Sweet Saturn

Sailed the BYC distance race on the Melges 32 Saturn. I was very excited to get a chance to go sail with the Saturn guys. Even though the weather forecast was a little dicey at first, mother nature gave us a fine day of sailing. We started with the reaching spinnaker up and instantly the boat leaped forward to 14 knots. We had planed on getting lifted the whole way to the Thames River mark some 16 nautical miles across the lake but the wind held in direction and strength. We had to douse the reaching kite and put up the code zero. This was the first time I had been on a boat with a code zero that worked well and wow was it awesome. Wally Tsuha was kind enough to let me have a turn at the helm. It was a blast, reaching along at 14 knots all day long and a couple surges into the 15 knot range, the boat was so responsive and fast it is no wonder that they are selling like they are.


Picture of our big lead all of these boats had not made the final mark yet.

After starting an hour and forty minutes after the first boats we were the 6th boat to round the Thames River mark setting ourselves up for a 16 mile beat to PH1 across the lake. Within 1 hour of starting the beat we were now the second boat furthest up the race track. After making the turn at PH1 and putting up the sweet code zero we passed the first place boat within 15min, and never looked back. I cant thank the Wally and the guys from Saturn enough they definitely have a lot of fun on the boat and are just quality people.

Melges 24 Nationals are coming up fast, been pimping my Melges all Sunday since there was not enough breeze worthy to moth. 55 boats as of right now and the parking lot at Bayview is starting to show it. I can't wait it will be a full on war :)

Pimped the Bladerider too this weekend, made continuous control lines and put "Dog Bones, dude" on the cunningham so I do not have to untie knots to take the mast down, all of this is George Peet's technology brought from the Volvo 70 straight to the moth and Melges. I will have pictures tomorrow showing how to do this. Wind is picking up should be a good moth night.

Powerboat chasing

quick little video, more to come with some music. Footage curtesy of alan block

linky

second linky

Big Tuesday

The wind was blowing 20+ knots yesterday and snuck out early from work for a moth session before melges sailing. Pulled up to the junior sailing center to find epic conditions. 20 knots straight down the river cold air and warm water. This was the most breeze I have sailed in up to this point and made sure to check all the little screws on the boat so I did not have to deal with a breakdown. Don't quite understand why all the little fittings on the starboard side have a tendency to rattle loose.

Sailing was incredible, after being a little careful in my first couple gybes I started to send it as my confidence grew. Even pulled off a couple "foiling tacks", more like a touch and go but never really would come off the foils. The technique is really tricky. I had the best success when I would be hauling full speed upwind, take my back foot out from underneath the hiking strap(while doing the veal heel) and haul ass across the boat while turning almost ending up on new weather side with weather heel and the main still full on the old side for a split second. Very tricky and hit myself in the head with the boom numerous times. I also set a new person best for speed at 22.9 knots fighting a 2 knot current so no idea of how fast I was actually going through the water.

Also learned a couple of things that need to be on the boat, Rohan already told me to do it but I was lazy. First, need to cut down the length of the tubing that is used for the universal joint in the tiller since there was too much play for that much breeze and gybing was not a fluid act because of this. Second since I was using George Peet's boat and his bridle was too low. The made the main sheet too short, and it was very tricky to make the turn from downwind to upwind. When the battens had popped on the correct side I would have to over sheet to slow down heel the boat to weather and turn really quickly. Though it was interesting when I came out of a gybe with the battens not popped(tons of cunningham) it was much easier to make the turn since the sail was not drawing as much. After 3 hours of this i had to go in to practice on the melges for the upcoming nationals, lucky me :).

The wind was really piping up by this point and put the melges rig to full pull +26 caps +26 lowers and even dropped the toggle on the head stay one hole to get even more tension. We rigged the boat and dropped it in the water. Chuck was a little nervous about how windy it was and if we could make it out the harbor safely. That was almost the kiss of death, I went dyslexic started the motor and turned the fuel valve to off, gave it full throttle and sent it. The motor died right as we were about to make the turn and the wind pushed us up against the docks. We fended off and with the help of Dave S and Marc H I think. Pulled ourselves off the docks and realized the fuel valve mistake and sent it out of the harbor. Five minutes later main was up jib was out and we were rocking. Bore away and set the kite and had a good 5 min of fun before I wanted to round a channel marker and start practicing some windward leewards. Doused the kite turned upwind only to get blasted by a squall which tore the main from leach to luff only to stop at the window.

When I checked the GPS it only showed a disappointing 16.9 knots but once again we were fighting 2 knots of current so who knows how fast we were actually going. Before sailing I gave Chuck the disclaimer of there probably is only a 30% chance that we come in without a broken sail. After we took down the main we started the little Honda 2hp only to realize it did not have enough power to push us home, after about ten minutes of struggling the cavalry arrived in the form on Mike H and Perrin F in a junior sailing skiff to tow us in.

B Teamer

It is official I am now part of the Bladerider racing team as a "B teamer" though the goal is top ten I think I can do a lot better. All that I need to do is sail a ton :) and loose about 12 more pounds.


Rigged up the Melges 24 last night to start practicing for the upcoming nationals at BYC hopefully we can earn a good result on the Flyer. The regatta is a week and a half away but there will be a lot of good sailing to be had before the regatta starts. Today we are going to practice and winds look to be 20knots from the south. Might have to sneak in a quick Bladerider sail before the Melges practice to see if I can break my top speed of 21.7 knots.

Just got back from Beneteau 36.7 NA's what an experience. Sailing with Phil O'niel we ended up 22 out of 47 boats. Not really a stellar performance but only the second time we got to race the boat. Do to some negligence from a hired hand, we have only had about seven days in the boat this summer even though it was delivered at the beginning of June.

Buffalo Yacht Club was a great location and the food was great. The event was well run and we had a fun group of guys. In between the three O'niel's, Nathan H, Curt R, Marty M, Glen W, and Karl K. I don't think it would have been possible not to have fun.

It was a real shame to see Legend lose the regatta they had blinding upwind boat speed. I was really jealous of it. Tactics are so easy when you have good boat speed.

Only one of the three border crossing turned really bad which is awesome for me usually 1 out of 2 turns into a disaster.

Oh well only back to "work" waiting for the wind to pick up for some more moth sailing. Melges 24 Nationals coming up next week time to focus and practice.