Southpaux on the Lake

Most dangerous boat: Southcoast 21

2011-06-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

I'd been out of town for a week and missed the racing a couple weeks ago. Turns out I missed a historical Blue Duck event. The account was relayed to me by members of the fleet.
During the race, Carl on port tack tried to duck Pat the starboard tack boat. Carl failed to release the main, the rudder came out of the water, and rounding up, hit Pat abeam. Pat found that a few seam rivets had popped but no serious damage. Carl had a hole punched into his bow near the water line.
Carl had no idea about the damage. He did his penalty turns and sailed on to the weather mark. Rounding, popped the spinnaker and headed downwind. The spinnaker pushed the bow down, filling the boat with water. Carl, finally noticing the problem. Dropped his sails and signaled to a race committee chase boat for help. The chase boats are rugged aluminum boats with 100+ hp out board engines.
The J-24 fleet were manning the RC boats. These guys have limited intelligence (why else would you crew on a J-24?) and are always on the legal limit of consciousness.
The chase boat threw a short line. Carl tied it around the mast: Carl just graduated into a lifetime membership into the J-24 fleet.
While pulling the boat toward shore, the tow line tension caused the hole the be submerged and a ram effect added to the incoming water pressure. The boat sank in 40 feet of water. The chase crew had no knife and could not cut the line. The sinking sailboat dragged the chase boat over on its side and sank the chase boat. All of a sudden, there were 5-6 people treading water.
Everyone was rescued.
I think everyone in the fleet should paint an chase boat icon on the side. Don't mess with us.

The End of the World Is Near!

2011-05-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

Harold Camping says the end of the world starts this Saturday. If any followers out there have a boat they'd like to pass on to a sinner let me know. I'll write you a check for any out-of-this-world deal!

2011 Intergalactics

2011-05-02T17:27:00.000-07:00

The fleet held their national championships this past Saturday. A little light on the start line with only 9 boats signed up. I suppose the high winds we've been having the last couple months may have put a damper on the fleet. Nobody had much practice going into the weekend. The few clowns that went out last week in 25+ knots just did survivor practice.

I had Jen and Renee as crew. I wanted to get some practice in the night before during beer can but the winds were over thirty. Jen couldn't make it so Renee and I ended up drinking on Ray's J-29. A Hobie 33 came out of the harbor and taunted us. We got the sails up fast and went out and dominated the other two idiots that ventured out.

Afterwards during docking, I was standing on the dock holding the bow of the J-29 sideways into the wind while waiting for the bow lines to get cleated. The sideways pressure caused my foot to give way and I slipped onto my port ass cheek onto the side of the dock. Would have gone all the way in but held onto the pulpit.

Overnight I had a hard time sleeping because of the pain. Saturday morning I added ass pads to my sailing pants. It has pockets for that reason. I'd bought them years ago to prevent the bruises I'd get on the backs of my legs from sitting on the toe rail. Turns out they didn't go down far enough to prevent the bruises and made it look like I was carrying a load so I never used them. I remembered and loaded them up before the race.

While moving a laser trailer to get my boat out of it's dry slip, I slipped on some leaves and went down on my ass again. Make it stop! Needless to say I was walking tenderly.

Renee, Jen and I got the boat rigged and going. It was great to have Renee taking over the fore deck and getting the rigging done. I felt Jen was a little tentative when she found out she was taking over Matt's job and doing the spinnaker trim and tacking the jib. The wind was up a bit so I knew there were going to be some loads on the sheets.

We went up the course and popped the spinnaker. It'd been a while for Jen and I. It was a sloppy set but it got up. The dowse was almost as bad but I was happy it wasn't worse.

The first race I made a run to the pin and got into time trouble. I was 3 seconds too early and had to peel off and do a 270 to go on port tack. We were screwed and ended up 5th or 6th. A pretty good recovery considering.

The next race we got a good start but the single recall flag was up and we thought it might have been us since nobody else was going back. We peeled off and went back to the start only to find out we weren't the offending boat. Yea, I know, should have carried a radio but forgot to charge it up the night before (My ass was distracting me!)

Even with the bad start we moved up a couple places. At the finish we were on port tack and were going to reach the three-boat-limit first and, from an article in Sailing World that both Renee and I read, asserted our rights for room at the mark over a starboard tack boat. They protested us. They didn't have a protest flag so stuck a rule book on their back-stay. If I was thinking I would have loaned them our flag.

The 3rd race started badly; I was too early again and had to peel off and do another 270 onto port tack and in second to last place. By this time I'd settled down more and focused on making the boat go faster. Renee kept telling me to just drive the boat. I kept hearing her saying we were on the favored tack and everyone else was following each other on the bad tack. The winds were very shifty. It was hard keeping the boat in the groove.

Near the end of the race I notice we'd past a boat that had been in third. I was completely surprised. We ended the race in second! I told Renee I wish I could have seen that race to see how well we did instead I stared at a couple pieces of string the whole time. Renee was fantastic calling the shots.

After a short lunch break we were back out. In what turned out to be the last race we finally got a real good start. We tacked onto port and had to duck a single starboard boat but then we were off to the races. Led the rest of the way to the finish in dying winds.

Jen was a trooper. Once I slowed the tacks down she was fantastic on the sheets. (It was my fault on most of the tacks) She was getting the trim on the spinnaker too. I was worried that she'd get tired on the sheets but she never did. It was her first time flying the kite and she has the basics down. We never had a bad wrap and got out of trouble with minimum fuss. Guess what Matt, you're doing fore deck from now on.

Afterward I went into the protest meeting for the issue on the second finish. Before going in, Renee came up with the rule book and the room at the mark only applies to down wind finishes. I immediately said I withdraw but the judges said when Andy flew the rule book on his back stay it was an invalid protest and does not count. One of the judges seemed to be pushing me to not withdraw and keep our place. This was getting weird. I told them regardless of the validity of the protest I withdraw from the race. Afterwards, Andy said He'd carry a protest flag from now on. (This is how I lost my last protest.) I told him later I should have given him mine but didn't think about it.

All in all, a good race. A great race considering how little we practiced together. Even with the last place plus one score on the protest race we ended up 4th overall and got a real nice trophy. We got the first place trophy for the silver fleet. Nobody signed up for the silver fleet so they gave out a 4th and 5th place trophy.

Jen gets her first trophy!

The ass situation? When we went out I felt it on the port tacks. Once the racing started I didn't feel a thing. I can post a picture if everyone wants one...

Here's some photos!
Notice we're rarely in the group shots...

Been a while

2010-11-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

Yea, I suck. Been fighting a cough that does not seem to want to go away. It didn't help that I sucked in a few lung fulls of fiberglass dust during the worst of it. I'm sure I'm on my way to an early death from white lung disease.
I've been spending a lot off time finishing up the hole in the boat. The boat is functional but there was still a lot of cosmetic sanding and finishing to do. I sanded for a couple hours today and put a finish coat of epoxy on.
While waiting around for the epoxy to set, I walked down to the rigging dock to check out Claude's new J-80. They were heading out early for the beer can and asked if I wanted to come along. Sure thing.
The boat was raced by the Swedish team in the worlds last month. J boats had a special sale deal on the boats they supplied to the worlds for the over seas teams. Claude and JoAnn originally were going to get one of the boats from a Spanish team but the boat was too damaged from all the heavy racing. Apparently the Swedes took it easy.
We ended up sailing around in mostly light winds. It filled in a little by the start of the Saturday Beer Can race but we were the only boat. We dominated. A beautiful day though.

In the last couple months I've been racing series races with Krista as crew. She's had a great attitude and has been learning the front end of the Southcoast 21. She finishes graduate school next month and moving to Atlanta. I'm going to miss her. Mostly because she's such a fanatic about sailing and she's leaned so much the last 6 months as crew on Southpaux.
I've been doing the Beer Cans on Ray's J-29. Once on Doug Casey's J-29 too.
Last week I did a sail out and bar-b-q on Ray's boat. We rafted up with a bunch of Austin Sailing Society boats. A fun group. We arrived early in Cypress Creek cove and there was already another boat anchored. We anchored 50 meters away even though a guy in the lime green speedo looked like he wanted us to side tie. Ended up with 5 boats in a raft.

I have a new-old phone. Krista got a new phone so she gave me her old one. My battery no longer falls out when I answer calls. It's an older model and has no camera so the pics will be sparse.

Paul Horton on his Corsair 31, Tribology, finished first in the multi-hull division of last month's Harvest Moon Regatta off the Texas coast. I crewed for him a couple summers ago and the occasional Beer Can. He helped me with the fiberglass work. He offered to help design a cat trap for Lety too. A super nice man.

Krista Driving

2010-11-06T17:37:00.001-07:00

Click here to view these pictures larger

Night Race Regatta

2010-08-24T15:33:00.000-07:00

Last week I got offers to crew on 3 different boats for the Friday night Beer Can. I'm not too proactive about these things so my policy is to take the first offer that comes along. Ended up on Ray's J-29. It was another fantastic warm night under a near full moon. Lot's of boats too, which was great. Hard to believe beer can racing ends in another month.
Later in the week I got an offer to race for Linda on my old boat, Far Away (was Slow Play), during Saturday's night race regatta. There were 4 of us on board and all of us had skippered various boats. There was a lot of suggestions and counter suggestions going on.
The boat was moving a little slow after the start in light winds. We were passed by a Steve in his Catalina 30, Endorfin, shortly after the start. Damon in his Hunter 30, Over Keel, was running up behind us to the the first downwind marks.
I was trying to fly the main and not doing a very good job of it at first. I was trying to get speed readings from the helm but Linda was busy trying to diagnose why the depth gauge wasn't working. In the mean time Over Keel kept trying to get a passing lane by heading up and over us. To prevent this from happening we kept sailing more into shallow waters. To increase the fun, Linda started showing Bob and Mike how to work the self tailing winches. Needless to say, our course suffered.
While we were slowing down Over Keel, Endorfin was building a big lead. I had thoughts that this race might mirror the start of last year's race when Endorfin ran away from the fleet. I was on RC and reports were going out that Steve was miles ahead of the other racers at the turn around mark. Then he ran aground! Don't remember where he finished but it sure wasn't first.
We rounded mark 9 in second with Over Keel just behind. Endorfin was about 200 yards ahead but seemed to be heading more towards red mark 10. Over Keel went to a close reach to pass below us. Linda wanted to block low but I'd just looked at the coarse card and the next mark rounding was 12. I trimmed for close hauled to cut the corner and bullied Linda into heading up. I think she saw Endorfin low ahead and Over Keel going low behind and wanted to be defensive.
The boat finally started to feel better. The big head sail had a real good shape compared to my old Genoa. Using my experience from the old sail I over-trimmed it the first time. Mike tried to be diplomatic by saying something like, "Are you sure you want to trim it so much?". He had me ease off on the trim to get a better shape on the bottom of the sail. It would have been nice to have that sail when I had the boat. It was real nice.
We gained back almost 150 yards on Endorfin before the first tack. Our close hauled coarse put 50 yards on Over Keel. Two more tacks and we passed Endorfin near mark 11.
As darkness settled in the winds went on the light side. As we closed on 12 the winds started getting fluky since 12 was in the lee of a cliff.
Linda was getting antsy and was worried about getting too close to shallows. Every time she asked for an opinion on tacking she got conflicting answers. I tried to shut up. I tried to designate Mike as tactician so Linda would have a single source of input. Bob was funny, kept talking like a lawyer offering opinions about both tacks. Linda was even funnier, asked when to tack them tacked when she felt like it.
Linda had trouble reading the telltales in the dark. Tried a couple lights till Mike got out the big dog. We started out trying to get a feel for the wind with updates with the light on the telltales every once an a while. Ended up with light on most of the time.
We turned 12 in first with a big lead in the lightening wind. No drama on the reverse course until we got near the last mark, 6. Linda was in antsy mode wanting to tack. The rest of us told her to keep going till the lay line of mark 6. Mike started a verbal count down, "10..9..8..7..6.." Linda yells "Tacking!". Turns out we didn't need the extra 4 or 5 seconds since we got around 6 fine.
Back at the dock Tommy came in in his damn Southcoast 21. We started doing the math and it looked like it was going to be close. He later told us he cut inside 6 and disqualified himself.
A fun race.
Sunday I was back out on the water doing RC duty for the first Late Summer series race. All I can say was that it was damn hot; especially when the wind died. Jumping in the lake you have to go deep to get to cool water. Late summer.

Back from Cool

2010-08-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

OK, back from a cool vacation. I made a promise to get out of the heat for a spell this summer and this was the result. Lety and I flew to Boston, rented a mid-sized SUV, bought a cheap tent and cooler at Walmart, and set off to find cool nights. The plan was to do something like an old Sunday drive most days then find a camp site.
Yes, we were roughing it. It took us a few days to get used to it but by the 4th night we were efficient campers and getting good enough sleep.
We set off to Maine and generally stayed along US 1. Stayed in Southern Maine the first night. Did the tour at Bath Iron works. Bar Harbor the second. Stayed two nights in St. John, New Brunswick where we saw the reversing falls because of the extreme tides.
Drove down to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and saw some acts from the Busker's festival. The acts were on the lame side but I suspect being there on Sunday may have limited the talent level.
Did a long drive back to Maine and crossed at the Limestone border crossing. They beefed it up in the 90s. It was no longer a 'secret' crossing where the Canadian guard would wave from a small shack. We had our belongings searched in the US side. Last time I got this treatment was going into East Germany from Poland back in 1983. Come on. Lety noticed we were only the second car through and it was already 3 pm. I spent a year at Loring AFB. It was closed in 1994. We were able to drive out onto the flight line and see the old weather observation site. At the time it was known as the aim point for Soviet nuclear missiles.
We were miles south of Presque Isle when we noticed Saturn on the side of the road. The solar system model was pretty cool, spread out over 40 miles and much better than a large ball of yarn.

We spent another couple days back around the coast and Bangor. Saw Hinckley Yachts. Lots of cool little towns and marinas.

Drove on through New Hampshire but didn't stop, just blinked twice. Spent 4 nights in Vermont. Did Ben and Gerry's, Stow, saw Lake Champlain, Burlington, then camped for a couple days near Jamaica, VT.
Drove down through Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island (Since we'd never been.) Did a stop at Foxwoods, a massive casino.
We did our single motel night in Foxborough, Mass. Then flew out the next day after donating the cooler and tent to whoever gets it first.
It was a pleasant break from the heat and grind.

AquaPalooza

2010-07-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

Some of us hopped on Ray's J-29 and motored/sailed/motored up the lake to mile marker 21 to check out this year's signature Aquapalooza. We were less than a mile short of the event but it would have been too much work to get in closer. The website claims there were 15,000 boats but 5,000 may have been a better guess. Anyway, it was an event and worth going. The two tropical storms we caught the edges of have kept things cool the last couple weeks so it didn't get blindingly hot.
We had the canopy up and plenty of food and refreshments. The best part of the event was watching the show float by. The show in this case is all the boaters trying to figure out how an anchor works. The best was a boat full of ex-USMC (Uncle Sam's Misguided Children) that made multiple attempts to get a hook set. They started off OK by lowering the right end down but then kept tying off when the weight hit the lake bottom. Then they'd hoop and holler, crack open drinks, and power up the C&W, oblivious to how much they were drifting.

The pic here shows them on their slow way towards another group of boaters. Once close to other boats, they'd start looking around with perplexed looks.
Getting back to the original spot was almost as funny as the slow drifting. The first time they had one try to swim up with the anchor. They finally started the motor and helped out but not before we thought they might run over the anchor guy. They came close to chopping up their anchor line too.
After a few repeats with variations, we took pity on them and had them put more line out. They only had 50 foot in 25 foot depth so it wasn't much help. But they had a buddy pull up and throw his 50 foot out and they started holding. Meanwhile, some of the downwind boats pulled up anchor and moved to another spot.
The concert started but we could barely hear it. We cranked a couple people up the mast to get some pictures.

If you bought a brand new Sea Ray you get the good seats (see pic.) We had perfect seats since we decided to leave early before the event was over.

Halfway back we were hit by waves of power boats rushing back home. Got back to the dock and jumped in for a cooling swim. Was home by 9:00.

Broken Boat

2010-06-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

Took a few weeks off writing. Haven't been too inspired. Seems each week is a repeat of the last. My regular crew John has taken the month off and I've had a couple part-timers filling in. This means a lot of spinnaker wraps in the wrong places and a lot of back-winding the gib. We did manage to place around 3rd or 4th for placing so we got a 3rd overall in the Summer series. One crew, Krista, seems to have lots of potential.
The last race of the series we had the mother of all wraps; a double hour glass around the fore stay. We sailed on past the leeward mark trying to get it sorted out. It was so bad I started laughing. We got it sorted out and only lost 100 yards!
During one of the up wind legs I felt something happen to the boat. Like I hit something. Looked around in the water but didn't see anything. Checked all the rigging but nothing obvious. Later I saw a 12 inch crack in the topside fiberglass. It's on one of the cockpit seats. The seat was soft and I knew I'd have to fix it sometime; I figured I could wait till winter when the ambient air temp is 50 degrees cooler than the Summer. Looks like I may have to attempt an earlier fix. The fiberglass underneath the seat had delaminated from the sandwiched plywood. Loads of fun to look forward to.

Hawaiian Nut

There's a guy doing the single-handed Transpac in an International Folk Boat. Adam Correa is sailing "Blue Moon" to Hanalei Bay, Kauai from San Francisco. I did my first racing in a Nordic Folk Boat in the Oakland Estuary. One of my jobs was to hand-pump the bilge going down wind from the leaking through the wood. This was normal for this boat. Adam has the fiberglass model but still...

Turn Back Canyon Regatta this Weekend

2010-05-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

I will be part of Race Committee. I will assert my authority all over the course. Actually, I'll need to calculate how much drink ice to carry that will make it through the whole day. Winds look on the light side so this will be a major concern. Possibility of being a tow service too. See everyone out there.

Moon Down, Sailor Gone

2010-05-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Moon down, sailor gone
as much apart as once belong
heart and soul to dust and swirl
wither memory to gather
illuminate path step followers
to a sail once sailed
to a place once sailed
to a time no longer
moon down, sailor gone

Summer Series Start

2010-05-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we had the first races of the summer series. I was running a bit late and had no crew. I figured I'd get out there and sail the boat myself, making a fool of myself at the mark roundings. After hooking up the trailer and driving down to the ramp to get in line for launching, I was called over to a group of Southcoasters. Pat F. had injured his foot earlier in the day and didn't want to launch his boat. He wanted to crew so I said, "Let's go."
Pat told me a couple times why his toes were bandaged up but I could never figure out the logic of the story. Something about walking on a broom on the floor which came up and hit him in the head, causing him to fall into a vacuum machine, then his toe getting dislocated. See? I stopped listening. He was on drugs.
We got out on the water and had no time for much practice. Pat was excited about the layout of the boat's equipment. I thought all these guys in the fleet engaged in Southcoast incest and knew each others boats. I guess not.
We got a decent start in the first race. Pat was pretty calm and made tactical suggestions. We were around the windward mark in second but Ray had a big lead. We gained some back on the downwind but was never able to catch. Pat left the jib up during the runs and I told him Bartlett told me to drop on the deck. He lowered it on the last run. We spent the next three legs doing a light cover to keep our place. Ray extended his lead on the upwind legs. Thinking about it it was obvious we had too much slack on the back stay. While waiting for the next race Bartlett came by and told us to tighten it up.
The last race was a short W1. We got another ok start but we'd wanted to be closer to the committee boat. I miss-timed it by 20 seconds and we ended up stuck between boats on the favored tack. Pat suggested tacking out while we still had room to duck the windward boat but we kept getting lifted enough to keep going.
We were still in clear air and moving fast enough to get half a boat length on Ravi, the windward boat. As we got closer to the port lay line we thought we'd have to suck it up and wait on Ravi to tack. The leeward boats had all tacked and ducked earlier. Then Ravi's boat tacked before the lay line. Pat wanted to tack right away but we got one of the big lifts that live close around 'E' mark. By the time we made our tack we were in first by 3-4 boat lengths.
We went around and popped the spin. While on the run Bartlett started drifting closer to us in a chase boat. I told Pat he was coming over. Pat realized he hadn't dropped the jib. He said, "I bet he says something about the gib." He past behind us then said in a normal voice, "How's that gib working out for you?" As Pat reached up to release the halyard, John yelled, "Get the damn thing down!" OK boss!
Noticed a small rip in the bottom of the spin. No matter, rode it down to the windward mark then made a good douse and turn. We had a 5-6 boat length lead so we kept a tight cover the first tack. The second tack Bruce tacked into a header so we ignored him. Finished first with a comfortable lead.
I was asked a couple times if Pat was driving. I responded that he wasn't but he told me where to go.

Southcoast Inter-Galactics

2010-05-09T22:49:00.000-07:00

The annual fleet championships were held on Saturday. It was blowing 15 with gusts in the low 20s. This means wet in a low free-board boat. The water temp was up to 70 so it's only a minor concern; especially of you're driving in the back of the boat.
We had John and Doichin as crew. Doichin, from Bulgaria, expressed interest in sailing with us last week and I told him I'd have to check wind first. Well, wind was up so he was on.
I think the winds may have kept some boats away from the regatta; we had 11, last year there was around 18.
On our way out I was telling John how I sunk Remus' trailer. Doichin was on the dock and saw what happened. He said after I let the line go and was walking on the dock, Remus backed up some more and hit his breaks and that's when the line popped of the ball. Made me feel better about the whole thing.
We got out early enough to do a single spin pop and douse but not enough time to get a lot of practice. It was a rather short start line for the conditions but I thought it would be interesting.
Sometime before the first start the main sheet came all the way out during a gibe close to the start line. I had de-rigged it a week earlier to fix a drag issue and neglected to put a stopper knot in it. We were able to get it re-rigged but I lost my sense of were I needed to be for the start.
We got going but were way late and in dirty air. We were in 9th and never caught up. The wind was giving us fits, way too much power in the main. Did a couple auto-tacks. Ended up in 9th.
The next race again we had a horrible start. I think it was the race we were over early and had to turn back. 8th place.
The 3rd race we got into start problems again. Had to spin out at the pin and face a wall of starboard tack boats. I kept the turn going because there was room at the pin but we were slow and sucked bad air for too long. Another 8th place.
After a break for lunch we got a bad start which was an improvement over my terrible starts. This time we had too much tension on the back-stay and had a bad looking sail. Doichin wanted to ease it but it's against class rules to make the adjustment during a race. It didn't stop him from asking 4 or 5 times. We lost at least two or three places because of the bad sail. 7th place finish.
I was getting frustrated. I was a much better sailor than this. Crew was great. Doichin was very positive even at the worst times. He was going full speed all the time; bailing water, cleaning up lines, trimming, encouraging.
Before the last race the winds calmed down a bit. We finally had a good start. No, we had a great start. We took off at full speed. Finally had every thing set right. The boat was moving.
I just fixated on the tell-tails making the boat move. We tacked on port and I told the guys to watch out for starboard traffic. They said there was nobody even close.
We made the windward mark with a 30 yard lead. The chute came out good. We got the the leeward mark with a 25 yard lead. We fought back up to the windward mark and had a 20 yard lead. The trailing boats gave us more bad air going downwind this time. Linda McD tried to get inside to pass. We maintained enough of a lead to round the leeward mark first. 10 yard lead. The last upwind leg before the finish and Linda was pointing higher. Doichin convinced me to go for speed rather than point. It was a bit choppy out so I wanted to keep the boat moving. She may have had just a slightly better VMG. A big boat wake came at us while on port tack. I looked over and saw Linda tack but I thought a bit early. It gave us room to do a fast tack just before we got hit by the wake. John and Doichin did a great job on the unexpected tack. We then had position and had her covered; she didn't have enough of a lead to tack in front back onto port.
We could have kept the cover but we tacked away on a header and she stayed on starboard. I was worried about following boats taking us both out if we covered. We kept thinking of getting back on the cover but saw stronger winds on our heading that nobody else had before us and kept going.
Tack on the wind and cruised to the finish for the bullet. That made up for the whole previous 4 races. What made it awesome was all the support I got from all the other competitors. Some were just as happy for us as we were. A lot of the other skippers were saying they were rooting for us the whole race. I think I'm going to like these guys.

Friday Night Blue Duck Submission

2010-05-09T21:43:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I was able to make it to my first beer can of the year. It helps when your job moves 12 miles closer to the lake. Remus called and wanted more crew for his Ross.
We got the boat rigged and tried to get off the dock. The wind was on the nose of the boat and we were parallel with the rigging dock. The boat has the mast way pretty far forward on the deck and we didn't get it out fast enough before we started moving- backwards.
We had to fend ourselves off of some lasers and 420s parked on the rigging dock but finally got going in the right direction. We were a little late to the start and it took some time to get the sails trimmed but we were moving well. Dane was on helm and Jack, Remus, Doichen and I were crew.
The race went well and we got in in 3rd or 4th.
Then the fun started. Remus backed the trailer down the ramp. I went up to help. He had the trailer on a line connected to the ball on his truck. He had a castering wheel on the tongue that really wanted to go sideways even though the trailer was double-axled. I grabbed the line to guide it straight down the ramp while Remus back the truck down behind me. Once the trailer was partially submerged and going straight I let go and went on the ramp to help guide the boat on.
This is when thinks went wrong. The trailer line came off the ball. The trailer disappeared. The cove is now at around 70-80 feet in depth past the end of the ramp.
Remus came down and gave me an evil look. I realized my movements may had disconnected the line from the ball on the truck. I felt awful.
Luckily the trailer did it's castering thing and we saw a pad a few feet below the dock. It had gone of the ramp under the dock and got hung up on the rocks.
We got a line on it and attached it to the truck and after pulling very hard (less than the line's 3500lb strength) we pulled it partially on the ramp. Then a pad caught a dock cable. After taking a couple pads off we got it back up the ramp.
The only damage was the castering wheel post bent over and a bent pad support. I still felt awful.
Lots of spectator's were making duck noises. The Blue Duck award is given out each year to most bone-headed thing any gets caught doing around the club. Quack.

Sick Day

2010-04-25T21:27:00.000-07:00

One of those days where I should have stayed in bed. I'll try to get this out before the drugs take effect. I'd not been felling well the last couple days. I wanted to go the test drive event on Saturday to sail on some different boats and tried to ignore how I felt but just walking outside had me feeling woozy.
Sunday felt a bit better but not much. Winds were a lot higher than the forecast called for all week. 14 knots gusting to over 20. Got out to the club and launched the boat. It was a mess from all the pollen fuzz off the cedar trees. I scrubbed the deck and noticed the cockpit wasn't draining. Tried the normal methods to clear the drain with no luck. Got a 3 ft length of 1/2 inch PVC and tied to blow it out. No luck.
John showed up and we took off with the cockpit looking a mess. We have a half gallon bailing scoop so there is an alternative a method to getting the water out. You just need a lot more water to make it worth while.
We finished rigging the spinnaker on the way out. Then we did a set in moderate winds. The kite almost pulled us over a couple times and added plenty of water into the cockpit.
After dousing the kite I decided to make another attempt at blowing the drain clear. I blew as hard I could then fell backwards in the boat. I'd gotten tunnel vision and had partially passed out. Nothing major, just lost control of the extremities. The rest of the time before the start I just took it easy.
During pre-start of the first race I was too early onto the start line. My timing was way off and was over early. Then I fouled another boat trying to get a clear lane back to the line. This was ugly. By the time we cleared the start and our turns the fleet was just gone. It really takes the motivation out. No point in talking about the rest of the race. We got 6th, DFL.
The next race we were following another boat and I was trying to get overlap. I didn't notice until it was too late that another boat had gotten overlap behind us. We were forced up but I couldn't spin away because he was inches from the beam of the boat. We started clear but I may have committed a penalty. I didn't hear protest so we kept going.
We were 5th to the weather mark after a bad tack but still in it. One of the issues with this boat is that the main sheet has too much drag on it. We usually pop the spinnaker first then worry about the main afterward but after talking to Ray where he said the main is 50% of the downwind power of this boat, I need to fix this. We lost a few boat lengths going downwind and I think it was getting the main out too late.
When we got to the leeward mark all kinds of boats were doing turns. Turns out all 5 boats ahead of us arrived at the mark together in a space for only 3 boats. We were back in the middle of the fleet.
But the boat who I thought we'd foaled at the start was flying a protest flag! I went by him and asked if the flag was for me but they just mumbled. Damn. The next weather mark we put ourselves out of the race by doing turns. DFL. Somebody kill me.
Both John and I couldn't find much to celebrate this day. Except all the bailing of water did clean out the cockpit.
As we sailed to the dock I went forward to tie off a halyard. We got a big gust and the boat auto-tacked. The gib was back-winded and I was hanging on the mast. The boat, with my weight up high, went right on its side scooping a mass of water. To prevent water going into the cabin and sinking the boat, I let go and jumped into the lake. I held onto the side and after blowing the main, John helped me up from the stern of the boat.
After putting the boat way. I had a beer and felt awful with a pounding headache.. Went home.

Spring Series - Mixed bag

2010-04-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

Usually I'm the last to know things around the club. This week was no different. Trey and Debbie of Humana Matrimony have decided to pay the marriage tax! Congratulations.

Yesterday was cloudy and cooler than expected. It was also a few knots more wind than expected. Wind was around 10-12, higher than the last forecast I saw at 6-8.
The water was a bit choppy and confused too. Turned out to be hard to read the shifts during most of the day.
We have a lot of time to sail around before our start. Mostly doing some practice and getting a feel for the conditions around the course. It also gives me a chance to yell smack at our competitors.
I also like to see the other fleets start. The 'A' fleet started with a rare port tack boat getting a big lead on everyone else. It's rare cause you start near the pin side of the start line on port tack which means you have to give way to any boats coming in on starboard. If you're fast enough you can get past the starboard boats without having to give way and it's glory the rest of the race.
Later, the Non-spin fleet was setting up for their start when I saw my old boat (sail #54) trying the same trick. Problem was she was late to the line and the starboard boats had timed their starts better and closed off the importunity. She tried to recover by tacking beneath the on-coming boats but got her gib sheets caught on the whisker pole mast track and back-winded the gib. This stops the boat. It was ugly. I couldn't watch anymore.
Later I heard what happened and told Linda that her foredeck person needs to raise the car up the mast after taking down the pole. She was in no mood for Captain Obvious.
We got to our start and seemed slow over the line. Ray There were a couple boats below us that started faster but we had them covered so they couldn't tack in front of us. I kept getting looks from them like, "When's this ass going to tack?". But I was slow and wanted speed so I made them suffer a bit longer. Usually we play the puffs fairly well but I couldn't see squat because of the chop. We have no compass on board and this time I missed one. Using just the eyeball in relation to the mark didn't fair very well.
We were way behind in last place when we rounded the weather mark.
We were assigned a Gold Cup race course. It's a triangle course that takes a lot of strategy out of two of the legs. We got the spinnaker up for the reaching leg with the pole way forward. Half way down the leg we got a puff that pulled the rudder out of the water and we did our first round up. I should have parked myself windward aft but I was screwing with the main in the center of the boat...
We still made up time and got close to the other boats but then we had to douse the spinnaker. This exercise killed any chance to catch boats.
We got close again at the finish and all the boats finished close but we earned our first DFL of the series.
The next start was a normal W1 and we got a decent start. We got a couple good shifts and ended up 2nd around the weather mark. We lost a place setting the spinnaker but had just made it up when we had to drop the kite. Back into 3rd, we tried like hell to catch up but ended up finishing in 3rd.
Bruce had a fantastic race. He finished first while single-handed. Yes, he popped the spinnaker by himself! Clown.

First Spring Series Race

2010-04-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

We're halfway through the spring racing calendar yet Sunday was the first series race for the Southcoast fleet. Prior race weekends were taken up by RC duty and cancellations due to high winds.
The fleet got in two races. We ended up with a 4th and a 2nd out of 7 boats on the start. A real good result considering how badly we did setting and dousing the spinnaker. A few times John and I were laughing on how screwed up things were getting. I estimate we lost a minimum 20 boat lengths on the 4 evolutions. My favorite was when we dragged the spinnaker through the water and it spun the boat around.
First race I made a cautious start and got covered in bad air. Most of the fleet kept on starboard tack and we got on port once a lane cleared. We'd talked about the right side looking more consistent wind wise so it fitted with our general plan. I really need some kind of compass indicator in the boat. Sometimes it was hard to tell which tack was the favorite. We ended middle of the pack at the weather mark then lost a couple places trying to get the spinnaker sorted out.
We got back to the right side of the coarse after a challenging gibe. It turned out it was stronger so we gained a place or two back. The douse at the leeward mark was comical. We spent the rest of the race making and losing gains to get fourth. Bruce M got the win.
The next race was much more interesting. The committee boat was favored and most of the fleet was bunched up on that side. I wanted in on the action but had to give way to another boat and ran out of time before we could get back in the mix. We ended up going towards the pin but with plenty of speed going down the line.
The start had a couple boats forced over early and we were on our way full speed in clear air.
The wind had been shifting so we could almost make the mark on the up wind. We did one tack and was second around the pin. The spin set wasn't too bad considering we did a gibe set without the pole. We lost distance, as usual, in the mark roundings but maintained most of our start advantage throughout the race.
We spent a lot of time following Ray. The last upwind mark rounding we were in the lead but lost it doing our spin show. Ray got the first and we held off Bruce for second.
No matter. We were real pleased with the result for both races. It's great knowing once we get the mark roundings sorted out we'll be in the mix.
So far I'm loving this racing. It keeps you focused and there's way more opportunities for tactical gains.
I miss the slip. I also miss my buddies in the non-spin fleet. I need to get to know more of the people in the Southcoast fleet so I can yell taunts at them. So far I've only yelled at Ray and Bob on Bruce's boat.
Perhaps I'll learn some nonsense Spanish phrases for the next start.

Opening Day Regatta

2010-03-15T16:25:00.000-07:00

Last year you may remember writing about how I was abused by Carl M in his boat, Gin n Tonic, during the Southcoast Intergalactics. Carl, in his 80s, sold his boat last year and has popped up a few times as crew in the fleet. Sunday I saw him dressed up and sitting with his wife, waiting for the Opening Day ceremony to start. I walked over and asked him if he was sailing today. He said, "No, I have no boat." Of coarse I asked him if he'd crew for me. His eye's lit up and like a little boy, asked his wife if it'd be OK if he could go out and play.
I just wanted him on the boat so I could get him to scream like I did last year on his boat. OK, It was a series of whimpers but you get the idea.
Carl wasn't too happy when I said we had another crew coming. The winds were light and getting a race off wasn't looking good. He was concerned about crew weight in light winds. Normally I'd worry about this too but we're still getting a feel for the boat and I'd much rather gain experience than finish a place higher in the standings.
Anyway, John showed up and seemed cool about it.
We went down to rig the boat. Carl got distracted and went down on dock one. I had to send John to collect him since yelling across the water doesn't work when a guy is deaf outside of 3 feet. Carl did remind me that he was hard of hearing. This was something I didn't need reminding of. I didn't know if he was as self-aware in his vision. I didn't bring it up.
We got the boat rigged enough to go and the wind started filling in. I told Carl to take us out of the harbor and John and I finished up the rigging.
Once out, we milled around upwind of a huge start line. We had enough boats (5) in the fleet to have our own one-design fleet but we were starting with the Ensign fleet too. This was going to be a downwind start so things were a bit tricky. It didn't help that there were a lot of unknown boats out on the water and a lot of traffic with 60 boats in the Regatta. The wind was up around 8-10, temperature in the high 70s, perfect.
We practiced a spinnaker set that went OK. We doused it on the starboard side which turned out to be a bad idea. Before the start we had to be on port tack to pop the spinnaker. I wanted to be clear of any starboard boats on the line so I went wide of the start line. We spent so much time preparing for the spinnaker I was way late to the start. The spin came out OK and we started catching back up to the 3 boats in front of us.
We were doing well but had to do a gybe to get around the docks at You-float-em. We screwed up the gybe and hour-glassed the kite. Seemed like 10 minutes before we got it straightened out. We were last in the fleet now.
Once the kite came down we were able to claw our way back into the fleet going upwind. Right before the turn around we were back into 3rd and 20 yards behind the next boat. Half the race was done and we were all fired up. Even Carl was excited.
After the turn we started downwind again. If I was thinking we would have swapped the kite to the other side on the way up. Now we had to gibe away from coarse to get the kite launched. Once back pointed in the right direction we'd lost a lot of ground. We kept fighting the kite and got passed and were back into last place. The stress on the pole was pretty great and finally some big chop caused the end off the pole to snap off. Once the pole was gone John flew the kite and our speed picked way up. Hmmm.
The 4th place boat had 50 yards on us. Once we dropped the kited and started heading upwind and we gradually started catching them. We started coming up on them and they kept riding us up to stop us from passing. This was a similar situation we had last fall when Renee was driving the Hunter and Zydeco was trying to stop us from passing. I told John we were going to fall off and to ease the gib when I say. I watched their helmsman and when he looked ahead I dropped the boat down across their transom and through their wind shadow before the could react. It was cool!
We got a little distance on them. I asked Carl if he wanted to drive us to the finish but he begged off. We covered them to the finish and finished 4th.
We have no problem going upwind. In fact Bartlett has this boat tuned so it out points most other boats on the water. I learned that the boat reaches pretty fast too. We still lack crispness on tacks. I did some over-steering a few times. It will come together over time. I sure love how the boat tacks. Small puffs I'd ignore on the Hunter are all in the tactics wheel house now. I can't wait to get into a tacking duel with a covering boat. (I bet John will have the sheets crossed then!) Need to fix the traveler; my hands were raw pulling on it.
Carl never screamed once. He kept getting his legs caught between the tiller and seat and was slow getting across the cockpit but he was loving it. He knew it too. Kept apologizing for screwing us up but we were all having a blast and I kept telling him it was all cool.

Crew Matters

2010-02-22T17:22:00.000-08:00

Last race of the frostbite series and I had no crew. I was early to do a beginning sailing class on the boat and I realized I'd be out on the water and wouldn't have much chance to rustle up some crew. I made a call to Trey since he stopped sailing a couple years ago and figured I'd try to get him back into it. Problem was I still had no phone so I had to borrow one from Remus. I made the call but I knew chances were that Trey wouldn't take early calls from Remus so I had to leave a message.
Found my two students and launched out of the south cove. The students were both beginners but one of them, B, had bought a Catalina 25 a year ago and decided he didn't know what he was doing and needed some coaching. The other, K, had been out once before for 10 minutes last week and she wanted more.
K was good on the helm and did fine for her second time out. B was more of a challenge. We were out for almost 2 hours before heading back in.
By the time we tied up boats were heading out for the afternoon's racing. I looked around the club for anyone to crew. I even asked Terry! The whole time B was following me around, hinting that he'd like to go out. Damn. I finally agreed.
We headed out and saw Trey on Damon's boat. He said something like, "I saw you were already out on the water with crew..." If I was alone I would have shanghaied him right there.
There's no way I was going to fly the spinnaker so I knew we'd get killed. There were 3 other boats in our start. Turns out Mark B was out and not flying spinnaker too so we had something to shoot for.
We had a good start the first race and things went OK. We were second around the first windward mark but the two spin boats put at least 10 boat lengths on us on the downwind leg. Except for back winding the jib during the second leeward rounding B did OK. We ended up 3rd.
The second race started and we were a little slow off the start, almost to the pin with no speed before we could start. The wind was up and B was having problems getting the jib in. I kept telling him to add wraps and I think he got flustered and adding wraps but in the wrong direction. Then an overlap added to the confusion. I couldn't do much until all traffic cleared. By then we were in last place. OK, no problem.
We caught up and passed Mark B by the first weather mark and got a couple boat lengths ahead. We held our advantage until the leeward mark. In the turn I was busy getting the main in and B was busy back winding the jib again. We got passed.
I tried to get cute and do a short tack to stay in clean air on the upwind but I should have reconsidered. We had two horrible tacks. B just loves to backwind that jib. The last down wind we sailed directly to the mark going wind-on-wing and got a little back (not sure this works on this boat.)
I was on starboart tack going into the mark and I twice asked B what he was going to do on the turn. He said, "I'm going to pull in as we go around..." Yes! That's correct.
Right before the mark I said, "Prepare to gibe, Gibe Ho'..". At least he ducked. But then he tried to gibe the jib! I was busy getting the main in. Looked up and couldn't believe it! We were stopping again.
We went from 3 lengths behind to 12 lengths. I almost lost my cool, "What did we talk about not once but twice before the turn?", he said, "I know, but then you said gibe and I...".
I felt bad. Felt like I was slapping a child. We sailed to finish DFL. B said he had a great time. I'm glad. I had a good time too.

Incognito

2010-02-19T06:40:00.000-08:00

I decided to wash my cell phone in the laundry this week. In the past I've managed to throw the phone in the lake. Right now, for those keeping track, the standings are: Lake 3, Laundry 1. The phone is in a bag of rice and I'll probably get around to firing up the compressor to try to blow the water out with air.
Anyway, I'm without phone. So I'm not ignoring you intentionally since I can't see who's trying to call.

No Sail! Let's go to trial!

2010-02-16T15:41:00.000-08:00

I volunteered to help move docks on Saturday. I mentioned that I'd like to leave before racing starts so I could get out sailing. I had no crew but I figured it'd be interesting to sail single-handed and increase my chances for a blue trophy by flying the spinnaker without help.
The freak show was not to be. The divers had trouble getting anchors and lines free in the 51 degree water. They had to take time to recover while we sat for a couple hours keeping the dock in place with power boats. Most of the time these moves are way over manned. This time was the exception. I couldn't get away.

BMW Oracle wins the America's cup. I think this means the next America's cup in San Francisco bay. The Tri was doing 30+ knots in 8 knots of wind during the last race.

We had our own mini version of the cup on the water in the non-spin fleet Saturday (Names may be changed to protect the participants)
Enesto, driving my old boat, wanted room at the mark inside the zone but was below the mark. He dived up over and around the mark (did he make a tack?). Larry, on the outside, felt violated. Words were said, the lawyers were called in, witnesses were called. They ended up in court after arbitration failed. (Can anyone imagine Larry and Ernesto working things out before a possible court date?)
The final result was the Non-spin fleet is now the standing fleet with the last jury room decision out on a series race result. I'm sure Larry was right and Ernesto lucked out in court (or vise-versa.)

Luck of the Draw

2010-02-07T14:44:00.000-08:00

The day started out promising; temps in the 60s and around 10 knots of wind. Forecast called for 6-7 knots of wind. The lake looked completely different; it was up almost 10 feet in two weeks.
John and I went out early to practice some spinnaker sets. We did the first one and it was bad. Real bad. Once up, we tried to fly the kite without the pole- no luck we just didn't know the correct way to keep it trimmed. After putting the pole up thinks got a lot better. We did another set that was better but both of us had a bad feeling about the whole enterprise.
We sailed up to the mark to see how we'd do in a mark rounding. The winds were going light and we did the rounding but had all kinds of problems getting the kite to fill.I realized we'd only be in this race for the first leg up to the windward mark. Then we would be toast.
We got back around the start before we dropped the spinnaker. The winds continued to go light. I told John I wanted to be as close to the start as possible because of the winds. This was the kind of situation where if you played by the rules and were keeping 100 yards clear of the start, you would be 20 minutes late to your start. We got close amongst the J fleet boats, who start ahead of us, when RC postponed for no wind.
One of the A fleet boats, Red, missed clear air at the start line and got stuck. They still hadn't crossed the line when the postpone flag went up. Everyone started yelling at them, wanting to know what their start was (this was a joke.) Steve, Red's tactician, must have been livid.
The wind came up enough for a start. The J fleet went off then it was our turn. We ghosted up to the line then down the line. Straight ahead was dead air and we were heading right to it. I could see behind that there was wind filling in behind the committee boat. I turned off the line with less than a minute to go. We made a slow 270 turn and started a boat length behind Rogue Wave.
Southpaux seems to sail well in light winds and soon we'd gotten past Rogue Wave. Although we were heading directly to the mark we saw wind to starboard and fell off to get to it. Nobody followed us. It turned out to be a lucky break. We got into wind and all the boats in the middle and left of the course got smoked. (Pic below shows dead air middle of course we're right, out of picture) the All of a sudden we arrived at the weather mark at the same time the J fleet leaders! They started giving yelling at us like we were doing something wrong by being there.
We had to give room and ended up on the outside of the turning wheel. We had a 100 yard lead on Rogue Wave. I thought about diving back down to where the wind was but it looked like it had died out and I remembered all those times when I tried to get cute while leading and getting stomped. So we held course and followed the J boats in front.
The wind was on a beam reach, switching to close-reach relative so no spinnaker. Rogue Wave seemed to be inching closer. About 2/3rds down the leg I noticed the wind going more aft. We'd seen this during Red-eye! We clumsily pulled up the kite and were able to get it filled! Then we took off. We started catching back up to the J boats. The whole fleet behind us started throwing up kites. I was laughing at how all the fleets were following the lead of the least proficient spinnaker boat on the water. Thanks to Steve Gay teaching us this technique during Red-Eye. (See pic below)

I tried to get us enough leeward room to get by the J-24 but he'd just got his kite up and stopped us in his wind shadow. We suffered in his shadow the rest of the way to the mark where the course had been shortened to. But hey! Our first bullet in the fleet! I thought I'd take more than a year to get one.
We were lucky the winds shifted to a reaching race.

Thanks for the pics, Deb!

Efficiency

2010-01-30T22:08:00.000-08:00

Hi folks. I went into the office today and filled out paperwork that finalized the boat's name. Decided on, "Southpaux", a flavor of Southpaw. The "paux" was used since the original design of the boat was done in Louisiana so I integrated a Cajun twist. Ray's idea really.
Today Kevin,Trey and I went out on Damon's boat, Over Keel. Damon was off getting some kind of pre-sex-change counseling, at least that's what the rumor mentioned. None of us felt like perusing it further and were all momentarily locked into our own imagined hell. I mean who can begin to imagine Damon extrapolated into a pair of high heels. See what I mean?
We made a serious mistake getting out too early. The race was postponed on shore because of cold temperatures and we found ourselves motoring around with little to do. We finally went back into the cove and tied up on dock 2. Both Trey and I had the same genius idea to lighten the boat by drinking adult beverages. I decided to focus on efficiency by mixing two drinks at once in case the other broke or some other possible catastrophe. This worked out well for the rest of the day.
By the time we were called out to race we were not feeling any pain. Kevin lost the vote and was voted in charge.
We had a marginal start in the middle of the pack. The boat wasn't pointing all that well and we got ourselves stuck in dirty air from Blue Duck and my old boat, Slow Play. Blue Duck tacked away. We were still stuck in bad air from Slow Play but were on the favored tack Then a miracle happened; Slow Play tacked away putting us into clear air and on the favored tack!
We rode it as far as we could then tacked.We came back together at least 10 boat lengths ahead. We sailed the rest of the race in front of Blue Duck and Slow Play. We may have got beat by one or two faster boats at the line but we crossed the line in front of all those we'd meet in the club afterwords. All the work and concentration effected our drinking efficiency but we were able to recover back in the club house.
I swear that Kevin was totally in charge and never put the boat in any danger even after Trey and I threatened, raved, screamed and gassed him during the time out on the water.
I really should stop now...

Carnage Saturday

2010-01-26T14:31:00.000-08:00

The first race of the frostbite series was Saturday. The wind forecast was all over the place the week running up to the race. I saw 6-8knots one day, 12-15 another. When I arrived the winds were light. Renee came by and commented she saw a 20-30 forecast. Yea, right.
The J-24 fleet was getting ready for a regatta so a few more showed up for practice. This caused a long line for boat launching. I wasn't familiar with the launching etiquette and picked the wrong trailer to get behind. I was getting nervous about getting out with enough time to do some practicing before the start until Jon-Eric reminded me that our start, number 6, was almost an hour after the first gun. I'm getting better about backing down the ramp and, after waiting for a few boats, finally got the boat splashed.
We got Jib and main rigged and set out. We rigged the spinnaker on the way out.
We did a couple tacks to sort out how things work then we headed down wind and popped the spinnaker. Of coarse it was twisted so we had to reset it. We had it flying and started running out of lake. Only had time for a single gybe then dropped it.
We had a little practice and we all needed to get comfortable with the spinnaker. It didn't help that John and I forgot everything from the Redeye regatta. I assumed he was paying attention and he assumed I was. Jon-Eric kept saying stuff like, "I have no idea what's going on..." I thought, "No worries, we'll take it easy and just work on fundamentals this series."
Back around the start the first couple races had started when we saw a wall of wind coming at us. It was pushing a 2-3 foot wave in front of it. All the water behind it was dark and agitated. I pointed the boat's nose right into it when it hit. The 54 degree water came over the cabin top and doused Jon-Eric and John. John-Eric let out a scream. The force of the initial wave nearly stopped us in place. I fell off a hair and the boat went on its side, scooping in gallons of water.
The guys scrambled for bailers and I was just trying to get some speed without knocking us down. John dropped the Gib before it beat itself to death. Later, the wind eased into the low 20s. When we tried to put the gib back up we noticed it was wrapped on a shroud. Had to head down wind to get it undone. As we clawed our way back towards the start line we noticed they had the postpone flag up. Jon-Eric and John looked a little uncomfortable in their tee-shirts and shorts. I asked if they wanted to go back in. Without hesitation they agreed.
Getting in was ugly. We made it in the cove but I wasn't ready to dock. We had no dock line out and both sails up. Decided to go by and circle around. When we tried to head back down wind the main sheet was tangled and stuck. The wind in the cove was around 18 and we got stuck between two docks short-tacking. Finally I lost rudder and we got slowly pushed into some docked boats. One of the boats had an engine mount on its rail which ripped the foot out of the main.
Once there was room back on the rigging dock we went over with the gib and got the boat pulled out. We took the main off and handed it to Bartlett.
The recorded wind inside said the initial gust was 37knots. Another Southcoast 21, who was out for the first time, had his mast break into a couple pieces. A beach cat pitch polled, then had to be rescued. A whole line of boats followed us into the harbor with broken gear.
I guess all the weather forecasts were right and wrong.

First Lottery (Race) of the Year

2010-01-03T11:25:00.000-08:00

The Red Eye Regatta on January first was the first race this year for the new boat. There was little in the way of wind.
Because of the light winds it was my intention to go out with only John and myself as crew to keep the boat light. While checking which start we were up at the board Steve G. cornered me and convinced me he could show us how to dominate the fleet. Since it was John's first time on the boat and I'd never flown a spinnaker with a pole on the boat, I decided it would be good that somebody knew something on board so I agreed to the help.
The three of us started out to the start line from the south cove. Once we arrived around near the start we did a couple spinnaker sets but the air was so light the kite barely filled if at all. At least we got familiar with the mechanics.
They finally started the sequence after a postponment. We were second start and found ourselves heading through the first starters on port to get back to the line in time for our start. We did manage to get back in time to do a 180 and get started but immediately got rolled by a couple boats and got slow into a dying wind. We had Linda M. on Walkin on Water another South Coast 21 a head of us so we had a reference to how bad we were doing. Carl, the guy that tried to kill me last year in the South Coast Intergalactics was crewing for her so she had something like 190 years expirience on board. Luckily I knew he was deaf and blind so we still had a good chance. She had a good start and played a couple puffs perfectly and reached the first mark, E, before one of the A fleet boats, a Viper! The Viper had started 5 minutes before! We were still half way from the mark so it was looking real bad for us. Then we got a good puff that took us all the way to the mark. Problem was we had to tack to turn the mark and I knew we'd be in trouble unless we overstood the mark by boat lengths. Steve was getting nervouse but I'd been burned so many times around this mark, I kept going a bit further than we needed to. We made it around but the wind started dying after the turn.
Lynda had headed out to the center of the lake and got stuck in dead air. After sitting near the mark for a while we caught a puff that rode us for a long way towards the next mark, 'B'. Lynda had guessed wrong and went from first to near last. We rode a couple puffs into first place! We didn't have a Genny and the wind started going forward. We used the spinnaker like a genny and got some pull but the boats behind started catching. The spinnaker was too much drag. Slightly better than the little jib though. We were stuck between sails and boxed in by other boats so couldn't fall off enough to take advantage of the spinnaker.
The mark rounding was pure hell. Everyone arrive at once. We had the largest boat in the regatta, a C & C 36 to windward that had no rudder pressure and took all our wind. His momentum took us way beyond our turn. We tacked away behind him but the damage was done. We were back middle of the pack. I made the decision to stay away from the other boats on the opposite tack to get out of phase and we got killed when the wind filled in for everyone near the shore first. Now we were way back.
The race had been shortened to the next mark at 'k' which was a long run so we still had enough distance to try to catch up. Steve got us back into it by concentating on every little wind shift. We got back within 15 yards of Linda when she tacked away towards shore. We saw the same wind and decided to follow. She got there first, we got there later when the same puff was dying out. We had enough wind to get us moving as Lynda was just out of the puff but heading into another stronger puff. I knew it was over then.
While our wind was dying there was another boat 30 yards away heading in the same direction on the opposite tack! I kept staring at it trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
While we were trying to be geniuses near the shore, the wind filled in in the middle of the lake and all the boats that seemed oblivious to the shifts took off.
We ended up middle of the fleet. I was feeling pretty good about it all and was happy John and I got a great learning experience. Steve may have been a little frustrated with our lack of experience but he was a good sport about it. The winning boat's VMG was only 1.2 knots. Sailors will know how painful that can be. Yes, if we had horses aboard they would have been thrown off.