Charleston Race Week is a major event, even bigger than Key West this year and when offered a ride on a Viper, one of the hot new sport boat classes, we (me and my sailing buddy Eric) eagerly accepted. Originally, the boat was to be ready to support two weekends of practice off Noank to prepare for this big regatta. Two other Vipers from our yacht club were also planning to attend so it sounded like we would have a blast racing in a big fleet in the warm waters of Charleston Harbor.
But one thing led to another with the boat and trailer and in the end we found ourselves relegated to just a couple hours of light air sailing practice in the Mystic River - and that was with a borrowed rig - for what turned out to be a medium to heavy air event.
Andy, the owner, worked himself silly for weeks and weeks before the event to prepare, enlisting the help of many others, doing everything from replacing the trailer axle to making hotel reservations. This list of things to do was long and this was Andy’s first big travel event and until two days before the event our departure was in question. Biggest issue was the mast. He had bought a new carbon rig last fall from the manufacturer in the UK, but it was re-allocated to another boat at Miami earlier this year when another competitor was dismasted. So we left Mystic without a rig, expecting to borrow another mast from the New England dealer also down in Charleston for the week.
The boat needed a cover to travel 1800 miles roundtrip so we made one Monday night using donated materials, lines and duct tape. We thought it was a pretty good job but we’re stopping constantly to apply more duct tape as highway speeds did a number on our handiwork. This really slowed down progress - we left Mystic an hour late 0500 on Wed, got into Charleston around midnight, checked into hotel and crashed.
Thursday: Practice Day- well that was the plan. Up early, drove to launch, dropped off boat, and then drove 1/2hr away to find the mast. That went quicker than expected, but then we were off to Northern Tool to get a new dolly for the trailer and other supplies. Finally back to boat, but while rigging our hopes of quick assembly and practice in some real breeze quickly faded. Think we spent a good 8 hours rigging, dealing with multiple issues fitting Andy’s rigging with borrowed mast, spreaders needing extra holes drilled, getting the correct size turnbuckles measurements had to be taken, etc.
Then, once the mast was up we had to bring it down to reverse the Windex and take a forgotten forestay length measurement. Then we noticed the spinnaker halyard, which lacked a figure eight knot, was inadvertently pulled up through the mast on the last raise, which meant we had to take down the rig again, pull apart the mast sections and reeve a new halyard which required a trip to the hardware store for some thin, stiff wire, wasting yet more time. Frustrating and especially jealous watching other Vipers quickly rig and launch (which was kind of tricky, check out
this video). Three times we stepped the mast that day. We learned more about the Viper mast than we ever cared to know! Finally ready for sailing but by then it was too late in the late in the day to launch and sail boat to the race venue, move the car and get in some practice. So we decided to get up early on Friday to just launch and sail directly to race course, practicing on the way and worry about retrieving the car later.
Friday, Race day! After more boat prep work we were finally ready to launch. There was one Viper ahead of us on the ramp. Wind was blowing strongly directly onto the dock and tide was low and still falling. We assisted the other Viper for almost 45 min but they could not get out. So we flagged down the ZHIK RIB launching as a spectator boat. The deal was the RIB would tow them out and come back for us. Tow worked fine for them but then the RIB took off forgetting all about us still pinned to the dock. Wasted more time waiting for another powerboat to launch and positioning himself for a tow. Andy finally had to jump aboard the powerboat to direct the operation of towing us and another Viper also anxious to get out to the race course. That done, the sails were up and we were sailing finally! Life is good (or at least better)!
Except we missed any real practice and Race 1 due to the launching delay. Blowing mid-to-upper teens with higher gusts so we played the start of Race 2 conservative and the first upwind was ok until we snagged the windward mark on a rounding. What else could go wrong??? Way too windy to fly a kite as we felt overpowered with the GNAV (backwards vang) not working well but did manage to finish 25th out of 26 Vipers racing. Working on the GNAV between races we ran soft aground (that’s what else could go wrong) but a crash boat pulled us off quick enough in time for Race 3. Going upwind trimming main on hard we heard a loud bang and determined the outhaul broke. That coupled with an ineffective GNAV left us no way to flatten main so we were constantly overpowered and IMHO a safety risk. So we retired for the day, sailed back to the dock and spent remainder of the day repairing outhaul and resolving GNAV purchase issues.
Saturday: Up early, no boat issues to deal with, so we tuned rig and headed out to race course early to practice… things are looking up! Spinnaker sets and douses, while not troublefree, were passable. Winds picked again to mid teens and above. Feeling more comfortable with the boat, our start was only a little more aggressive that yesterday but tactics saw us fall to back of the fleet by the end of the race, again besting only one boat in Race 5.
During the last run Andy noticed slop in the rudder, probably a results of our two or three broaches - glad a real expert advised Eric to blow the spin halyard 6-10 feet when that happens! Upon inspection he saw the pintles attachment pulling out. Heaved to, removed rudder and tightened up bolts but this again took time causing us to miss Race 6. Loaded up the rudder upwind and downwind to test then reentered for Race 7. Halfway through the upwind leg, the attachment began to pull out again and we withdrew this time from the day (and the regatta) and sailed back to the dock. Had issues docking within strong current and ended up in a different slip. Andy repaired the rudder enough to sail back the mile or so to the ramp but instead took a tow to the launch ramp, so we hauled, disassembled and fought off the no-see-ums again, then showered, had couple drinks at the party then off to dinner with the two other Viper crews from our club. Excellent food and of course more Viper related conversations. One of those crews went on to 3rd place finish, the other turned in a solid mid-fleet performance and we brought us the rear so I guess one could say the Mudheads covered all bases!
Sunday, race day, but not for us. Instead we put the cover back on, secured for traveling and made a more reasonable 16 hour drive home stopping only for food/gas, tolls and to pickup Fourth of July supplies south of the border.
So out of the 10 races across three days we started four races and completed only 2, ending the regatta in last place. Results
here and some photo-boat pictures are
here.
Summary: Don’t leave the driveway unless the boat and crew is proven to be race ready – that’s my biggest lesson learned from Charleston Race Week. Excellent weather and venue but frustration after frustration drove us to a last place finish. Boat preparation and time in type is key and cannot be overstated! Race 1 is no time to figure out crew coordination/communications either, this was mostly resolved by day 2, but should’ve been hammered out long before a major event like CRW.
Impression of the Viper: it’s really a dinghy with a lead assisted keel for adults. Wicked fast fun. Found it very ergonomic, except the spinnaker retrieval line seemed a bit undersized. Three person crew is fun, though we were about 50 pounds under weight for the conditions. I was mid which is physically demanding… trimming jib (and main when it’s blowing), setting, dousing and flying the kite and always trying to hike hard. Setup and take down and launching is annoyingly time consuming. I would require leaving it rigged for the season and using a crane to launch, but then I’d rather race then work on boats. Learned a lot about the class, and class politics, history, the manufacturers, support issues, etc.
Overall the Viper is a great sport boat and I would like to sail it enough to get proficient but think I’ll stick with my J/105 as my setup/maintenance to racing/fun ratio appears far lower. For us, CRW was a very long weekend but we did learn a lot, we did get exposed to almost heavy air downwind Viper excitement (love the rudder harmonics at speed!!!), met a lot of new folks, saw some old friends and enjoyed an excellent race venue. Would I return next year? Yes, but only via Delta airlines!
