29 April 2008
Rockin' Friday Night
OK, just trying to get caught up on documenting each sailing event. Not much to say about Friday, April 12. The wind was so light (and the current strong) that none of the Fleet 76 boats even made it to the starting line. Dean and I did our best rendition of rockin' and rollin' the boat to generate headway. Fun exercise, I guess, but a lame replacement for actual sailing.
05 April 2008
Out and Back, Happy Fleet
Last night was the opening for the Vanguard 15 Fleet 76 Friday night series. A great bunch of sailors building a healthy fleet through camaraderie, knowledge sharing, and some feisty short course racing. I gave up my crew position for new guy Murray who discovered the Benicia V15 fleet via our "outreach" at the RYC Regatta last weekend in which he raced his Laser. Not wanting to miss out on a good evening sail, I rigged up my Megabyte and headed out to join the fray.
Turned out 20 knots gusting 25 with a 2.5 knot counter current was a bit much for me. I poked my bow out the harbor entrance, immediately jumped to a plane, and went screaming out across the Carquinez Strait. Wow, quite a ride! But alas given that the committee boat was doing double duty as crash boat, I choose to return for an early beer rather than disrupting the V15 races with the committee attending to my likely need for a rescue. Apparently a good decision as from the shore I watched two of the six double-handed Vanguards go inverted and need help.
Flat Stanley gives it a try:
Turned out 20 knots gusting 25 with a 2.5 knot counter current was a bit much for me. I poked my bow out the harbor entrance, immediately jumped to a plane, and went screaming out across the Carquinez Strait. Wow, quite a ride! But alas given that the committee boat was doing double duty as crash boat, I choose to return for an early beer rather than disrupting the V15 races with the committee attending to my likely need for a rescue. Apparently a good decision as from the shore I watched two of the six double-handed Vanguards go inverted and need help.
Flat Stanley gives it a try:
 |
| From David Anderso... |
04 April 2008
South Shore Flashbacks
Some of my fondest sailing memories are of warm Wednesday evenings racing small boats out of South Shore Yacht Club in Newport Beach. Must have been sometime around the mid 1980's. Dean and I would race his dad's Lido 14. I don't remember a lot of on-the-boat details other than it was great fun, always close competition with Paul Blank, and without fail, there would be a pack of Oreos on board to munch on. Once off the boat, Mrs. Fulton would be waiting with all the fixings to make for a great after sail BBQ. We'd just hang out talking about the sailing and eatin' burgers--all without a care for tomorrow. Once in a while we'd get the extra special treat of a tub of sister Cindy's molasses cookies!
What brings this all back nearly 25 years later? This past Sunday, Dean and I both entered our boats in the Richmond Yacht Club "Big Dinghy" pursuit race, he in his Vanguard 15 with son, Jake, as crew and I in my Megabyte. It was a great afternoon of sailing, and lo and behold, a whole clan of Fultons awaiting at the docks to welcome us back! I got the exact same loving hug from Mrs. Fulton as I did those many years before on the South Shore docks. And, Mr. Fulton was their ready for engaging discussion of wind, tides, boats, tactics, all that good stuff. But life does move on and this time the youngsters enjoying the after race snacks and listening in on the sailing chatter were Dean and Peggy's three kids. Won't be long before they're the ones out racing and we'll be at the dock warming up the BBQ.
I just wonder if Dean and Jake had any Oreos on board. They didn't share any with me.
View Larger Map
What brings this all back nearly 25 years later? This past Sunday, Dean and I both entered our boats in the Richmond Yacht Club "Big Dinghy" pursuit race, he in his Vanguard 15 with son, Jake, as crew and I in my Megabyte. It was a great afternoon of sailing, and lo and behold, a whole clan of Fultons awaiting at the docks to welcome us back! I got the exact same loving hug from Mrs. Fulton as I did those many years before on the South Shore docks. And, Mr. Fulton was their ready for engaging discussion of wind, tides, boats, tactics, all that good stuff. But life does move on and this time the youngsters enjoying the after race snacks and listening in on the sailing chatter were Dean and Peggy's three kids. Won't be long before they're the ones out racing and we'll be at the dock warming up the BBQ.
I just wonder if Dean and Jake had any Oreos on board. They didn't share any with me.
View Larger Map
09 March 2008
Crying babies for crew
OK, this post is a little out of date--been a super busy week. March 2nd was the annual Sail-a-Small-Boat-Day at Richmond Yacht Club. A great event designed to get more people into more small boats. Volunteers add their boats to a list (I put up the Megabyte) and interested skippers signed up for a ride. We had a good crowd and a whole range of interesting boats: U20s, FDs, C15, Finns, 29ers, I14s, an MX Ray, a Hoot (are those guys still in business?), and others. Seemed to be a fair amount of interest in my Megabyte from "hey, what is that?" to "can I take my kids out in it?" Actually, a couple of dads each took two little kids out with them for a ride. I think the youngest was about two--she came back wet and crying. ahhhh. The bigger kids all seemed to enjoy the ride--they came back wet and smiling. The Megabyte has a pretty decent forward cockpit for a medium sized person to ride along. All was going well until I let the "I'm a Laser sailor" guy try it. He flipped. Luckily, no babies on board with him.
18 February 2008
Esta Susana en casa?
Wow. Google that. Seems a lot of seriously messed up people have that introductory dialog stuck in their brain and it's driving them crazy. What's this got to do with sailing? I have absolutely no clue, but after a couple of Singha's after a couple of hours "sailing" with no wind in a couple of small boats, Dean and I spontaneously broke into, "Esta Susana en Casa?" "Si, Esta con un amiga." And, so on. That's creepy.
Sailing was interesting. We had about 2 knots of current in the river and about 4 knots of wind. Then, about 2 knots of wind. We were actually sailing backwards despite trailing a wake behind us. Provided a good chance to play with sail settings in light air--this time, with the old standard Megabyte rig. I had everything set loose. Off the wind, this produced a big crease going from the tack up and out to the end of the top batten. Very ugly. Pulling the vang on pretty tight bent the mast and cleaned that up. It's apparent that this sail is cut for when the mast is bent a lot. Upwind, I played with the traveler, vang, and cunningham. what I found looked good was no vang, traveler all the way to weather, and enough cunningham (quite a lot actually) to pull the draft a little farther forward in the sail. I tried using the vang upwind, too. Overall that improved the shape, but took all the twist out. In any case, one of the things that's so cool about this boat, old rig and new, is how easy it is to tweak. Now, figuring out just where to tweak it to, that's the hard part. Interesting stuff.
"Ay caramba! Cuando arreglan mi quarto, no encuentro nada!" No idea what I'm talking about? I guess you didn't take high school Spanish.
Sailing was interesting. We had about 2 knots of current in the river and about 4 knots of wind. Then, about 2 knots of wind. We were actually sailing backwards despite trailing a wake behind us. Provided a good chance to play with sail settings in light air--this time, with the old standard Megabyte rig. I had everything set loose. Off the wind, this produced a big crease going from the tack up and out to the end of the top batten. Very ugly. Pulling the vang on pretty tight bent the mast and cleaned that up. It's apparent that this sail is cut for when the mast is bent a lot. Upwind, I played with the traveler, vang, and cunningham. what I found looked good was no vang, traveler all the way to weather, and enough cunningham (quite a lot actually) to pull the draft a little farther forward in the sail. I tried using the vang upwind, too. Overall that improved the shape, but took all the twist out. In any case, one of the things that's so cool about this boat, old rig and new, is how easy it is to tweak. Now, figuring out just where to tweak it to, that's the hard part. Interesting stuff.
"Ay caramba! Cuando arreglan mi quarto, no encuentro nada!" No idea what I'm talking about? I guess you didn't take high school Spanish.
10 February 2008
Less Fussing More Sailing
One of the joys about small boat sailing should be the ability to chuck it in the water and go. Less time futzing with all the gear and setting things up means more time sailing (and practicing those high speed gybes!) Well, I finally finished futzing with my trailer. Now all the gear stores in, on, or under the boat on the trailer. All I have to do is hitch it up to the truck and go. The boat stays mostly rigged under the cover, and the launching dolly is strapped on top fully assembled and ready to go. When I get to the water, I can rig it in about the same time as it takes to get naked and pull on the wetsuit and all the other get up.
 |
| From Megabyte Trailer |
 |
| From Megabyte Trailer |
We Can Learn
"I can't do it. I can't do it!" My little four year old hollered yesterday as I tried to help her along on her bike without training wheels for the first time. "Of course you can, sweetie. We just need to practice a little more." I was struck by how little confidence she had and then remembered my own recent experience being pressed into a situation for which I had little prior practice.
Last Sunday was the third edition of the monthly Small Boat Midwinters at Richmond Yacht Club. As was the case last month, Sunday came on the tail end of some Winter storms, but this time we had some lingering strong winds and rain. When the heavy squalls rolled in, I was hurtin'. This boat is a bit too big for me when it's blowing like that. After a really bad start in race 1, I managed to finish second about a boat length behind a 17 foot Daysailor--a boat that is supposed to be slower than mine. It was really blowing hard for the second race, and I had a hard time keeping the boat moving well to windward. The Daysailor and a Flying Junior had a nice lead over me at the first mark. Then as I rounded, the "MonsterByte" leapt onto a plane and went screaming after the more stable and modestly canvassed boats. As I approached the leeward mark, I had the lead, but was freakin' over the impending gybe. "I can't do it. I can't do it!", my mind was hollering. I guess I coulda chicken gybed it (spinning all the way around and tacking), but went for it instead. Ended up spinning out but lucky not to capsize. Then, the rudder cavitated as I tried to get her pointed downwind again. Needless to say, the DS and FJ got past. Anyway, that was it for me. It was really starting to honk, and I didn't feel like going swimming in a "fun race." Went home and watched the Superbowl instead. What a wuss.
I was personally bothered all week by that poor gybe and early retirement from the day's racing. That is, until our little bicycle lesson yesterday. I realized that gybing a boat like this in a lot of wind is really hard if you haven't done it before. But with a lot of practice I should be able to pull off a planing reach to planing reach gybe and blast on past that Daysailor next time. And that will be thrilling, not scary. Kinda like learning how to ride a bike, I guess.
Last Sunday was the third edition of the monthly Small Boat Midwinters at Richmond Yacht Club. As was the case last month, Sunday came on the tail end of some Winter storms, but this time we had some lingering strong winds and rain. When the heavy squalls rolled in, I was hurtin'. This boat is a bit too big for me when it's blowing like that. After a really bad start in race 1, I managed to finish second about a boat length behind a 17 foot Daysailor--a boat that is supposed to be slower than mine. It was really blowing hard for the second race, and I had a hard time keeping the boat moving well to windward. The Daysailor and a Flying Junior had a nice lead over me at the first mark. Then as I rounded, the "MonsterByte" leapt onto a plane and went screaming after the more stable and modestly canvassed boats. As I approached the leeward mark, I had the lead, but was freakin' over the impending gybe. "I can't do it. I can't do it!", my mind was hollering. I guess I coulda chicken gybed it (spinning all the way around and tacking), but went for it instead. Ended up spinning out but lucky not to capsize. Then, the rudder cavitated as I tried to get her pointed downwind again. Needless to say, the DS and FJ got past. Anyway, that was it for me. It was really starting to honk, and I didn't feel like going swimming in a "fun race." Went home and watched the Superbowl instead. What a wuss.
I was personally bothered all week by that poor gybe and early retirement from the day's racing. That is, until our little bicycle lesson yesterday. I realized that gybing a boat like this in a lot of wind is really hard if you haven't done it before. But with a lot of practice I should be able to pull off a planing reach to planing reach gybe and blast on past that Daysailor next time. And that will be thrilling, not scary. Kinda like learning how to ride a bike, I guess.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
