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I went to a friends wedding yesterday and missed the first day of racing… Jim and Patty and John took Sea Puppy out and raced her.. however racing against a J24, Tze Szu, a Beneteau F36.7 and a tartan 10 didn’t do much for our chances.. Sea Puppy finished 6 of 8 if .. today with me on board we finished again 6th of 8… I think we should have been in cruising class not racing class.. we were the highest phrf in racing with Bens Anago being close to us. All the other boats were significantly lower than us.
Day two at the Leukemia Cup was another day of tack tack tack. We again raced inside on the river and with a vicious current running against us on the windward tack we were limited to one side of the river. So it was short quick tacks again and again and again. Probably every 3 or 4 minutes we would tack. For some reason we just couldn’t seem to point as well or go as fast as we thought we should be. It wasn’t a great day for standings in the race but it was some fun if tireing sailing.
I slept on the boat saturday night… I went to sleep about 11pm and was told the next morning that there was a bad thunderstorm and rain about 1:30 in the morning… I wouldn’t know though 🙂 I slept like a baby the whole night.
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Here is a quick link to some pictures I took today on the second day of the race.. I will come back and fill in when I’m rested up a little 🙂
http://scottcarle.com/gallery/v/Sailingandboats/racing/album/
scott
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It was a fun race. We took 2nd place behind Tze Su? sp 2 hours 42 minutes and 40 seconds
We held with tze su upwind runing about a 10th of a knot slower than her the entire leg. Down wind runing the spinnaker though she tacked down wind and we went straight for the mark. With our symetrical spinnaker I thought we had it made about half way to the mark and that we were going to beat her. We were doing a sold 6.5 to 7.2 knots all the way downwind. Tze Su was a dot on the horizon off behind and to starboard of us.. about 2 miles from the mark she started to gain quickly and within the last mile passed us to take the finish line 4 minutes ahead of us. I talked to Patrick later and he said they were doing 9.5 knots reaching with their asymetrical spinnaker. I felt really good about coming in 4 minutes behind Tze Su…. They are based off the 235 hull but he extended the transom 3 ft so that their waterline is 3 ft more than mine. I have a wing keel and draw 2’9″ while he has a fin keel with a bulb and draws 5 ft, my mast is 29 ft tall and his is 33 ft he also has a bow sprit to run an oversized spinnaker on. Also I believe that his boat is lighter by a fair bit than mine. It certainly seems to sit lighter in the water from what I have observed. In any case it is always a boat to be feared in a race. it is fast and well captained
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I left the marina about 9 am monday morning after topping off the fuel tank. Forecast was for 3 to 4 ft seas and 15 to 20 knot winds. I put the main up with a reef in it just after leaving the marina entrance. I was blowing every bit of the forcast. As I motored out the inlet the waves started building in the mouth of the inlet so that between the current and wind I was barely making progress out the inlet. It was rough and I was taking lots of heavy spray over the boat as I tried to pound though the waves. Finally I just rasied the blade and turned the motor off. With the blade up and one reef in the main I had plenty of power to tack out the channel and through the inlet out to marker 8 and then take a right to head down the coast. As soon as I started sailing the motion of the boat became much better and it was a much drier time. It took about 6 tacks to get to the #8 so I could turn right and get around the shoals.
Sunday morning was beautifull and calm. We were almost wondering if there would be enough wind, but soon the breeze stiffened up and we had 8 to 12 for the rest of the day. After and early start the race committe decided to move fleets C and D from inside on te cape fear river to outside on the ocean to use the same course that the bigger boat fleets were using. We found out that morning that the Ultima one of the boats in our fleet had damaged their keel badly the day before running into something and they were not racing anymore. Of the rest of the boats in our fleet only Sea Puppy and Lokahi were able to traverse the Cape Fear River Inlet and get out to the race course. So even though we sailed even better sunday than saturday 🙂 and the races counted this time 🙂 we got second place by default because no one else got out to race. Lokahi ran a great couple of races and beat us both times. Actualy Lokahi beat a of bigger boats even. They also ran their spinnaker where we decided not to. Me, Patty and Jim had not had enough practice together racing and we had never run th spinnaker together before. Not to mention that Me and Patty had only sailed under spinnaker twice before in our lives. However we ran two great races and did well. Lokahi beat us fair and square.. their new sails a clean bottom and spinnaker did us in. Not to mention they didn’t make any mistakes and kevin ran a great race.
After getting In late the day before I thought I would sleep in a bit but no 🙂 race day excitement and I was up at 6:30 starting to clean up the boat and checking rigging etc…. I found a keeper ring on one of the stays that needed replacing and also loosened the inner stays a bit to let a little more pre-bend into the mast.. Kevin came by and we introduced ourselves… He also came over with his loos gauge a little later to compare its settings against my gauge.. they showed within about 10 lbs of each other the best we could tell. Mine uses lbs and his is on a numeric scale that equates to lbs. I had my uppers at about 600 lbs.. He said that he was running his there also.
I sailed to Bald Head Island on friday to go to the Bald Head Island regatta.. Hans came as crew… we were supposed to leave on thursday but the port pushpit wasn’t repaired like it was supposed to be and we ended up waiting till 2 pm on friday to get it installed and leave… at the time I was tempted to just go without it but now I am glad we didn’t. We had some really extreme weather and sailing on saturday and having working life lines and port push pit were a life saver… litterally…
The sail up there on friday was a beautifull one… but long.. we left at about 2pm and didn’t get to the Cape Fear River Inlet till about 10:00… actaully getting inside took about anothe 30 to 40 minutes… it was dark with no moon… GPS comes in handy.. not to mention seeing the lights on the channel markers. The combination of the two made it a fairly easy time getting in through the inlet… The sea state was also very calm for the inlet.
Beautifull day for racing or just sailing… about 1.5 to 2 ft seas and 10 to 15 knots of wind..
Crew of Patty, Jim and me.. we raced Angela in Sea Haven ( a O’Day 27) and Orin on La Bon Vie’ (a Beneteau Oceanus 39)
First race we finished about a minute and a half behind La Bon Vie and won on corrected time…
Second race we came in about 5 minutes behind La Bon Vie for second place…
We during the race we played with boat trim and found that sailing her flat seemed to slow her down but heeling more than about 10 degrees also slowed her down.. about a 5 degree heel seemed to be best… Moving one person forward to about the shrouds also increased our speed by a solid 1/4 to 1/2 knot.
Winds during the first race were about 10 knots and we did better at keeping up with the much heavier La Bon Vie… not to mention that for some reason they didn’t unfurl the entire Jib…. Second Race they flew the whole Jib and with slightly higher winds they consistently ran a bit faster than us.. 🙂 waterline length realy paid off for them 🙂 and with the decent winds they had the power to move.
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Went out today with Judy and sailed for a few hours… 1.5 ft seas with about a 10 second period… almost flat.. steady 10 knot breeze… I ran the one main that I had not tried today and it balances the boat perfectly with the dacron 155….. i put the bungee on the tiller and didnt have to touch it for 30+ minutes at the time…… The only bummer is that this sail like the other fully battened main doesn’t have reefing points. However under those conditions I think I like this main the most of all.
Well I went sailing/racing today.. it was the first truly official race of the season for the Long Bay Sailing Association..
At its best or should I say worst we had 6 ft seas and 25- 27 knots solid wind.. with gust to 32… this according to the Jeneau 43’s instrements that was racing with us.
It was supposed to be 10 to 15 with gusts to 20….
I took Sea Puppy out single handed. And brought her back after finishing 3rd.
I flew the 100 jib and daycron main with one reef…. earlier in day before it really kicked up this was a very nice combination… I needed the second reef in when it picked up… but was in the middle of race.. 🙁 I finished first race and they called second race… the race committee boat was getting pounded. I wouldn’t have raced second one anyways… that was some exhausting sailing….. I feel like ive been beat with a stick.
I finally built the hatchboard holder and installed it.. This one actually fit the boat 🙂 unlike the last one which fit the hatch boards but not the space beside the stairs. Here are a few pictures of it.
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