2-1-2014 Racing

by Pam

Mother Nature must have been offended by the weather forecast for some pleasant sailing temperatures in the 60s because the cold front came through early and we had some very moist, sometimes gusty air that was just plain cold. Doug took pictures from the committee boat and they were grey and dreary looking.

We started the day playing who's on first. The race schedule had Bruce and Doug on duty after the week of 1/25 but beside their name was 2/16 instead of a 2/1 so Doug arrived ready to do duty and Bruce arrived ready to sail. Luckily, Bruce was able to get a Laser sailor to fill in for him.

While the committee set the course, John, Bruce and I set about repairing the rescue boat cradle that had given way while lowering the boat. Strangely, the Lasers had a pretty good turnout for such a nasty day and were on the course early and got off a race before the Butterflys even made it out to the course.

The Fly racing was more like a tuning session with Bruce waiting for others to catch up so he could tune with them. Bruce's hiking stick detached in one race which allowed me pass him and win one race but after that he was just messing with us and winning easily.

At the end of racing Bruce switched boats with John so he could work his magic and change the settings to 'go fast' mode. It's just amazing to me how he is able to do that. John left with a list of things to change. For what it's worth, John, the last time we measured Bruce's mast rake back in 2010, from the top of halyard to top of gudgeon, it was 235 inches. Also, I seem to recall that at one point, Frank had Bruce's mast rake setting written down on some tape on his tool box.

When viewing the video above of me and Bruce, keep in mind that my head was in the boat, hearing cha-ching every time I tacked and Doug was talking to the camera and not me. I'm partially retiring my boat so she'll last longer and was using Doug's boat. At the end of the day, I was really missing my old girl. Doug's hull is great but how he could have won a National's with the rigging he has is a mystery to me. The traveler block was pulled off of a Harken key chain at the last minute and catches the main sheet and/or traveler refusing to tack every other time. The copper tubing he placed under the toe rails is rough and I could see pieces of my main sheet flying off every time I brought in the main. The centerboard gets stuck and won't raise. The hiking strap gets stuck and doesn't move freely along the toe rails. Talk about frustrating. Then, Doug and I were trying out our two way radios to communicate. I had a voice activated headset and Doug was using a handheld. The result was a major distraction and a bit of disaster with the wind keeping my microphone open most of the time with Doug being unable to get a word in edgewise. I could see him talking into his handset but 9 times out of 10 nothing was coming through. We're going to have to tweak the sensitivity settings on voice activation or try a different model.

So, the day started off with lots of little things kind of going wrong … too cold, low turnout, cradle breaking, rigging/equipment not quite working properly … but at the end of the day, we all got to take a little time to make a list of things that need some attention so that we'll be fast as greased lightning next week.  Or so the theory goes ...