Outhaul Replacement
From SailingAnarchy.com forums today.
"I just replaced the lines in our boom - not very user friendly. To replace all of the lines you will have to drill out the rivets holding the forward end plate of the boom. The tail you pull is a 2:1 that pulls on the end of a 3:1 which pulls on the wire that comes out of the boom (at least on hull 344). I do not remember the line lengths and we did not replace the wire. If you only want to replace the wire portion coming out of the aft end of the boom, attach a pilot line to the end of the control line (the one you pull to adjust the outhaul) and pull the 3:1 casade out of the end of the boom. You should be able to replace the wire and then pull the whole thing back into the boom."

Sausalito YC Beer Can
Spectacular evening on the Bay with Duane at the helm, Chris on trim and Doug on foredeck. Started off looking like 18+ but by time we crossed the center span it was down in the 14-16 range. Probably just as well as we left the dock still rigging like madmen. Super fluky at Blackhauler with lots of 180 degree shifts in the lee of the bridge and the Presido hills.

Pic of Duane and Chris. Duane likes his new toy!

Track shows top of frame as windward. We started the SC1 after the start. Then south along the bridge to Blackhauler, back north to Harding, then Knox and upwindish to the finish, then back to the club.

Had a quick discussion with Seadon re: rig tune in high wind. 31 turns on uppers seems to be about max. more turns just means more compression on mast without really decreasing the forestay sag. Lowers, should be tuned so that mid point bend it 1" to weather.

Big Boat Dates
June 2 - Delta Ditch
June 9&10 - Drakes Bay
June 21 - Coastal Cup
July 7 - Lightship II
July 21 - Half Moon Bay (I can't do this as we are racing Melges 24s in Albert T Simpson)
Aug 4 - Full Crew Farallones
Sept 1 - Windjammers
Sept 13-16 - Big Boat
Sept 22 - Southern Cross
Oct 13 - Junior Waterhouse

Video Day 5

Day 5 Curtis Press, one of my best buds and my skipper on the J24's Jay without a Match and Fat Bastard sailed with us as Bow 2. Unlike the other days, we left the harbor with a 10-12 knot breeze out of the south. As we got out to the race course, the seabreeze filled in with a huge right shift and increase in velocity to 15+. We set the chute an planed down to the starting line. Big grins from Dr. Curt!

Had another mediocre but not too horrible start. We're doing better but still have a long way to go to get me up to speed in the starts.

By the time of the start we were up the full 30/28 turns and the breeze at the starting line was over 18. As we headed up the course, the breeze built. I was guessing it was in the mid-twenties. Take a look at this picture to get a sense of the sea state.

Approaching the windward mark the crew asked if we were going to set. We decided to see what our competition in C fleet did. Several of the leaders where already blowing up. We heard a few dismastings reported on the radio. C fleet did not set, nor did we. We still were planing/surfing down at 14-17 knots. We made a mistake and jibed inland . There was less breeze in there and by time we got to the bottom of the course it was back down in the low-twenties. We should have set for the bottom half of the course I think. Or done what we did at Key West on the big air day and set ride it across the course , douse and jibe. Anyway, hindsight is 20-20.

On the second upwind leg, we were driving fairly well, keeping the boat flat as possible with the jib out a bit. Later, Matt Clark said that the leaders were using little vang (we were max vang) He had them tuned with 28/32 per the old Ulman guide. He suspected that the leaders are still tuning this way even though the guide says differently. I also remembered from the previous day that when the boat stops, ease the sheet--flogging the main if need be, drive the jib until the boat is back up to speed then sheet in and head up. Once we started doing that we put Trailblazer away in just a couple of minutes.

As we approached the windward mark, conditions were back up in the high twenties. Wave state was 4-6 feet. Everyone seemed to be struggling just to get around the track with boats getting knocked down repeatedly. I told the crew that as we approached the mark, we would sail clean, no tacking to cover etc, let's just finish the race. We were on port taking our last hitch in, Corinado and Cool Beans were on stbd. Corinado had us, but it looked to Caroline , Curt and I that we had Cool Beans no problem.

Not sure what happened, maybe I was tired, maybe part of my brain was focused on Cool Beans, but I slipped and the wind and waves took us for a little knock down. Now we weren't making it and worse there was no time to duck. I frantically was motioning to Gary, not driving making the situation worse. He realized too late that we weren't going to make it, and although he released the jib and main sheets, I don't think they released the vang. They put a 3" hole in our stbd stern. Rubin's racin' but I wish that one didn't happen. Anyway, did our 360 and pressed on. Too bad, we were beating Nick Pullen at the time, and would have beat them to the finish completing our goals for the regatta.

All in all a hugely fun, hugely valuable regatta. I was skeptical of Santa Cruz after the terrible weather at the North Americans last year. We could not have gotten a better regatta. Looking forward to the next one!

Day 4
Goals. Our goals for the regatta was to finish in the middle or top of the C fleet. After seeing the compition on the course we had picked out a few boats that we consistently saw or beat to the first windward mark, yet consistently finished behind. They are a the top of the C fleet/Bottom of the B fleet. Our goals where to beat each of these boats in one race. Flexible Flyer(SF), Corinado Self Storage(SoCal), Cool Beans(Seattle), Trailblazer(wanker), and Mad Haus(Seattle) were the boats we'd picked out. To some extent we'd hoped to beat Matilida as well, put their pro, Steve is quite good and experienced. Even so we almost made this goal as well.

Race 1 Pin end start, reached down the line a bit and set up just after the Pegasus Father/Son teams. We almost timed it right but got pushed over the line as the third/fourth boat from the pin. Pegasus wasn't happy as we were sitting on their air. They quickly decided that it was better that we were gone sooner rather than later and one of their pros told us to cross them. The stuffed it for a second and we reached off. Actually had worse starts sitting on the line with no speed as the fleet sailed of vs this one were we quickly rounded the pin and headed off at full speed (in dirty air of course) towards the favored side of the course.

It's interesting on the track you can see us come out of the harbor, set the chute then head into the starting area. Then you see the two upwind legs and the two downwind legs. Notice that the angles are virtually the same up and down wind. The first upwind leg starts at the left of the line (pin start) then veers right as we got into the bad air of the fleet (I'm guessing) then settles into a straight line up to the layline.

Breeze for leg one had built to 15+

The other thing of note on this race was the leeward gate rounding. We came in hot on stbd to right gate facing downwind. Just inside of us was Latis (GBR version) both of us had taken down our kites on time. Blasting in somewhat out of control on port inside of Latis was Trailblazer. They blew their takedown, hit Latis as we were abeam of the mark. Then Latis came down into us and their boom hit the shrouds. Good work on Caroline's part to jump up and get it off of us asap! I shouted protest to Trailblazer, they of course didn't do any circles (again) The Brits did though. After checking with Jeff post race, he said essential this...
Tell your story as above, with the addition that you should explain that you were giving room to everyone inside and that you were DDW. When bam, Trailblazer hits Latis who then bears off (unexpectedly) into you. Protest Trailblazer. Trailblazer didn't hit the mark and you all sailed past the mark before heading up. All those facts add credibility to your story. However, you should avoid the room, because the burden is on you to prove that you provided enough room.

Race 2. The fleet has wised up to the port tack the pin trick as several other boats were now lurking around the pin end. So we decided to reach further down the line to find another hole. At 2-3 minutes (not sure exactly when because the Tacktick when swimming during a douse and Caroline had the time) we decided for a mid line, right segment start. We felt early and dove down to defend our rather nice hole. We overcompensated a bit, but still crossed the line with good speed just bow down a bit. Again on the track, you can see as we crossed through the fleet the change in the track as we hit the top of the fleet's dirty air.

Now the breeze and waves were up (18+ with 3-4 footers). On the first leeward leg, we jibed onto stbd, just to leeward of the leaders line coming to windward on port. We reached in hot crossing between leader in 3rd and 4th. It was all looking swimming, when Team Gill tacked out of the lineup onto stbd. On the track, you can see us head DDW off plane to avoid them. As more folks looked like they were going to tack out of the line up for clean air, I decided to ditch the chute a bit early for manuverability and head for the right gate on a broad reach with out chute. Unfortunately, had a new crew member on board for the day, and the take down went pair-shaped. The chute hit the water. Jen and Caroline nearly had it on board, when it tore on the stantion. I remember stepping over the tiller and grabing the head and pulling the last bit out of the water. Pretty good recovery from a shrimping exercise all in all. By this time, we'd drifted down a bit and the right gate was packed. So we jibed and took the left gate. We only lost 3-4 boats with that one.

Near the top of the 2nd windward leg, we were on stbd and Cool Beans (aka Gybeset) was crossing (comfortably) on port. As I saw him come in I dropped the traveler and headed down. Gary did a perfect tack just to windward of us for 15knots of breeze in flat water, really nicely timed actually. Unfortunately it was blowing near 20 with 3-4 footers. They totally parked it. I headed off a bit to avoid them below, said something about tacking to close, they heeled way over and further parked. I took all that 6.7 knots of BS and spent it on steering way up planting them firmly in our gas. How'd that slam dunk work for 'ya Gary. Nice!

No drama on the 2nd leeward leg. Remember steering DDW at one point coming into the mark so that we could slow down to avoid some stbd tackers coming out of the line up. As we rounded the left gate again, less crowded and out of the dirty air of the downwind boats behind us, I saw Corinado Self-Storage and Cool Beans just behind us. Jen mentioned these facts. (Jen by the way, trimmed jib this day and tomorrow too. She's doing great. We had Caroline trim jib for the start and I think that getting Jen in a dingy as crew would really help her.) Anyway, my reply was "true, but we're not enough ahead those guys usually school me upwind" Not today.

Goals Flexible Flyer--check, due to poor prep on their part perhaps when their spin halyard broke on Day 2 but still that's part of the game, right?) Trailblazer--cheaters twice, even after we helped tow them in when they couldn't start their engine. Check. Corinado--check. Cool Beans--check. Mad House--good we've still got a goal for tomorrow!

Velocitek
Here is the tracks from Days 2 and 3 of the Worlds. Will work on getting this sorted out by race instead.

Day 3 Started light, we were a few turns below base. By the end of Race 1, it was blowing dogs off chains. As predicted, the big air caused many teams to self destruct. Unfortunately we had a few issues as well. Jibes were all good as were the take downs. It was a set that we had an issue with and a couple of times on the run, we came off plane and then got hit with a big gust. That set us on our ear...once it coincided with a big wave which sort of broke (as much as a 3-4 foot swell can break) on us as well. For a split second I thought we might be swimming.

Remember jibing a bit too late onto starboard so that we were not on top of the leaders coming up on port but below/on them. Remember sailing past Ullman below him, and he saying "thank you" Top speed on the speedo was 17.8 knots. The new spin halyard started slipping, and we parted the sheath on the jib sheets trying for that last 1" of trim. In general though we did great for us. Awesome team work and with a bit closer attention we can put together a clean race that will put us in the 40s for a finish.

Some numbers from Brian Hutchinson of Team Pegasus on line lengths for the Melges...
Jib sheet 55' with 4' taper; Main halyard 53'; Spin sheet 75' with 9' taper; Tack line 35' with 12' taper

Day 2 Rig now set to base rake.
Race 1. Don't remember too much about this start. Had an awesome 1st leg and rounded with Smokin'. We'd learned the previous night that Kevin's team had been sailing together for 7 years. They typically are 1st or 2nd in the Bay fleet when they compete. So it was a Smokin' leg for Team Nothing Ventured. First leeward leg was also good. We were in displacement mode and working the middle as the fleet was compressed and split. In the clear air we made gainers on the Personal Puff folks and rounded right by them as well. Then disaster! We snagged not just a little kelp, but enough to stop us fully. It took 30-40 seconds at least to clear the mess off the keel and rudder, but at 6 knots that's nearly 200 yards. We went from middle of the B fleet to middle of the C fleet in that sub-minute fiasco. Rounding with the C fleet, we rounded inside of our scrub competition. I wanted to jibe to out of their bad air and over to the breezier side of the course ASAP. The leeward takedown was so awesome that I thought I could push the crew. Mistake. We weren't ready, totally screwed up the jibe -- twice and now we were battling it out for DFL with 140. They beat us by 1/2 a length at the finish -- we could have bet two other boats but they took us up and both of us lost those boats.

Race 2 So after seeing Nick Pullen our Laser Fleet Champion cross us repeatedly 10 lengths ahead seconds after the start we decided to take a page from his book. Side note on Nick, Nick is a Canadian National Laser Champion and obviously a hell of a starter and driver. So we decided to set up past the pin boat and come in on port and tack into a hole. We set up a bit too early and wound up taking into Shark's hole. His crew was pissed ;) We got pushed up and probably early -- luckily general recall. Second try, we were still a bit early, and got a fair start. It worked out much better than the other option, as soon as the fleet thinned we had pretty clear air as one of the left most boats. Worked to the right and had a solid mark rounding. We (and the whole fleet by the way) have been cronically overstanding the marks. So we're getting better at picking the layline and not banging the right corner so much. Can't remember too much about the leeward legs on Race 2, other than we had previously learned that jibing 3 times just before the gate, then coming in DDW is slow! So we jibed right in front of the port tacking leaders and came in as hot as possible for the right gate on starboard. It works. After two laps we were right behind Flyer and Mad Boat. They are now our goal to beat each of these boats in one race. We were really struggling to make BS improvements the whole day. Will try to talk with Madrigali tomorrow am. Anyway, we split from Flyer after the first third, and they made a pretty big gain on us. So we decided to stick closer to our competition on the 2nd+ laps. We just sail better when we're closer to other boats. We finished to windward just behind these guys. This is the performance we know we can accomplish. If we can get our speed issues tweaked we can do even better!

Day 1 Two goals for today. One -- win the race to leave the harbor. Check. Two -- Get blind drunk. Check. Honestly can't remember much about the starts, other than trying to defend a hole just to left of right boat and then accelerating off the line, did not pay off for us today. Breeze was forcasted to be light, so I made a change to the higfield lever set up so we could rake the rig forward. I left it at the light air setting. We on pace with the C fleet, but way off the leaders. After race one, we put the rake back to base (we thought) By time we finished Race 2 we were up 30/20. Turns out the rake setting was 1" back! Downwind middle of the course works when the fleet is compressed. On the second lap, splitting from our competion does not work.
Back on shore it was Pusser's Rum night. 5 grogs later, Jen and I crashed Matilda's party. Had a tremendous evening with Matilda and Smokin's crew. Richard and I have a bet for a 2 lt bottle of rum. Doesn't quite seem fair as his pro is a coach for the UK olympic team and my "pro" is an ex-computer jockey for 3DL! Anyway all in good fun.

Pic is a leeward gate rounding with our "velocitek" logo showing.

Pre Worlds May 5/6
Saturday conditions were wild. Two wind patterns where competing over the race course for the entire day. 15-20 knots from the NW and same from the SE. The stagnation zone was more or less over the starting line. We started on the right segment near the right boat. Then it shut down. At one point we had boats on full plane downwind approaching us from boat directions. Unusual to say the least. We set the chute and were planing into the swell for practice after the first race was abandoned. Planing into a 4-6 ft swell was interesting and wet. One shock parted the sheath on the spin halyard so we were done for the day. We did hang out and start the first race. Breeze was 10-15 and we were at base. Had a very nice start just to windward of Joe Fly, Full Throttle and I think Shark. Kept pace with most of the leaders and rounded the windward mark in the top 20. Then peeled off and watched the carnage downwind as it built to 18ish. It's too bad it will be light this week, I think some of the light air teams would explode if we had 15-20 knot and we're pretty used to those conditions. Oh well!

Sunday we left the dock super early, due to our chronic tardiness. Chris was onboard for Norm and Jim for Blake, Jen trimmed jib and Chris spin. Jim and Chris were great to have onboard, both fit the vibe of the boat. Given their backgrounds in small keel boats and dingies they stepped up to the big dingy M24 well. Hope to sail with them again.

First race was light 6-8 knots. Stupidly we didn't rake the rig forward like we knew we should and paid dearly. We also caught some kelp and both mistakes were apparent by the first windward mark. DFL. Ouch. Reeled a couple of boats back downwind and took 12 turns off the forestay, second windward leg we were back on pace with at least the C-B fleet. Managed to work out of the basement on that one.

Second race start was weak, late and slow. We peeled off to the far right looking for the geographic righty that Jim (the local) said pays off most days. We were mostly on pace the wind had built to 12-14. Downwind was displacement mode still. Second leg wind built up to 15+ and second downwind leg was a hoot. Finally planing (really surfing) down the Santa Cruz swell of 3-4ft. Kept it hot to ride the waves and reeled in at least two boats. Kept in front of our Tahoe housemates and competion the Personal Puff crew. Didn't quite have enough distance to complete the passing of Sailing Anarchy famous "Gybeset" aka Gary on Cool Beans. next time. If it's windy I think we'll be at the top of the C fleet for sure, if it's light and we can't get the light air grove back on we'll be plodding along.