Rig Tuning

We've been slow in light air. But very fast in anything over 10. The rig was tuned to:

uppers = 39.5
lowers = 38

Main top batten = e15160C 48 3/8"

This is pretty close to what we sailed last year. The headstay length is an inch tighter than last year.

Steve, Jerry Newmark and I went out yesterday and retuned the rig. First, we found that the mast was leaning an inch to port.


We ended up with a base setting of 39 on the uppers and 38 - 4 turns on the lowers. I didn't get to remeasure the tension after we took the sails down. I'll do that next time I'm on the boat.

We've been strggling with getting the top tell tale to fly on port tack. Loosening the lowers helped but I think we're going to have to go with a softer batten.

Next steps are to take a few turns off the head stay. Right now there's 12 inches between the end of the shackle and the tool mark on the turnbuckle.

Here are some photos we took while we were tuning:

Click photo to enlarge


Click photo to enlarge

The bottom of the genoa is a little flat, I'm going to soften the headstay to see if that helps.

Click photo to enlarge

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Weds. Night Series 2 Race 4

You couldn't ask for better conditions, warm, with a 10-15kts Easterly, slight chop; a great night for drivers. The course was from a mobile mark off Morgan out to "T", back and forth a couple of times. In terms of crew weight we were a little light; missing Neil and Aaron. After much discussion we decided to sail with the old 150%. The sail has seen better days, but I felt we couldn't carry the 155%.

We had a decent start, just under Slice and on top of Blue Meanie. We hit the line fast, held our lane. Eventually we rolled the J/30 and Slice tacked off. The other two 29s were over early.

Magic was slightly wound-up inside we were pinned, but wanted to go out to the channel anyway. Bob expected more breeze to the left. We tacked at the channel crossed the whole fleet except for Slice who was about one boat length a head. We hipped up on Slice, slightly above the layline.

The breeze continued to go right and we were well over-stood, allowing For Sail and Cow to catch up. We rounded in second just behind Slice, For Sail, Cow and Magic close behind.

We couldn't get the chute up. Nothing like a little foredeck macramé to make the night interesting. By the time we set, the two 29s pasted us and Magic was on top of us.

We rounded the leeward mark just behind Magic and just ahead of Meanine. Meanine tacked out, as did Magic. We managed to pinch up above Mad Cow's bad air and hold a lane out to the right. At some point early in the 2nd weather leg Craig hurt his hand.

The right was a gainer, there was more air and a shift about 20 degrees to the right. We rounded the weather mark well ahead of Magic and Meanie, still too far back from the leaders to make our time. The 2nd run was a little crooked; no real tactics, just a long Port jibe. We switched to the 155% for the next beat.

I don't remember much of the last beat. Put the bow down and go right. We were faster than Cow and Slice, held our own against Jim.

On the last run, we caught a few puffs that drove us down to the leaders. About halfway down I started to feel that we had a chance to win.

The course was just a little too short. For Sail beat us by 25 seconds, we corrected over Slice by 0.6 seconds. All in all, except for Craig hurting his hand, we had a good night.

Craig went to the doctor Thursday. His right hand was fractured and thumb dislocated. Bummer.


The crew

Craig
Bob
Vicky
Pavel
Laura
Eric
Charlotte
me


No sailing next week. I'm in SF

Weds. Night Series 2 Race 3

No sailing tonight, a pretty big line of thunderstorms rolled through around 5:30.

Weds. Night Series 2 Race 2

It's fourth of July and we're short-handed. Craig bailed out at the last minute.

The breeze is almost due South, with big swings in direction, and a few nice puffs coming in from both sides.

We aim for a committee-boat start. As we approach the line Jim and Steve are luffing at the boat. At 20 seconds to go, we dip below them, and make our approach. At the gun For Sail and Blue Meanie are over by half a boat and I think we've nailed it. Wrong. The RC calls us over too. That sometimes happens when you shoot out from behind a stalled pack. We jibe back to the line and just pinch over the anchor line.

We carry port tack in search of the right corner. Tack into pressure and a righty, things are looking good. Unfortunately at the top of the leg, the stbd tack lift fades and all the boats to our left except Blue Meanie cross us.

We sail to the port tack layline and wiggle around the first two boats to round. We're almost DFL, but close enough to get back in it.

We jibed soon after the mark. About a third of the way down the leg, I felt lifted on port, so we jibed on to stbd. That was a gainer. We round the leeward mark just behind Magic. They are stopped and pinching. We pinch up as high as we can and end up tacking. As we approach the port layline we're in a big lift. We hold on right to the layline and manage to round ahead of Meanie and Magic. The Olson and For Sail are not that far ahead.

Magic manages to keep inside an overlap, but we take advantage of their bad douse and squeak inside them. Meanie holds the chute on the reach leg as do most of the fleet ahead of us.

We decide to stay with the jib. It wasn't as windy as I thought and we probably could have held the chute, but being short handed, and having Aaron's kids with us, I chose to play it safe. It wouldn't have made much more than a one place difference.

We set about halfway down the leg. Manged to jibe inside Poppy at Z. Too little too late.

Crew:

Aaron
Donna
Harper
Sparky
Vic
Laura
Big E
me

We're not sailing Red Grant. I ordered a replacement winch from Steve. I hope it's here before next Weds.


Redemption

It was picked up by one of the racers that the course as shown for the A-1 & A-2 was incorrect.  It was shown and figured at 5.21 miles with a course of T-M-T-A-Z-RYC.  It should have been T-M-T-M-T-Z-RYC at 5.51 miles.  The only change it makes in places is that it takes Slice from 6th to 7th and Anemone from 7th to 6th in the A-2.

At least we've moved out of DFL.

Thanks to Carl Bloksberg for the attention to detail.