I talked with Hutch today. Such a great guy, in addition to ordering his set of turnbuckle locks and wrenches we discussed some of their recent regattas and learnings. They are using the ronstan turnbuckles still. Ideally the shrouds are at 20 when at base tension and 36'6.5" In light air flat water they were at 36' 10" They are looking at maybe using longer throw turnbuckles someday but not yet.

He mentioned in the light lumpy stuff, he was trimming the jib by 8". It said is was tough but had the sheet wrapped around his waist and then with a big bight in his hand. By aggressively playing the sheet they were super fast.

Notes from Labor Day Regatta 2/3 September
Fun regatta at a different venue, between Angel Island and the Golden Gate. It was fun for me as I hadn't really sailed there since sailing with Curtis on his J/24 in the Corinthian Friday night series. Results eventually will be on the SFYC site. The picture is of us following Grinder just after the start of Race 2. Shots are couretesy of Norm (for tracking down the photog) and Sergei. He has tons more shots posted on his site on Flickr.

Tactics
Once again we sort of screwed the pooch on researching the tides. But when we arrived at the course it was apparent that it was flooding. Duane and Curt mentioned (after the fact) that the current in this area is some of the strongest in the Bay. In the earlier races each day, the wind seemed pretty uniformily fluky over the whole course. So going right into the shallower water payed. But you didn't want to go so far right that you sailed into the dead area upwind of Belvedere Island. (Funny how once we sailed into that big hole, I instantly remembered how looked it during the Friday night series...it still looks the same) As the breeze built, getting out to the left and the bigger breeze paid. Also, I think there is a geographic shift to the left at the top of the course once the breeze fills in.

I think on both days, staying out to the right of the downwind course paid better than the left (for sure) and the middle (maybe) Downwind it was puffy like the lake, but I think it was pretty difficult to discern the puffs on the water with the light and tide.

Starts were 50/50. We had a couple of great starts, and three really really bad ones. Line was short enough that all 10 boats could not fit on the line. Good practice. On day two, on the first race I tried approaching on port and tacking into a hole. With the light air, chop and number of boats, we tacked and parked..and parked. On the last race, we came in on stbd, ducked into a hole to leeward of Shawn Bennett, we were too early, held it there too long and instead of bailing out and getting back up to speed, we parked...and parked.

Caroline mentioned a tactic for ducking at the start, wereby the jib is left backwinded after the tack so that the bow is driven down fast enough to duck a windward boat that is quite close. We should practice this move, perhaps?

Competitors
Ten boats out, Grinder and Bennett where the A fleet, Don Jesberg was not driving so they sort of lead the B fleet on Ego, O-positive and Flyer where out ahead of us, Matilda and Aquanut in the expanded B fleet, Bones trailed the lot.

Boat Issues
Well, we did manage to explode one of the two newest kites. Rather dramatic and a bit weird as it split in four seperate places. Two places in the material and two along the seems. It's kite material now.
Other issuse, caribeaner for spin halyard tore out of boom

Tuning Comments
We had one really good leg, 2nd to the windward mark. We had speed with Grinder, but weren't quite pointing on them. I think the picture shows that we had a very full main compared with them. To us, it seemed like they must be using the new North main, it was very twisted off at the top. While this leg was good, and we were better on Saturday than Sunday, I think we were way off on point. Speed was pretty good vs Aquanut and Matilda, but we had speed and point on them during Summer Keel. For the majority of the regatta, as soon as the crew was hiking I had a lot of backstay on. At the top of the course, I had all the backstay on I could get (7-8.5 on my scale) I'm thinking that we should have been up on the rig more. We stayed down and used a bunch of backstay because it was relatively light at the bottom of the course. Maybe we should have had more.

Base numbers were 36 5 3/8" rake at 33 turns and loos 13.5. Caroline measured Personal Puff with our measuring stick rig, and 36 6.5" measures out the same with our measuring stick and when their designated measurer uses their tape measure. So we now have an apples to apples comparison.

Crew Comments
Crew all mentioned that they felt a bit rusty this weekendMaybe the change in the conditions might have had something to do with it (it was light and fluky not nuking as we expect in the Bay) I for sure think that was the issue with the spinaker sets. When it's blowing hard, clearing the spin halyard from behind the main isn't a critical step -- it's so windy that the spin blows out from behind the main. However, this weekend, we had some pretty big issues with that on Saturday. So the steps are, 1-spin out of the bag, 2 - clear the halyard, 3- prefeed the tack.

We are all psyched up for the worlds and have a tentative schedule for staying on the boat through the winter and early spring. Fall is going to be mostly out though as we all now have commitments for September and October.

Memorable Moments/Quotes
Had a great sail back to Brickyard Cove with Caroline and Norm after the race, awesome curry at the Thai resturant with Jen, Norm and Caroline, nice rounding 2nd to the windward mark in Race 2, sad to loose three boats when the kite exploded in the same race!

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..."

Notes from Summer Beer Can Series R6/R7 9 Aug

We're out for this day as the boat is down in the Bay at KKMI. Looking forward to sailing in the Bay this weekend. Forcast is for 15-25 on Saturday anda little less breeze on Sunday.

Notes from Summer Beer Can Series R4/R5 3 Aug
Great night. Caroline's boss Dan sailed with us as Craig is buried with work. Can't write much now as I've got to get the boat out of the TPUD parking lot and down to KKMI for new non-skid.

Tactics

Competitors

Boat Issues

Tuning Comments

Crew Comments

Memorable Moments/Quotes
Dan said "[In catspaw puffs], keep the windward side of your sails pointed towards the center of the puff"