Sunday, July 4, 2010
New Main sail on the way
Time to replace the original main sail. Going with Doyle and a carbon and kevlar 'Stratis' flat-top main. Should give a little more sail area.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
BAMA Racetrack 07/03/2010
The Bay Area Multihull Association has put forth an interesting challenge. The have set up a course around the bay where you can race around any time you want and as many times you want to try to get the best time around the course. You can find more information on their website at BAMA Racetrack.
Today, Andrew and I took our first stab at it on JetStream. Winds were good, in the 15 to 20 range, so we were psyched to give it a go. But early in the course we quickly discovered that the currents weren't favorable. I had the feeling this was the wrong choice for the currents but it was the only time so far we had the chance to go out so we gave it a shot anyways. It turned into a lot of upwind sailing, not the best to get the best lap time.
We started up at Blossom Rock heading north to YRA 8. That was a fun, screaming reach, with the boat topping out at 13.4 knots with only white sails. After YRA 8, we had to leave Alcatraz and Little Alcatraz to the north which resulted in a beat up to Alcatraz. We played the Alcatraz 'cone' to avoid the worse of the current and made our way to Harding. Harding was almost a beat, we maybe cracked off 10 degrees.
After Harding we had to make our way Blackaller, which meant crossing the entrance to the bay and the worse of the current. Due to the current it also turned into a beat to windward given the SW winds today.
We got around Blackaller, and finally got to set the kite. At this point we had done a lot of sailing and were looking forward to the spinnaker run. The winds lightened up a bit, but the bay was nice and flat so we played our jibe angles. A third of the way down the winds picked back up and we had a screaming run back to Blossom rock.
We'll be trying again with more favorable current conditions, which should greatly help us improve on our time across the course. This time it took us 1hr 35m 35s to get around the track. Over a 10 nm course (we sailed much more than that) we averaged 6.3 knots. We can do better. Oh, and next time we will probably have new sails as well. Will post an update when the new sails arrive.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
YRA HDA Spring 1
On May 22nd we had the first race of the HDA season. We got enough interest from the Sportboats fleet to get our own division this year. Hoping that a few more boats will join.
Forecast was looking very favorable with 15 - 25 knots in the bay for the afternoon racing. Our preferable conditions. Mark and Andrew joined me for the days racing. The extra pair of hands would become a welcomed decision later in the afternoon.
We set off to our long slog from the Oakland Estuary to the Golden Gate Yacht Club. Got there with plenty of time to spare and sailed around waiting for our start. By the start time the wind was well into the 20 knots and the ebb had been building, throwing up a decent chop in the bay. We had a pretty clear start and soon tacked away to the center of the bay to take advantage of the ebb current. Crossed a few boats, and rounded the first windward mark (Blackaller) in third place behind some of the longer waterline boats. Had a perfect spinnaker set and the race was on. We took off in the fresh conditions and soon were leading the fleet. We were averaging between 14 and 15 knots of speed, with both Mark and Andrew doing an excellent job with the kite. Looking behind I could see one of the Tigers struggling with their kite, but the fast Antrim 27 with their blue kite was quickly approaching. We rounded the Blossom rock (the leward mark) in first position and headed back to the second lap. The Antrim was the only boat in our fleet we could still see and they were following behind about 80 yards. We would need to keep a watchful eye on them for the second downwind run. However, they had to drop out of the race due to an emergency and we were left to race on our own. We had a strong second upwind leg averaging around 7.5 knots, with some favorable current. Soon we were back at Blackaller and readied for the next downwind run.
Another flawless set and we were again off the races. The chop had built significantly from the first run and we were now constantly getting water over the decks. You could feel the boat accelerate on every puff. On one of the strongest puffs we plowed into the back of a wave, throwing a wall of water over the decks. The water knocked the crew back and I lost control of the boat and rounded up into a broach. We tried to bring the boat back, but it wouldn't come up with the spinnaker up. So with a quick release of the halyard we brought the boat back and dragged the spinnaker back into the boat. We thought we heard a tear on the spinnaker so didn't reset. As we were far ahead in the fleet we finished the downwind leg with just our white sails.
We now just had our final upwind leg to the finish. The wind had continued to build and we were seeing gusts in the upwards of 30 knots, so we played it conservatively. Got a gun at the finish and turned the boat around to head back home. Pretty tiring for a 2 hr race. Got some cold beers from our wet bilge and settled for our sail home. Good day out onboard JetStream and a good start for the HDA season.
Results for this race:
| SAIL # | BOAT NAME | BOAT MODEL | RATING | FINISH | ELAPSED | CORRECTED |
| 9045 | Jet Stream | Custom JS 9000 | 78 | 13:50:20 | 1:50:20 | 1:54:12 |
| 15 | CentoMiglia | Flying Tiger 10 | 54 | 14:11:03 | 2:11:03 | 2:21:02 |
| 41 | Wild One | Flying Tiger 10 | 54 | 14:17:22 | 2:17:22 | 2:27:50 |
| 24 | Ilex | Viper 640 ODR | 96 | DNF | ||
| 21 | Head Rush | Antrim 27 CM | 75 | DNF | ||
| 46595 | Family Hour | Henderson 30 | 48 | DNF |
Sunday, April 11, 2010
2010 SSS Corinthian
We knew it was going to be exciting as it coincided with a storm arriving in the area. The forecast was for winds of 10 - 15 knots, with gusts in the 20s. Needless to say it was substantially off, as we were seeing gusts over 30 just before the start. Throughout the race we saw winds in the 15 - 25 range with gusts in the 30s.
Since Mark lives just up the hill from Tiburon I would just pick him up at the yacht club before the race. This meant that I would do the 2+ hours delivery from Alameda by myself. So it was an early start for me with a 6am wake up call. Well, more like a 4am wake up call since our 3 month old decided it was breakfast time. Already up, gathered my stuff and headed down to the boat. I left the dock by 8am, autopilot on and outboard purring nicely up the Estuary. The wind was already filled in and soon after I excited the Estuary I was able to turn off the outboard and jib sail all the way to TI. It got a little light around TI and we motor sailed the rest of the way to Tiburon. Arrived at the club around 10 AM for our 11:25 start. Lots of boats already sailing around of what would be a fleet of over 100 boats for the race. I tied up at the club, went up to chat with some of the other sailors and race committee and waited for Mark to arrive.
Mark soon arrived and we got dressed for the wet and cold weather, and got the boat ready. Already some strong gusts where hitting the marina. It would have been nice to raise the main in the protection of the marina, but it would have required a few turns in close quarters to get out. JetStream doesn't like tight turns, so we elected to back out of the marina and power out. All went smooth, except that it was gusting to 30 knots outside the marina and very bumpy, and we still needed to get the main up. We motored out to Angel Island to try to find some protection on the lee of the island, but there wasn't much to be found. But the main had to go up, so Mark and I got on task. After a few tries it was up and we were powered up.
Not having a reef on the main, during some of the stronger gusts the thought came to my mind to pull the plug. The rig didn't look too happy with the sails thrashing around, so we took it easy on the pre-start staying out of the way and waiting for our sequence. We had a great start, close to the pin, and within a few minutes we were leading our fleet. We stayed on the ebb all the way to Little Harding and cracked off on a course east of Alcatraz on our way to Blossom Rock. We went a little deeper than the rest of the fleet. This would be a good leg for us and I knew we would be passing a few boats on the reach and wanted to avoid a string of luffing duels. It paid off as we gave Alcatraz a wider berth and were able to catch a few boats that fell into the windhole on the east of Alcatraz. The wind had moderated a bit from that of the start and we were pretty comfortable aboard JetStream....
The conditions made for an easy trip to Blackaller. With the SW winds you could almost lay the mark. A quick short tack to make up the difference and we were around Blackaller. On the way to the mark we had some very strong puffs, so we were debating whether to set the kite after the rounding towards South Hapmpton Shoals. But it felt light enough after we rounded and the kite quickly went up. What a ride.... we had a couple of moments of pure speed and adrenaline. We don't have a knotmeter on board so we can't say how fast we were going and during our top speeds we had no free hands to look at the GPS, but if we didn't hit 20 knots, we were at the very top end of the teens... The only boat with a kite up ahead of us was the F-24 Tri and they were putting up a lot of spray.... During the run a ferry crossed right in front of us putting up a huge wake. I was worried the the boat would just plow into the wave with negative consequences... but it punched through the first wake and skipped over the next and we were off again. I overstood the layline to our next mark and jibed too late. We couldn't hold the tighter course with the kite up and crashed the boat in a broach. Mark released the kite, but it took releasing the vang to get the boat back on its feet. We got the boat going full speed again and prepared to drop the kite. At this point it was really blowing, upper 20s, but Mark pull a great windward douse.
After rounding SH, we had an upwind leg up Racoon Straits back to Little Harding (again). It was blowing now, easily 30 knots on the beam and whitecaps everywhere. No risk today of the dreaded wind hole behind Angel Island. On the contrary, seems the SW winds were compressing and accelerating in the gap between Angel Island and Tiburon. With the help of the ebb, it made for a quick leg back to Little Harding. All that was left now, was the downwind finish. We felt pretty comfortable at this point and again reconsider putting up the kite, but someone else had already set theirs and ours went up immediately. There were only a couple of trimarans and 2 or 3 larger monohulls ahead of us at this point. After a couple of jibes we crossed the finish line with an elapsed time of about 2 hours and 30 minutes on an 18 mile course, a 7.2 knot average over the course. Not bad for a 30 foot boat.
We pulled back into the marina to drop off Mark and enjoy some well deserved cold beers. We were tired and sore from the challenging conditions, but full of adrenaline from our performance. After about an hour I couldn't further delay the inevitable delivery back to Alameda. I wanted to take it easy so the main was off the boom. I jib sailed all the way to TI and motor sailed the rest of the way. Half way down the Estuary the sun came out and helped dry things off. With the help from Andrew put the boat away and got on my way home. Got home around 7 PM, 12 hours after I left.... Long day.
4/12 -- Results are in. JetStream finished 1st in Sportboats Class, and 2nd Overall in the Doublehanded division, with the fastest elapsed time for a monohull.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
2010 SSS Three Bridge Fiasco Race Report
This past Saturday we had the first race of the SSS season. Mark came
back as crew to try to defend our double handed season championship
from last year. This year it will be good challenge with the regular
top contenders of Timberwolf, Arcadia and Great White, and the
addition of the singlehanded season winner Outsider, coming out to
challenge the doublehanders.
Berthin in Alameda, the races starting at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, tend to be a long day, with almost 2 hours of transit (motoring) each way. In ourboat and our engine that is a torturous
affair, as you feel and it sound like you are inside a blender.
I hadn't seen Mark for a couple of month, so after a 7 AM dock call,
we tried to catch up on our lives over the sound of the engine.
We got to the starting area around 9:30 with an hour to kill before
our start, and double and triple guess our strategy for the day.
Where is our competition? which way are they going? where is Kame and
Yucca? With over 350 boats entered for the race, it wasn't
necessarily easy to find the boats of interest. With about 20 minutes
for our start the wind pretty much died. We had stayed plenty clear
of the starting area and now got a bit worried that we wouldn't make
it to the line and went to start the outboard. Outboard didn't want
to play... After a few minutes of trying to get the engine started I
went back to concentrating on getting the boat moving towards the
starting line and Mark took the position at the back of the boat to
work on the engine. After a few more stressful minutes, Mark got the
engine going and we started looking for a spot to position ourselves
for the start.
There was a huge pileup at the pin end of the line with boats drifting
in all directions. Even though the current would be more favorable
outside (on the pin side), with our small rig we needed to find a
clear lane and headed towards shore on the west side of the line in
preparation for a counter clockwise run of the course. We found some
familiar faces in the vicinity with Yucca, Timberwolf and True North
in the same area and the same idea.
We had an uneventful first leg towards TI, picking up a few boats
along the way. Closer to the Bay Bridge it got a bit weird with boats
inside and outside of us doing better... The boats giving a wider
berth to TI seemed to be having a bit more pressure so we headed that
way. As soon as we cleared the southern end of TI we immediately set
the kite for our run down to Red Rock. Kite went up with a twist.
After a few seconds we got it untwisted, but something still looked
wrong. Tack and clew were attached incorrectly, so kite down, swap
the lines and back up. We were racing again. By this time it was
already ebbing on the eastern side of TI. We jibed early on an angle
that was pointing us exactly to the northeastern tip of TI. Moving
well in the light conditions. As soon as we cleared TI we got a nice
header that put our course straight to Red Rock Weather was
beautiful, boat was moving well, so it felt right to pop a beer! Not
bad sailing in T-shirt (long sleeve t-shirt) weather in the middle of
the winter.
As we approached Richmond, the ebb was already flowing from the north
bay. We stayed a little too long on the deep water and lost some
ground to the guys closer to shore. About this time we could see
Outsider coming... I wasn't sure we would see them all day, since
after we started they seemed to be lined up to go on a clockwise
run. They must have changed their minds at their start. Now we had
a fight in our hands racing both Ousider and the Antrim 27, Always
Friday which seemed to be attached to us with a rubber band. The gaps
would change but every 20 - 30 minutes they would be there again.
This will go on all the way to the finish.
Although the natural course would suggest a port rounding of Red Rock,
due to the conditions and the current a starboard rounding looked
favorable. It really felt counter intuitive and risky, but that is
the way we went and it payed off huge. I was hoping Outsider would
split and go the other way, but they were right there with us rounding
RR to starboard.
From RR to Blackaller we had some very favorable currents, averaging 8
to 9 knots over ground going upwind. Another tricky leg.. It was a
bit light for our boat and we were a bit underpowered. So the focus
was not to loose too much ground to our competition. Some of the
folks getting close to Tiburon seemed to have done well. It's always
tricky on that shore, I've had both great successes there and some
memorable failures. So I played it safe. After looking at the race
track, probably needed to go a bit deeper into the deep water channel
to get the most benefit from the current. But mostly focused on
playing the significant shifts that came along. It was a conveyor
belt through Racoon Straits, getting spat out on the Sausalito side in
no time. Here we stayed on the river as long as possible. The wind
picked up a bit on our reach across the bay and JetStream turned on
its afterburners passing a handful of boats on that leg and recording
our top speed of the day at 10+ knots.
Now we just had the short leg from Blackaller to the finish at GGYC.
Not a fun leg for use as we lost as many places as we gained on the
previous leg. The ebb was in full rage at this time and quite a bit
of boats converged in the area at the time of our rounding. The
strategy here was to stay as close to shore as possible to avoid the
worst of the current. It not always easy on our boat with a mixed
fleet of symmetrical and asymmetrical spinnakers. We need to keep a
hotter angle to keep moving and it was made more difficult with the
narrow runway and more than a few boats being able to square back
their poles and aim straight down the runway. Both Outsider and
Sapphire got back ahead of us in this leg, and we dropped a couple of
places on the Sportsboat division on the last mile.
We finished the race and kept the kite up all the way to TI. Made it
first to the hoist in Alameda (not a gun at the finish, but a good
reward nevertheless).
As of this writing the results are not yet posted. I'm hoping we will do top 10% on the fleet and I think we are looking at a 5th place in our class. Thanks Mark for a great day and great work.
back as crew to try to defend our double handed season championship
from last year. This year it will be good challenge with the regular
top contenders of Timberwolf, Arcadia and Great White, and the
addition of the singlehanded season winner Outsider, coming out to
challenge the doublehanders.
Berthin in Alameda, the races starting at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, tend to be a long day, with almost 2 hours of transit (motoring) each way. In ourboat and our engine that is a torturous
affair, as you feel and it sound like you are inside a blender.
I hadn't seen Mark for a couple of month, so after a 7 AM dock call,
we tried to catch up on our lives over the sound of the engine.
We got to the starting area around 9:30 with an hour to kill before
our start, and double and triple guess our strategy for the day.
Where is our competition? which way are they going? where is Kame and
Yucca? With over 350 boats entered for the race, it wasn't
necessarily easy to find the boats of interest. With about 20 minutes
for our start the wind pretty much died. We had stayed plenty clear
of the starting area and now got a bit worried that we wouldn't make
it to the line and went to start the outboard. Outboard didn't want
to play... After a few minutes of trying to get the engine started I
went back to concentrating on getting the boat moving towards the
starting line and Mark took the position at the back of the boat to
work on the engine. After a few more stressful minutes, Mark got the
engine going and we started looking for a spot to position ourselves
for the start.
There was a huge pileup at the pin end of the line with boats drifting
in all directions. Even though the current would be more favorable
outside (on the pin side), with our small rig we needed to find a
clear lane and headed towards shore on the west side of the line in
preparation for a counter clockwise run of the course. We found some
familiar faces in the vicinity with Yucca, Timberwolf and True North
in the same area and the same idea.
We had an uneventful first leg towards TI, picking up a few boats
along the way. Closer to the Bay Bridge it got a bit weird with boats
inside and outside of us doing better... The boats giving a wider
berth to TI seemed to be having a bit more pressure so we headed that
way. As soon as we cleared the southern end of TI we immediately set
the kite for our run down to Red Rock. Kite went up with a twist.
After a few seconds we got it untwisted, but something still looked
wrong. Tack and clew were attached incorrectly, so kite down, swap
the lines and back up. We were racing again. By this time it was
already ebbing on the eastern side of TI. We jibed early on an angle
that was pointing us exactly to the northeastern tip of TI. Moving
well in the light conditions. As soon as we cleared TI we got a nice
header that put our course straight to Red Rock Weather was
beautiful, boat was moving well, so it felt right to pop a beer! Not
bad sailing in T-shirt (long sleeve t-shirt) weather in the middle of
the winter.
As we approached Richmond, the ebb was already flowing from the north
bay. We stayed a little too long on the deep water and lost some
ground to the guys closer to shore. About this time we could see
Outsider coming... I wasn't sure we would see them all day, since
after we started they seemed to be lined up to go on a clockwise
run. They must have changed their minds at their start. Now we had
a fight in our hands racing both Ousider and the Antrim 27, Always
Friday which seemed to be attached to us with a rubber band. The gaps
would change but every 20 - 30 minutes they would be there again.
This will go on all the way to the finish.
Although the natural course would suggest a port rounding of Red Rock,
due to the conditions and the current a starboard rounding looked
favorable. It really felt counter intuitive and risky, but that is
the way we went and it payed off huge. I was hoping Outsider would
split and go the other way, but they were right there with us rounding
RR to starboard.
From RR to Blackaller we had some very favorable currents, averaging 8
to 9 knots over ground going upwind. Another tricky leg.. It was a
bit light for our boat and we were a bit underpowered. So the focus
was not to loose too much ground to our competition. Some of the
folks getting close to Tiburon seemed to have done well. It's always
tricky on that shore, I've had both great successes there and some
memorable failures. So I played it safe. After looking at the race
track, probably needed to go a bit deeper into the deep water channel
to get the most benefit from the current. But mostly focused on
playing the significant shifts that came along. It was a conveyor
belt through Racoon Straits, getting spat out on the Sausalito side in
no time. Here we stayed on the river as long as possible. The wind
picked up a bit on our reach across the bay and JetStream turned on
its afterburners passing a handful of boats on that leg and recording
our top speed of the day at 10+ knots.
Now we just had the short leg from Blackaller to the finish at GGYC.
Not a fun leg for use as we lost as many places as we gained on the
previous leg. The ebb was in full rage at this time and quite a bit
of boats converged in the area at the time of our rounding. The
strategy here was to stay as close to shore as possible to avoid the
worst of the current. It not always easy on our boat with a mixed
fleet of symmetrical and asymmetrical spinnakers. We need to keep a
hotter angle to keep moving and it was made more difficult with the
narrow runway and more than a few boats being able to square back
their poles and aim straight down the runway. Both Outsider and
Sapphire got back ahead of us in this leg, and we dropped a couple of
places on the Sportsboat division on the last mile.
We finished the race and kept the kite up all the way to TI. Made it
first to the hoist in Alameda (not a gun at the finish, but a good
reward nevertheless).
As of this writing the results are not yet posted. I'm hoping we will do top 10% on the fleet and I think we are looking at a 5th place in our class. Thanks Mark for a great day and great work.
Monday, September 28, 2009
YRA Season Closer
So this past weekend we had the last two races of the Party Circuit. We went into the weekend tied for first place in our division and just a point in front of second place. To cut to the chase, it was a disappointing weekend in terms of results. We had good crew work and decent tactics, but both days we had to deal with massive windholes for hours which tends to compress and shuffle the fleet. We could only muster a 6 and 7 place results, this after consistently finishing on the top 3.
Mark and Nima came out on Saturday, with Mike and Andrew filling up the crew spots on Sunday.
Things were looking great both days, with us well in front in our division before we encountered the holes. Our strategy around the holes was pretty standard and consistent with the rest of the fleet but we didn't have the boat speed or the sail inventory to be efficient in the zephyrs.... It might be time for a light kite... As long as there was any wind we stayed competitive but faltered in the frustrating ultra light conditions.
Sunday we ended up with two mistakes that didn't improve our chances. Even though there was consensus from all aboard about the direction to take, it proved to be the wrong one. On top of that, during the start we ended up 'over early' in our efforts not to hit a boat that had fouled us. That resulted on a 15 minute penalty.
So not the kind of finish that we would have like for an otherwise very successful and fun season.
I think the best part of the weekend was seeing Mikes face at the tiller on the delivery back on Sunday crossing the central bay in 20 - 25 knots on a screaming reach.
Oh, and the 'bucket' works, if you know what I mean.... best with the boat level... :)
Mark and Nima came out on Saturday, with Mike and Andrew filling up the crew spots on Sunday.
Things were looking great both days, with us well in front in our division before we encountered the holes. Our strategy around the holes was pretty standard and consistent with the rest of the fleet but we didn't have the boat speed or the sail inventory to be efficient in the zephyrs.... It might be time for a light kite... As long as there was any wind we stayed competitive but faltered in the frustrating ultra light conditions.
Sunday we ended up with two mistakes that didn't improve our chances. Even though there was consensus from all aboard about the direction to take, it proved to be the wrong one. On top of that, during the start we ended up 'over early' in our efforts not to hit a boat that had fouled us. That resulted on a 15 minute penalty.
So not the kind of finish that we would have like for an otherwise very successful and fun season.
I think the best part of the weekend was seeing Mikes face at the tiller on the delivery back on Sunday crossing the central bay in 20 - 25 knots on a screaming reach.
Oh, and the 'bucket' works, if you know what I mean.... best with the boat level... :)
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Weekend update
Another busy weekend, both sailing and with friends.
Friday started out, with our Friday night race. This time the dynamic duo of Sylvia and Synthia came out to crew. A beautiful evening of short sleave sailing in the Estuary. We had a dodgy start, but after going around we recovered and rounded the top mark in the top three. The girls did an excellent job crewing and we were soon in the front of the fleet. We played it conservative the rest of the way and finished up with a nice 'gun' at the finish. Smiles all around. The girls quickly signed up for another Friday, they must have enjoyed the ride :)
Saturday was a different type of sailing. Pretty windy in the central bay. Greg Nelsen came out to race with me for this race. We chose to just do the race double handed even though it is a fully crewed race. It was great conditions for our boat, nice flat water due to the flood and a 20 to 25 knot breeze. This time we both learned the courses ahead of time (didn't want a repeat of the last race). We were the first start and positioned ourselves in the middle of the line with plenty of room to leeward. The Flying Tiger had a good start crossing the fleet on port, but by the time we converged again we were just in front of them. We mostly loosely covered the fleet and were running a pretty good leg, great speed and decent pointing, with Greg navigating and calling tactics. Then a tanker came up the course which forced us to stay on the wrong side of the course. By the time we got back to fleet we had lost a couple hundred yards and we were back in chasing mode. It was a long upwind leg so we had time to catch up with some of the competition. At the top mark there was some confusion, some boats headed to the 'Little Harding' buoy as opposed to 'Harding' buoy as called out on the course. We double checked and made it to the right mark. Kite up and we were off to the races. We were screaming downwind, water everywhere, I think this is the fastest the boat has gone. But the GPS battery ran out, so don't know how fast we got to go, but I would guess in the 16 - 18 knot range on the peaks. I lost my footing on one of the puffs as the boat accelerated and we rounded up into a broach. Don't broach often on this boat, but it was a reminder that there is little room for a mistake. The broach allowed some of the other fast boats to catch up and both the Antrim27 and the Henderson30 got ahead of us. We couldn't hold the angle to the leeward mark behind Angel Island, so we dropped the kite early and white sailed reach to the mark. The Antrim which was ahead at this time, kept on going downwind, seemly to another mark and loosing its lead. We rounded just behind the Henderson30.
Back upwind, this time to 'Little Harding'. We rounded the windward mark just ahead of the Henderson, but got our spinnaker up faster than they did and we were off again. A nice long run all the way down the Berkley in heavy air. Another small wipeout, this time we recovered more quickly and rounded the leeward mark well ahead of the competition. We had a close reach to the mark to the finish. We were the first boat to finish in our class. Not a bad day.
Saturday night, I met Paula at Nima and Lisa's for dinner. Zoya is growing quickly and has a great little personality. Nima put up a really nice dinner and Lisa baked us a scramble from fresh plums from their backyard tree. Nice....
Sunday morning had us back at Berkeley for brunch with Lorenzo, Jo Ann and Luca.
Now we are home resting. Paula has an early morning flight to Iowa tomorrow and I'll be following on Thursday. Should be an interesting weekend, stay tuned...
Friday started out, with our Friday night race. This time the dynamic duo of Sylvia and Synthia came out to crew. A beautiful evening of short sleave sailing in the Estuary. We had a dodgy start, but after going around we recovered and rounded the top mark in the top three. The girls did an excellent job crewing and we were soon in the front of the fleet. We played it conservative the rest of the way and finished up with a nice 'gun' at the finish. Smiles all around. The girls quickly signed up for another Friday, they must have enjoyed the ride :)
Saturday was a different type of sailing. Pretty windy in the central bay. Greg Nelsen came out to race with me for this race. We chose to just do the race double handed even though it is a fully crewed race. It was great conditions for our boat, nice flat water due to the flood and a 20 to 25 knot breeze. This time we both learned the courses ahead of time (didn't want a repeat of the last race). We were the first start and positioned ourselves in the middle of the line with plenty of room to leeward. The Flying Tiger had a good start crossing the fleet on port, but by the time we converged again we were just in front of them. We mostly loosely covered the fleet and were running a pretty good leg, great speed and decent pointing, with Greg navigating and calling tactics. Then a tanker came up the course which forced us to stay on the wrong side of the course. By the time we got back to fleet we had lost a couple hundred yards and we were back in chasing mode. It was a long upwind leg so we had time to catch up with some of the competition. At the top mark there was some confusion, some boats headed to the 'Little Harding' buoy as opposed to 'Harding' buoy as called out on the course. We double checked and made it to the right mark. Kite up and we were off to the races. We were screaming downwind, water everywhere, I think this is the fastest the boat has gone. But the GPS battery ran out, so don't know how fast we got to go, but I would guess in the 16 - 18 knot range on the peaks. I lost my footing on one of the puffs as the boat accelerated and we rounded up into a broach. Don't broach often on this boat, but it was a reminder that there is little room for a mistake. The broach allowed some of the other fast boats to catch up and both the Antrim27 and the Henderson30 got ahead of us. We couldn't hold the angle to the leeward mark behind Angel Island, so we dropped the kite early and white sailed reach to the mark. The Antrim which was ahead at this time, kept on going downwind, seemly to another mark and loosing its lead. We rounded just behind the Henderson30.
Back upwind, this time to 'Little Harding'. We rounded the windward mark just ahead of the Henderson, but got our spinnaker up faster than they did and we were off again. A nice long run all the way down the Berkley in heavy air. Another small wipeout, this time we recovered more quickly and rounded the leeward mark well ahead of the competition. We had a close reach to the mark to the finish. We were the first boat to finish in our class. Not a bad day.
Saturday night, I met Paula at Nima and Lisa's for dinner. Zoya is growing quickly and has a great little personality. Nima put up a really nice dinner and Lisa baked us a scramble from fresh plums from their backyard tree. Nice....
Sunday morning had us back at Berkeley for brunch with Lorenzo, Jo Ann and Luca.
Now we are home resting. Paula has an early morning flight to Iowa tomorrow and I'll be following on Thursday. Should be an interesting weekend, stay tuned...
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