Notes from Summer Keel, August 12/13
Fun but frustrating weekend. One of the G10 plugs came out of the spreader bar, so Craig and I epoxied back in. This of course ment that we had to remove the spreader bar. When I replaced it, it wasn't correct. It worked fine until we started to put a lot of bend into the mast. Then we couldn't raise (but could lower) the chute. While we had some good upwind legs, we struggled raising the spinaker while everyone shot by. Results should be posted on the San Francisco Yacht Club site soon.



Tactics
Ack. I think we (I) screwed this up this weekend. While Berkeley Circle isn't the City Front, I believe current relief is of high if not paramount importance here as well. We had a reasonable game plan for Race 1 (left at the bottom of the course for current relief and right at the top to get the right shift at the top) It worked. Then the current got stronger and we didn't adjust. By the race 3, Seadon and the A fleet were banging the right corner and we were still doing the left at the bottom right at the top thing.

Sunday was worse. We didn't spend the time with the current tables to figure out how much the cycle had shifted. We pretty much played "follow the leader" and tried to tacked on the headers. It wasn't good. Next time we (I) need to delegate the tide research to someone else besides myself too.

Picking the layline at the top with the current was definately tough. We overstood several times and had to tack at the last minute a few times as well.

On the downwind legs, seemed like the wind was stronger on the downwind right side, so the fleet pretty much banged that corner and back to the gates.

Competitors
10 boats competed. The A fleet was Taboo, Grinder and Brick House, Jam Jam and Flyer seemed to be consistently in the C fleet and Aquanut, Full Throttle, T-Reb and we made up the B fleet. T-Reb was definately the top of the B fleet and Brick House the bottom of the A fleet. The last boat was Matilda, who normally dewels in the C fleet, but as we learned, Seadon was sailing with them. By the last race, he got that boat dialed in. Doesn't he know that it's not good for sales to beat everyone with 4 year old Pentex sails?

Boat Issues
Of course the spreader bar issue. Norm was unimpressed with the new spin sheets, I expect after a couple of regattas they'll be more manageable. It was the same drill when we got the last ones. On a good note, the new non-skid looks great and more imporantly works great.

Tuning Comments
We started with the base at 33 uppers@13.5 loos.
Here's Caroline's notes
Saturday:
>Immediately went up 6 and 4 turns. We continued to put turns
> on throughout the day. We ended up maxed out on the uppers,
> and at 37/35 on the lowers (this was my mistake not paying
> attention to how many I was able to get on the lowers). The
> desired number was 37, this was what the starboard lower was
> at, and I believe we were more comfortable on that tack.

The boat was faster and higher on Saturday than Sunday. On sunday I had maxed out the backstay and the rig was less tight.

>
> Yesterday we ended the day with the uppers at 53 (the last
> four turns were put on during the last upwind leg). The
> lowers ended the day at 29 (the last two turns put on during
> the last upwind leg).

Seadon had some comments as well. I've put those into the comments section for this post

Crew Comments
Crew did great this weekend -- everyone kept their head in the game despite the boat issues. Even though we had to sail the last downwind leg of the regatta with no kite at all, we still managed to stay pretty close to several boats and pass one upwind.

I did notice that as we are now "in the thick of things" at the mark roundings, boat handling at the corners is definately highlighted. It's one thing to be a bit slow on the sets when you're in the cheap seats, but the times that we rounded at the top of the fleet, it's amazing to see the gains that the leaders make over the rest of the fleet and between each other. A few extra seconds getting the chute up and drawing makes a huge difference in these boats. As one of said this weekend, it's a big difference between 7-9 knots downwind with main and jib and 14-16 knots with the kite.

All that said, the crew pulled off some very nice roundings at the bottom of the course, picking up boats each time.

Memorable Moments/Quotes
The rediculously wide offset mark on the first day, followed by the ridiculously narrow gate. And of course the unmentionable events off the race course. Who knew Brad likes 'za? "Puff on in three, two, one, building..."