past when I've wanted to bring something special to an event that the rest of my family wouldn't be attending, I'd have my father or one of my sisters assist me in baking these cookies. I had tried baking them myself and they never turned out right.

I decided to try making THE COOKIES for the BBQ. Even if I failed to duplicate THE COOKIES, I'd still have some delicious common chocolate chip cookies to bring. I talked to my father and a sister again ahead of time, trying to figure out exactly what it is that I've done wrong in the past. I carefully duplicated every single step I've seen them perform no matter how silly or unnecessary it seemed. When I finished, I had about 26 of THE COOKIES and another 12 chocolate chip cookies. I arranged them stacked on a plate (hiding the 12 less than perfect ones on the bottom), and wrapped them in aluminum foil.

True to form, the cookies were gone before the BBQ was over. People were left wanting more, and someone asked for the recipe. THE COOKIES received many compliments. The next time I attend a Cyclone crew event, I'm nearly certain that some people will be anticipating a chance to have one more.

The recipe? Sure, I'll share. Get yourself a 12 oz. package of "Nestle Toll House Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels". There is a recipe on the back. Instead of two-and-a-quarter cups of flour, use three-and-a-half cups. Don't use any nuts. The rest of the recipe is the same.

The secret? Now if I told you, it wouldn't be a secret. Would it?