Sloop Black Magic at the end of the weekend, Elephant Butte Lake

Etchells sloop USA 125, Black Magic, at the end of the weekend, Sunday, December 6, 2009, at Elephant Butte Lake, New Mexico.

More Bristol Cup Boats at the Butte, October 24

Boats explore the starting area before the beginning of the first race of the Bristol Cup regatta at Elephant Butte Lake.

J/24 passing in front of two Etchells


J/24 Hot Flash between two Etchells.

MC Scow at Elephant Butte Lake, Bristol Cup Regatta weekend

Jeff glides along on a quiet autumn lake on October 24th, 2009, in southern New Mexico before a Rio Grande Sailing Club regatta.

Sunday, October 25 at the Butte

Constellation eases by the fleet. Sunday's winds were light, averaging about 2 knots. On the Beaufort wind scale, which grades wind forces from 0 for nothing to 10 for a hurricane, that would be a Force 1. Sometimes the breeze faded away to the barely discernible, and sometimes it freshened a bit to 3 or 4 knots, but mostly it made for a mellow day on the water.



Constellation in front of committee boat, the J/24 Hot Flash.

Committee boat; J/24 reflections

Long Race Award Winners at the Sunrise Regatta Breakfast

Kachina's crew receives the award for winning the fifty-mile race of the Sunrise Regatta during the regatta's awards breakfast. Competitors woke up to a full breakfast served inside the Dam Site restaurant overlooking the south end of Elephant Butte Lake.

Sunrise Regatta 2009, 50-Mile Race Start

Two J/24's at the start of the 50-mile race during the Sunrise Regatta, October 3, 2009, at Elephant Butte Lake in southern New Mexico. Kachina is in the foreground; Red Shift in the background. A cruising sailboat having some problems at the starting line made for an interesting diversion during the start.

The J/24 Kachina powers through the chop to race through many miles of non-stop sailing.




J/24 Red Shift passing in front of Kettletop Mesa. The boat recently received decking repairs and a great paint job.

Beginning of the Sunrise Regatta 2009

C&C 29 Nessie, Hobie 16, and Laser show off very different kinds of sailing craft at the start of the Sunrise Regatta. The 10- and 25-mile boats started at 1:23 Saturday afternoon, with the 50-mile boats starting eleven minutes later.

Start of the Sunrise Regatta at Elephant Butte Lake

Fleet panorama as the ten- and twenty-five-mile-race boats start. In between the Catalina 25 in the middle of the picture and the C&C 29 Nessie at right can be glimpsed Kettletop Mesa in the distance. Land to the east beyond Kettletop is part of one-time famous sailor Ted Turner's Armendaris Ranch, one of his many conservation-oriented holdings in the region.

Boats at the start of the Sunrise; the J/24 Hot Flash follows some cruisers. Mountains and mesas in the background are part of the scenery we get to enjoy in the mountain desert of southern New Mexico. A few miles away are hot springs once used by the Apache leader Geronimo.

Columbia 26 II and Grampian 23 at the start of the Sunrise Regatta, October 3, 2009, at Elephant Butte Lake.

Columbia 26 II Imagine.

minor update

This summer has presented frustrations, one of which has been a lack of sailing time. Some unfortunate interruptions, including a family illness, meant that, until this weekend, I'd not sailed since June 1st, the day after the Race to the Elephant at Elephant Butte Lake.

In the meantime, I'd been by the lakes a couple of times and had kayaked several miles at Heron Lake in northern New Mexico, been a passenger on a speedboat at Brantley Lake in southern NM, peeked at a couple of lakes in south and central Texas, and watched people sailing in Corpus Christi Bay, Texas. But, I'd not sailed. Not once.

This weekend though was a bit better; Saturday's winds were quite steady (for a mountain desert lake, running from 7 to 12 knots), and Carol Anne and I spent most of the afternoon with "Zorro" on "Constellation", his International Etchells. It was a great sail, though the spinnaker reaches gave me a workout, and we sailed until the evening light began to fade.

During the weekend I also visited with some state parks rangers on behalf of the Rio Grande Sailing Club and ran various errands.

Etchells "Black Magic" Sailing in the Race to the Elephant

Stern view toward Marina del Sur showing Kachina (left) and Black Magic (right) approaching the rounding mark after passing to the west of Rattlesnake Island. These pictures are scans of paper prints given to the racers at the awards dinner, so the resolution is limited ... but they do capture a bit of the excitement of the race.

Close view of Black Magic and Kachina, probably near the mark rounding of buoy 9A.


Distant view of the Etchells Black Magic.


Etchells USA 125 in a puff



Black Magic with speedboat passing in background


Black Magic behind ski boat and dunked water skier.

Sloop Black Magic port view


Etchells 125, Black Magic, in the cove near the Dam Site marina and not far from the finish of the Race to the Elephant on Saturday, May 30, 2009. Photos courtesy of Mark from the Dam Site Marina.

Sailing in New Mexico; very brief update

by my standards, anyway. This Saturday we had about fifteen boats participate in the Race to the Elephant, plus support from powerboats helping with race committee and photography. I wound up single-handing Carol Anne's Etchells "Black Magic". After finishing the race behind Kachina I docked, rolled up the main and tidied up the boat, and went to the far end of the marina to watch other boats finish.

Kachina was not only first to finish, but also first on corrected time, both in the racing fleet and overall. Black Magic was second to finish and also second on corrected time (race fleet and overall). The winner of the cruising fleet and third overall was "Viento Bueno", a US 25, and the winner and "sole survivor" of the dinghies was a Capri 16.5. The racing was followed by a great steak dinner and awards banquet.

Lago Rico, the company that owns the local marinas and sponsored the regatta, also arranged for pictures of the boats racing to be printed out and on the tables for people to look and and take home, and for some really nice door prizes to be given out.

Sailboats at the Race to the Elephant, Elephant Butte Lake, New Mexico

Will 'o the Wind (Beneteau 285) at the Race to the Elephant. Correction: This should be Ranger Ben's O'Day 26 and has a shamrock logo.



Free and Clear IV (Freedom 21, at left, single-handed by "Cornhusker") and Nessie (C&C29, at right) circle the Elephant during the Race to the Elephant at Elephant Butte Lake, Saturday, May 30, 2009.

Friday update, more sailing in southern New Mexico

Today Carol Anne, Gerald, and I drove south to Elephant Butte Lake in southern New Mexico. We entered the state park and unlocked the sailboat mast-up storage gate, hitched up Black Magic, and launched the boat. While I was rigging sail, Gerald returned to boat trailer to the storage lot and Carol Anne and I waited out a light rain shower. After Gerald returned, Gerald and I took off to shuttle the boat north to the Rock Canyon Marina, just a few miles north.

Winds were gusty, so we elected to do without the jib, but sailing under just main the boat had some peculiarities and took a while to get moving. Once the boat was sorted out, we wound up bashing into increasingly steep and choppy seas as the winds built up into the 20s with probably gusts into the 30s and we started crashing through the breaking waves. It was a wild ride for quite a while, but eventually things lightened enough so we could make a well-controlled entrance into the marina and a tidy docking.

At the marina we caught up with a few sailors, but didn't see others; some people weren't arriving until later in the evening or until Saturday morning. We took the heavy main off the boat, since we'll be using a different one tomorrow.

Carol Anne plans to be on "Windependent" tomorrow. By lake standards the Hunter 34 is a big boat, and tomorrow's race is more of a cruiser-style race, so it may be a bit of a floating party.

In other developments, I may have to drive to Texas next week.

Etchells Black Magic Sailing at Elephant Butte Lake

Images of the International Etchells sloop USA 125, "Black Magic", sailing in the single-handed Joshua Slocum race at Elephant Butte Lake, May 9, 2009. Photos courtesy of Gerald R. Byrnes, 2009 (c).

Etchells Constellation and Caliente Sailing at Elephant Butte

International Etchells USA 38, "Constellation", with Zorro at the helm enjoying spirited sailing conditions on Elephant Butte Lake.


International Etchells USA 438 "Caliente" with "Penzance" at the helm during the Joshua Slocum single-handed race, May 9, 2009.

Banshee and Free and Clear sailing in southern New Mexico

Banshee dinghy with crew from New Mexico Tech, Sunday, May 10, 2009 at Elephant Butte Lake in southern New Mexico.

Freedom 21 "Free and Clear IV" rigged as a sloop and running downwind under chute at the Jack and Jill Race at Elephant Butte Lake. Photos courtesy Gerald R. Byrnes 2009 (c).

Six things that went right during the Joshua Slocum race

notwithstanding the gripes below, several things did go right during our Joshua Slocum single-handed race.

(1) The powerboat was able to tow the non-motorized boats out to the race course when winds were slow to fill in.

(2) I was able to (eventually) get the spinnaker up and drawing well for the first time in 8 - 15 knots of wind.

(3) I managed to avoid spinnaker disasters and got the chute down decently.

(4) I was able to hold off a good sailor in a similar competing boat through most of the race.

(5) After the race, I had a nice solo sail in spite of building white-cap conditions.

(6) Nothing Broke! (including me) Whoopee!

Fifteen things that bugged me during last Saturday's single-hand race

Numerous dumb things bugged me during last weekend's single-handed race. Keelboat sailors don't race solo most of the time, so we're more apt to do dumb things and have weird problems when we do.

(1) I thought I'd forgotten my watch and didn't have a way to time the start and was over early by eight seconds trying to "wing it" in a sudden wind puff at the start. That night, I found the watch -- in my shirt pocket (watch band had broken). Whoops! Duh! Aaaargh!

(2) Because of wind shifts and flukiness, much of the spinnaker run wound up being a reach, instead, which is a pain when sailing a thirty-foot boat in puffy winds with a chute and no crew.

(3) The shock cord on the mast blocks has lost its stretch and needs replacing.

(4) The topping lift got caught on a button by the spinnaker pole ring and so I had to make a trip forward to free it and get the pole to lift... after figuring out what the **^%%!! was wrong.

(5) Even with a shock cord holding the tiller down, the boat tended to round up. Darned *(&%$%&* spinnaker reaches!

(6) My take down was okay, but during it a couple of sheets, the cockpit end of the topping lift, and cockpit end of the spinny sheet decided to have a knot-tying contest that had me tied up in knots instead of paying attention to the final upwind leg.

(7) I couldn't hear voice hails from the RC, which, at the time of the start, didn't have the VHF radio working because it had gotten onto an odd setting.

(8) One of the floorboards was warped and drifting around loose, creating a footing hazard.

(9) Jibsheet cam cleats are angled for crew use, no good place to put jibsheets for single-handing.

(10) Spouse wouldn't let me use the better mainsail, maybe she was afraid I'd abuse it.

(11) Bumped my boat into the fleet captain's boat before (he was on port tack and distracted talking to people in another boat, I was on starboard reach but didn't seem him coming)

(12) I had to beg very nicely to get a tow out to the race course before the winds filled in and made life more fun

(13) I couldn't find a GPS receiver to borrow so as to be able to update buoy locations for our lake map.

(14) Turnout for the regatta was fairly low, limiting our fun.

(15) Turnout for the raft-up / floating pot luck was really horrible, forcing us to postpone until next month.

North half, RGSC sailing race course area at Elephant Butte

South half, race course area