Three For Five

Last Thursday, I got the Megabyte wet for the fifth time and managed to go swimming again--that's three for five. This time was particularly embarrassing as I capsized at the dock while trying to belly my way up the foredeck to the dock. A couple of nice kids on the dock where pretty confused by the old guy swimming in the bay. They helped out by retrieving my floating hat and water bottle, but unfortunately the handheld VHF which I had just unclipped went straight to the bottom. Bummer.

Prior to the dunking, the sail was quite nice, though. Very light wind made for some good practice time snapping the full battens when tacking and getting my weight well forward. One thing I noticed is that this boat is too light (and probably too wide) to ghost through the lulls. When the wind stops, it sticks.

RYC Small Boat Midwinters this coming Sunday.

Screaming Reaches

Got some good practice time in the Megabyte's aft hiking straps yesterday. Turns out they're pretty dang useful when screaming along on a full plane. I sailed out of Martinez with the old rig and headed under the Benicia bridge for the mothball fleet. Found some big wind over there on a broad reach down the inside of the fleet. Had to sit about as far aft as I could get to keep the bow from plowing into the backside of waves. The boat was just screaming along on a plane for about a mile. Wow. Fun.

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Death rolls for turkeys

Finally had a chance to meet Megabyte Fleet 3 for some friendly racing at the annual Lake Washington Sailing Club Turkey Shoot Regatta (yes, they do give turkeys as prizes. ) Very nice group of enthusiastic sailors. We had six boats all with the new Mk II rig, and the gusty wind was certainly testing the new rigs. The last race of the day got pretty nasty with big gusts and large shifts. Headed for the final leeward mark, I managed to build up a lead. I was flying downwind on the edge of control with the vang eased off on that big old windsurfer-like sail --bad idea. A big gust hit, the boat got all squirrely, and death rolled (as my friend Dean says, "upside down is slow.") That whole de-power thing with the new rigs doesn't apply downwind! Too much twist, and bam! More vang next time. With the boat now upside down, I thought for sure, that was the end of it for me. Then, I saw Charles (#338) do the same thing right behind me. I got my boat up first and pointed at the mark. 50 yards later I rolled it again and Charles went on by. By this time, I was tired and struggling with the boat. Charles swung by to see if I needed any assistance--very nice gesture. Once I finally got her back up, Charles sheeted in and I followed his transom to the finish line as usual. :-)

Megabyte Mk II first sail

Picked up the new rig for the megabyte today and headed straight for the water at Rio Vista. Wow, fun sail. The thunderous cracks as the full length battens snapped the Mylar to each new tack gave me flashbacks of windsurfing in this place many years ago.
This new sail is going to be fun to play with and learn how to setup just right. After one sail, I see that some rigging modifications are in order. I will need to lengthen the control lines for the vang and outhaul. Most importantly, I'll need a bit more purchase on the cunningham which seems to be the major shape knob for this kind of rig. That's just like the old windsurfing days, too. Pull on lots of cunningham to bend the mast and make the leech just floppy enough.

2007 Fall Dinghy (and a little more swimming)

Yesterday, Dean and I raced his Vanguard 15 in day one of the Fall Dinghy Regatta at St. Francis Yacht Club. A building breeze throughout the day countered by a simultaneously increasing ebb tide made for some interesting racing. With just 8 boats in the fleet and a rather large and true starting line, it was pretty easy to find good lanes off the starting line resulting in nice crowded mark roundings and tight bunches down wind. In a couple of races, all 8 boats were spread out abeam of each other on the downwind legs as each skipper tried to discover the best combination of high wind (outside) and low current (inside).

We were tied for 4th after six races, but due to other commitments today, aren't going back for day two. Oh yes, there was more swimming involved. Coming out of a rather rolly roll tack in race 4, I missed the hiking straps and went flying backwards out of the boat. Dean waited patiently while I got my legs untangled from the jib sheet and clambered back aboard. Dropped from 4th to 6th because of that--bummer.

Here's a slideshow of some GPS plots of the racing:

Involuntary Swimming

Put the Megabyte in the water for the first time today. Chose San Pablo reservoir as a low key place to go where I couldn't get into too much trouble first time out in a new boat. Hmmm . . . two minutes out from the dock with a nice puff filling in across the lake, I slid my butt over the side and loaded up the hiking strap. Bazaaang! back flip into the water. I'm sure I had checked the knot on those straps! Luckily the boat stayed upright and I was able to haul myself back in before the lake patrol hit me with a citation for "body contact" with the "drinking" water. (They still let fish swim in there, don't they? And birds . . .)

So wait a minute, what's this Megabyte thing? Well, racing the Vanguard with Dean resurfaced my passion for racing small boats. I decided to get a one person dinghy that I could tool around in for fun and go racing once in a while. Happened to find a really nice Megabyte dinghy while visiting Seattle a few weeks ago. Bought it. Shipped it home. Sailed it today. First race is the Turkey Shoot Regatta at Lake Washington with Megabyte Fleet 3.

Knockdowns!

My big sister came to visit this weekend, and we went sailing for the first time together in a very long time. We had a great time, albeit a crazy one on account of some rather extreme conditions. So, first time aboard Motrha, and my sister gets to experience a couple of wild knockdowns where we managed to twice fill the cockpit with water. We managed to do it two different ways, actually. First a little bit on the conditions. We were sailing in the Carquinez strait which is where the California Delta (fed by three big rivers) empties into San Pablo Bay. The river is tidal here and was near max flood (couldn't make headway against it in the middle of the strait) with some interesting eddies near shore. We also had an unusual wind direction
with a front moving through which had the wind coming down over a bluff across the strait rather than the usual blowing down the strait.

Knockdown #1: We were near the bluff and just about on the eddy line. The wind had almost completely shutdown (my masthead fly was spinning 360's!) Mainsheet was cleated. When the wind did come back it came in a big blast and I quickly noticed that the main swivel cam
had swiveled down to leeward causing me to have to shift my weight over there to go get it. By the time I had it popped out, we were on our ear.

Knockdown #2: This was another case of near no wind to max wind and complicated by being out in the max flood current. With the true wind shutdown, the current was strong enough to create an apparent wind from the opposite direction, and with almost no boatspeed through the
water, I had no steerage. Mainsheet was uncleated this time (didn't let it out of my hand after the last one!) When the blast came, it hit us beam-on. I let the mainsheet fly, but the jib was still
sheeted in hard. With no steerage and a strapped in jib, I was unable to round up, and the gust knocked us over just against the jib (yeah, it was a big one.) My poor sister, unfamiliar with the boat, didn't have the instinct to pop the jib sheet free. I was able to leap forward and pop it loose before we took on any more water.

whew! what a day. and luck would have it, today is a most beautiful California day with mild 10 kt. breeze. Looks like I picked the wrong day! All-in-all, some good lessons learned on boat handling in difficult conditions. Getting back in the harbor was interesting, too. We played it extra cautious by dropping the jib, reefing the main, and limping in nice and easy.