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.
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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. 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.. 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 almost didn’t go out because I was tired but Hans said he would go out with me. I was very glad he did. It was a beautifull day. It wasn’t quite as cold as saturday and the winds were more in the 10 to 15 range than the 15 to 20 that saturday was. We were able to motor out of the marina and raise sail… with the winds out of the N NW it allowed us to sail the whole 5 miles from the marina to the inlet.. Then after a little while on the ocean we turned around and sailed the entire way back to the marina… It was such a refreshing change from normal wind patterns that make you motor in and out to the inlet most of the time. We had to tack quite a bit comming back in the inlet and to the waterway but Hans was game and we had a good time doing it.. It was high tide so we had a fair ammount of room to do it in. Went sailing with Ben on sea puppy wind 15 to 20 with white caps.. 1 to 2 foot seas… We left late morning and got back around 6pm.. I rigged the Jacklines (red webbing running from babystay attachment point to the port and starboard aft cleats.)  on Sea Puppy and both me and Ben clipped in once we got out to the ocean. His tether is one of the commercial 100+ dollar ones with the high speed locking mechanism. I pulled this information off defender.com for it Well it was supposed to be an official race but it ended up being just for fun.. lol which is just as well as Sea Puppy came in second.. Winds were supposed to be 15 to 20 and instead were closer to 4 to 10… Sea Puppy raced against LC Marie a Catalina 36, Runnaway a Cabo Rico 39 and Diamond Girl a Hunter 29, In the light winds Dimanond Girl and Sea Puppy did much better than the bigger and heavier LC Mari and Runnaway.. In the first race Sea Puppy and Diamond Girl were neck and neck far out in the lead 🙂 We ended up not finishing that as the with the light winds it would have taken all day and part of the evening to finish the course. By decision of GPS distance from the mark the race went to Diamond Girl. I went out today by myself and it was the perfect day sailing… winds were light at about 10 knots and the sea was calm with only 2 ft swells or so.
I had thought that today was a race but it was just an official group sail which we turned into a race 🙂 As crew I had James a stellar sailor and Ray a newcomer to the club. We got along great and made a great team on the boat. I had high hopes to whup up on my competition today but somehow it didn’t happen.. in two races I ended up being 3rd out of 5 boats.
I finally got out sailing again yesterday.. Sea Puppy has been pulled apart for so long with me doing projects I wasn’t sure I would remember how to do it 🙂 The ocean was just about flat… with maybe 6inch to 1 ft chop and winds between 5 to 8 knots.. we left the dock about 12:30 and got back in at 6pm… I used the 100% jib and actaully sheeted it through the jib tracks on the cabin top… it did make a difference in pointing ability…. I hope to have winds that will let me sail with this jib racing.. 🙂 the extra pointing ability will come in handy. |
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