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.
The race was a bit of a cluster….
Oh for all you that have had fun with my harness and Jacklines… it was a life saver today.. I had to go out on the fordeck to tighten the babystay as the mast started to pump. It had been tight I thought but with such strong winds I guess it wasn’t really. I cranked on as much babystay and backstay tension as I could get.. fixed the pumping. It wasn’t bad just started when I saw it and jumped on it.
I have made believers out off all the other boats out there.. the next smallest boat was a 30 lancer.. next were 36ft catalina, 39 ft cabo rico and a 43 jeneau. (sp) The 30 lancer is my competions. he sails the same speed and pointing as Sea Puppy in all the conditions I have sailed next to him.. I think I should be able to beat him if I had crew. I lose to much ground tacking by myself. The 43 walked by everyone today performance wise… they hit 10 knots today. The Catalina was short handed with only two and the Cabo Rico is fairly slow….
big suprise of the day is the Cabo Rico winning hands down….. every other boat in the fleet went to the wrong mark and finished the course when he came on the radio going.. "where are you guys… lol" so we started over and ran the real race course… ended up
cabo rico 1st
lancer 2nd
f235 3rd
… i was bout 200 yards behind the lancer at the finish…
and none of the other boats finished. They didn’t know where the mark was and couldn’t see it in the conditions.
the only singlehanded boats out there were me and the jeneau 43… He had someone onboard but they couldn’t help due to arm with torn tendons.. Both of us were worn out by the time we got back in.
Sea Puppy handled exceedingly well at downwind and beating in these conditions but from a close reach to a broad reach she was way overpowered…. talk about rounding up.. I found myself playing the jib and the main like a violin trying to keep her on course in the gusts and as the waves changed my heel and angle on the wind.
I used a bungee wrapped three times around the tiller and it helped a lot… Held me on course when went forward to tighten the babystay. Winds were only in the high teens and low 20’s then though.
I put the reef in as I raised the sail and it went in nice… I can actually reach the luff standing on the top step in the cabin and leaning forward in the hatch.. so that worked well.
Mistake that I made was not realizing how much the wind had picked up and not putting second reef in … I think she would have stood right back up and sailed great with it in.
Average speed today was about 6 knots over water… don’t know what gps was…..
I hit 7 knots for sustained periods and coming back in with the wind and waves behind me hit 8.45 knots surfing.
Needless to say it was an exciting day….
I’m sure this is very rambling and disjointed but I’m to tired to go back and read through it… I’m going to just send it like this and then go take a long hot bath… I might look at it again later. 🙂
The next part is partly in answer to a question from where I had posted this on the www.beneteau235.com forums
I think you are right that if I had put in the second reef it would have helped me. I mostly kept it under control except when a wave would change my angle to the wind…….. but it was real nit picky sailing constantly tweeking the jib and main to depower and then power back up.. or to let it all the way out to take the pressure off so I could get back on course before hardening back up again….. One thing I have noticed though is that with the back swept spreaders you have to be into the wind a bit to take all pressure off the main. from slightly before the beam to all the way aft you can’t get the pressure off untill you have turned into the wind.. When a gust hits you and is sustained with to much sail area up your best bet is to ease the main with out putting to much pressure on the spreaders and go ahead and help it round up into the wind. Then once the wind eases you can fall back off and get back on course.. best bet yet would be to just take the next reef in.
I want a tiller pilot so bad i can taste it…… it would have changed a challangng and trying day sailing into just a challanging day sailing.
Even better than a tiller pilot would have been an experienced crewman.
The race was just out of and to the south of Little River Inlet on Long Bay off the coast of South Carolina.. It’s just a long gentle bite out of the coastline. Most times it tends to shelter us a little. When Kelly is getting 20 knots just north of here we will be getting 10 to 15… Today was aytipical in that everywhere around us was getting 10 to 14 or so and where we were was hitting 32 in a few gusts and blowing steady around 25…. It wasn’t that hard all day…… when we started it was in the 15 to 20 range which was what we expected and hoped for. Also it was supposed to be 3 to 4 feet and we were seeing a solid 6 feet torward the end of the last race.
lol. I Just spent the last hour in a tub of hot water soaking… I think I’ve gotten all the salt water out and some of the soreness.. I can’t believe how tired I am.
There were a few times today that I had solid sheets of water sweep the boat… At one point I looked down and about 2 inches of water was running out of the cockpit. gotta love our cockpits though with that large opening around the outboard. I also had solid water come up to the cabin windows on the port side once when I got rounded up and turned just right into the waves. It washed down the side and some of it even came over the back of the seat coaming into the cockpit.. not a lot but some. I didn’t have the hatchboards in place.. Just the top hatch slid shut and didn’t get more than a little spray in the cabin.. At the end of the day there was about 12 inches of junk in the floor but it was all dry. Even the area under the ladder was only slightly damp from spray.
Foul weather gear is great stuff.. Other than my head, hands and feet I stayed dry… Which made it a more pleasant day than it would have been.
ok im worn out again… lol. maybe add more later maybe not.
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