2024 North Channel Race

US758 Never Alone – Comes out on top !!!

The North Channel Race is hands down is the best distance race a Cal25 can do and is my favorite sailing race of the year. If you’ve never had the chance to experience it add it to your bucket list. If you’ve done it then I’m sure you have a story to tell from it and those are priceless.

As usual the 10 day forecast before the race didn’t disappoint in the form of an emotional rollercoaster leading up to the start. We saw survival mode in  high wind speeds to another drifter like we had in 2023, sunny skies to rain, and a little of everything in between temperature wise.  Hurricane season was in full swing down in the south east United States and likely pulling on the strings of our weather condition excitement.

The race took place on the same weekend as Cal 25 nationals in Annapolis so across the country we had boats leaving the dock to enjoy some competition in our optimized racing machines.

1st Place – US758 Never Alone
Ross Nuechterlein
Scott Pfiffer, Peter Furest, Brad Stocker, Mike Duker

1st Place – US758 Never Alone
Ross Nuechterlein
Scott Pfiffer, Peter Furest, Brad Stocker, Mike Duker

Click here to see the complete results on YachtScoring…

As mother nature willed it conditions fell somewhere in between the extremes and the fleet was gifted with mid 60’s, clouds, light rain and a disturbed sea state at 8am for the start after a 25-35kt northeaster blowing down the lake the day prior.  Fortunately the wind had come down but not died and we started to see #1’s going up across the fleet for the start. It was likely top end for a #1 at times but needed with the waves vs a smaller sail.

Our tentative pre-race plan involved playing the shore until 9mile then pushing out to work right. Try to never leave the fleet and check back in whenever boats started to separate too much. This adventure tends to be multiple races in one and a hard fought trip across the lake can be quickly lost with a race reset in the river.

Pre-race Goal’s:

• Get across the lake still in the hunt
• Stay with the leaders from PH1 until Decker’s Landing if the leaders aren’t us.
• Duke it out in river and be become the leaders by the Russell island buoy since good luck with a lead change during a downwind sleigh ride home.

As it turned out, that race plan changed slightly when we were stuck behind a pile up of boats all trying to win the boat end of the line. We quickly bailed out into the lake for some clean air then headed back in to shore. (Tracker below for the start of the race, I know I know I wish I had the whole race too!)

Until 8/9mile road the fleet had yet to make any major splits and everyone was close together crossing tacks and daring how far they wanted to go to shore before running out of wind and water (maybe current too?). After that point the fleet started to spread out across the lake and any leverage the shoreline may have had fell away.

After keeping an eye on the fleet and working right where possible we slowly re-converged with some boats and found ourselves between Chickenhawk the leaders and Antelope a close 3^rd . We all were pressing up and out into the lake trying to keep the boats moving which was a real challenge. The wave conditions had made it difficult to get up to speed and maintain it. Any time one of us came down off a wave poorly, boat speed would drop from 5.5 to 3.0 and would take a long time to recover with how confused the cop was. This was especially noticeable as Chickenhawk was able to shower our excited crew with Fireball shots all while sailing from leeward of us across our bow into an even more controlling position and arguably a better angle to continue raining down shots. An absolute highlight of the race but one of many to come!

While the three of us had pressed out some, Pepper and Black–Hercules Mulligan–Dog had covered the shore where in the past its certainly paid dividends. For sure something to keep an eye on but nothing we could do from our position and would let the entrance into Anchor bay decide how it sorted out.

Approaching PH1 the first mark of the course, Chickenhawk had extended their lead but only to shouting distance and a few other fleets had descended on us to make the challenge of navigating the narrow channel even more exciting… If you’ve never done this race, think of this as a series of field goal posts you have to go through and going much outside of them may give you a fairly sudden stop. The addition of an Express 27, J24, a 36ft boat and two Cal’s all navigating this together up wind, in current, made it especially exciting…

Chickenhawk extended their lead through here as a few of these other boats became road blocks for us. We did appreciate hearing Andy on Chickenhawk identify that there was “some muddy water around them” after a tack of theirs disturbed the bottom which may have helped them keep their distance from the other boats. His delivery was better than I do it justice here, but the comic relief was well appreciated. As a general rule of thumb, in this race if you aren’t touching (ground) you aren’t trying hard enough.

I likely should have also mentioned that as you enter Anchor bay the wave conditions start to flatten out which was a nice change after crossing the lake all morning. The breeze had also started to die here and getting through a 1-4knot current upwind in light breeze is where the next challenge starts.

There are advantages to being in the lead and sometimes the rich get richer in sailing, but in this race being slightly behind the leader at the North Channel gives you opportunities to learn and try something different to get upstream.

• Stay close in the lake. (complete)
• Stay close through Anchor Bay. (complete)
• Make your move in the river before Russel island. ( ___TBD______)

And that’s how it played out. We were fortunate to be slightly behind coming into Decker’s Landing where the breeze was stronger toward the middle of the river. Seeing this we rolled the dice and passed Chickenhawk, the J24 and the Express here who all had mostly full sails further out in the river but also more current. We ghosted along the shore mostly out of the wind but also current to take the lead.

Around the bend the wind fully died for a time and we used this opportunity to drop sails and swap into one better in lighter air. This next part of the race while only a short distance, consumed the greatest patience, highest number of tacks, and most stress of the day. I won’t go into too much detail but the bullets below describe our experience.

• Person on the bow watching for depth (visually)
• Rotating spinnaker gear in the hopes we can use it
• Deciding  if we can make it around an anchored barge or could go inside of it.
• “Getting” to go swimming
• More tacks than we could count
• ·Raining harder than it all day
• Going 0.001knots for 10 minutes in front of the car ferry waiting to launch as the driver twirled his fingers in a “can you hurry up motion”
• Making it around the last turn where you can see the Russel island buoy and see how close behind the fleet was. (note at this point Pepper, Black Dog, Chickenhawk and Antelope had all caught up to striking range) This last turn was met with very little wind and few places to get out of the current. The end finish times don’t reflect how close the fleet really was at this point. Everyone still had a chance to win in the last stretch with the very light air and fighting the current. The first boat to round gets on the express way home.
• Tacking up the Algonac shore and getting excited every time we made a few feet.
• Having an unexpected Little Creasers Pizza delivered just before the turn down stream. Thanks Adam and Mac!
• Going twice as far as was needed up stream just to be sure we were going to make it around that turning mark.
• Launching the kite and going from 0.01-1knot upstream to 7+knots downstream. Pizza was had, more beers cracked.
• Opening up the insulated bag to find that dinner was still warm. My awesome wife Karly heats bricks in the oven pre-race to pack dinner around. That nights meal was stuffed baked potatoes with the inside hallowed out and pizza sauce, cheese, and sausage with a small amount of potato still inside. Sounds funky but it’s a great hand food for a race and usually stays hot until dinner.
• Only were forced to drop the kite once going down stream to climb with the #1.
• Followed the channel back all the way to the finish.
• Was watching a bow light behind us getting closer.
• Found out that it was a bigger boat motoring back that had dropped out.

It’s my favorite race of the year, you can’t change my mind.
Can’t wait for the next one! Come out next year and make some stories you’ll remember forever!

Cal-25 US758 Never Alone
–Ross Nuechterlien