Daytona to Charleston Race Aboard J120 Ellyria

Daytona to Charleston Gulfstreamer Race 2008

J 120 Illyria
Owner: John Keenan
Crew: John Bowden, Ric Campeau, Randy Draftz, Mark Fanning, Mary Pallazo, Brad Taylor, and John Ward.


Having never sailed on board Illyria prior the Gulfstreamer Race, the unknowns always make for some anxious preparations. We were able to twist some arms and put together a crew of good drivers and sail trimmers that would enable us to keep the boat going fast around the clock. We strategized early and familiarized ourselves with the course’s options so we wouldn’t become overwhelmed with both sailing a new boat plus a crew that hadn’t sailed together before. I had sailed the Gulfstreamer in 2004 where we sailed a great race only to sort out afterwards in debriefing the race that we didn’t go deep enough into the Gulfstream and had exited too early. As someone said in the 2004 race: “why do you think they call the race the Gulfstreamer, Randy”? The sting of that comment remained as if it happened last weekend not four years ago!

We reviewed the weather patterns, which Mark Fanning did a great job sourcing, for weather information prior to the race. We also signed up with Commander’s Weather for their forecast and suggested routing. An XM weather receiver was also installed for tracking and gulfstream imaging so we had done our homework and were ready to race!

The big competition was another J120 Emocean owned by the Hanckel family. They had won their class in the 2006 Gulfstreamer, won the Charleston to Bermuda Race, won their class in the Key West Race this year and were last year’s Charleston Ocean Racing Association’s Boat of the Year! We knew they were fast and with all their J120 experience it was going to be tough to beat them on boatspeed, plus we gave them 3 seconds per mile on handicap due to our boat having a carbon mast.

We had to leave the dock exceptionally early to avoid a falling tide that would not have given us enough water to exit the inlet without bumping our keel. It’s a long trek out to the inlet from the host Halifax Yacht Club but once out through the inlet we were comfortably at the starting area three hours before our 4:30 P.M. scheduled start. We had two mainsails on board: a Dacron delivery main, and a Kevlar racing main, so this extra time allowed us to evaluate both sails. We wanted to use the Kevlar main since it was larger and lighter but felt that it was too tired for the thunderstorms that were forecast. We opted to use the Dacron main that was smaller and heavier but also able to stand up the thunderstorms and the big breeze we expected at the end of the race.

About the only thing we knew about the weather was the first 18- 24 hours were totally up in the air, the forecasters couldn’t come up with anything solid other than that the cold front with a Northeasterly breeze will arrive sometime Saturday afternoon with a solid twenty plus knots. Out strategy from earlier in the week remained intact, that is: get to the stream and ride it up north to set us up for the northeaster. Sounds simple enough but the wind had to cooperate and the forecasts were showing some light westerly winds that would make it impossible to sail quickly to the stream 38 miles to our east. We would just have to sail the breeze we were dealt and if the opportunity arose we would take it to the gulfstream.

The Gulfstreamer is made up of two races. The first race is short ten mile leg that starts off the Ponce Inlet and finishes off the Daytona Pier. The competitors that are in the second leg of the Gulfstreamer Race pass through the finish line and continue on to Charleston. This year’s race had twenty-plus competitors all continuing on to Charleston.

We got started right on time and took the favored leeward end of the line with the wind light and out of the North. We sailed on a starboard tack towards Daytona Beach. Emocean had started further up the line and was already showing us her speed advantage by sailing slightly higher and faster. The wind lightened a bit more and we kept our footing and finally worked back out in front enough to tack and cross comfortably. A sigh of relief--we can hold our own with Emocean! Emocean would recover and at the next crossing they would put a nice lee bow tack forcing us to tack away. We sailed for a while on port tack taking us out in the ocean while Emocean worked up the beach. There were a couple of local boats with us as well: Mangus (a Beneteau 36S5) and Chasing Rainbows (a Hunter Legend 37.7). Both boats were sailing very well out to the east. We tacked back in to cover Emocean and this time Emocean decided belatedly to take our transom, killing their speed. We continued in our starboard tack. The wind shifted a bit more right and Illyria was now just just starting to lay the finish line that was still four miles away. By the time Emocean got their boat moving again we were several hundred yards ahead but slightly to leeward. Emocean started to roll again, being slightly east of us. But they either had a bit less current or more pressure, so they were way faster. We would owe Emocean about 30 seconds in this race so sailing up in front of them to cover just wasn’t an option. We continued to sail towards the favored pier end and watched Emocean sail right by for the fourth lead change of this short race. They finished almost two minutes ahead. The finish line was a bearing from the north edge of the pier extending approximately 200 yards without any buoy. (Note to RC it really needs a buoy). Once Emocean had passed we sailed up behind so we could finish and immediately go hard on the wind towards the stream. Without the buoy, it left the end of the line open to interpretation and we dialed up inside of Emocean. We might have lost the short race but now Illyria was just where we wanted to be--leading Emocean out towards the stream. The wind gods cooperated slightly, allowing us to sail a reasonable 70 degree heading hard on the wind toward the stream. Mangus finished the sprint close behind us for a very good race, luckily for us they were in the non spinnaker class. It had to be quite a show from the dock to see the two J120s heading out almost bow to bow! This was going to be one very good race! We spent the rest of the evening just slightly to weather and ahead with Emocean legging out once in while, then it would be our turn as the wind would swing back and forth and up and down in velocity. There were a number of thunderstorms predicted for Friday night and they started showing up just after dark. We anticipated a long night ahead of us managing the rapidly changing conditions brought about by these thunderstorms.

We’d installed a laptop with WxWorx software and a XM satellite receiver so we could monitor the stream and current weather information but the radar imagery for tracking the thunderstorms was invaluable. We had four to five storms come offshore that just missed us to the north and south. We got a couple of blasts from these fronts but mostly big shifts and light to no air. As we anticipated, plenty of sail changes and one blown out spinnaker later, we were in the stream heading north. With the morning light, we found Emocean on the horizon a good two to three miles directly behind us. We spent all of Saturday fetching with the heavy one up , trying to stay in the current as much as possible. The further north we could get before the northeaster the better. Once again, the WxWorx software proved its value as we used its surface temperature display to manage our position relative to the best parts of the stream. Illyria maintained the lead on Emocean and finally we started to see signs of the northeaster arriving on some of the weather buoys to the north. We decided to tack over onto starboard to see what our course over ground would be. We were far enough East that the finish was now bearing 358 degrees--our course over ground on this tack was only about 330 so on the next header we tacked back to cover our friends on Emocean. We were getting closer to the Northeast breeze and thought Emocean would be tacking to starboard soon and we would follow suit but we waited and still no tack from Emocean. With the northeaster starting to show up we decided to tack away from the competition. This is never an easy decision to make especially when you have them in you hip pocket, so to speak. Not fifteen minutes after we tacked the northeaster arrived with twenty knots of wind and its shift to the right had us sailing a course over the ground 350 degrees, a mere eight degrees from the rhumb line to the finish. We changed down to the number three and eventually reefed the mainsail to keep the boat’s helm balanced enough to steer around and over the building seas. It took about an hour for the seas to get the point of making things uncomfortable but the wind had also shifted a bit more right making our heading into the waves more manageable. We were also getting a nice two knot push from the stream, making our course over ground now 5 degrees, and well above our rhumb line. We were happy to gain the distance for the later stages when we would be out of the stream. We gradually got to the point where we had to start reaching off which is not as easy it sounds when you have the eight foot walls of water slapping you around. We had lost track of Emocean but since we were lifted and over standing the finish line ourselves we were confident that we had only extended our lead into the finish.

We finished at the Charleston “C” buoy at 03:31:27 early enough to win our spinnaker division and the Gulfstreamer Trophy for Overall.

Many thanks to John Keenan for putting up with a bunch of people he had never met nor sailed with, and getting his boat entered and delivered to Daytona. John Bowden was everywhere and I mean everywhere: up the rig, at the bow, at the helm, at the navigation table--always spot on. I am sure Mary Pallazo packed more spinnakers that Friday night that she has all season and was probably glad to see one of them blow up as it meant one less to pack. Mary was also just relentless on that weather rail as was John Ward and our wave breaker Mark Fanning. All three would occasionally get washed down the rail by a breaking wave! Mark was invaluable with his weather research and did a masterful job of driving up and away from Emocean after the sprint race. Ric and Brad both took stints driving and trimming, keeping everyone fresh on the helm with their good humor.

Keys to success were: creating our strategy early, making the plan and sticking to the plan, good teamwork and personalities, having good information that allowed good decisions and having a good boat set up properly for offshore racing.

And I’ll always remember they call it “the Gulfstreamer for a reason”.

Randy Draftz
May 27, 2008