Last week our tune up race was cancelled. Not sure what the reason was, other than it was cold and raining earlier. Five boats still went out to play.
This Saturday we managed to have a race. There were only 3 boats in the red fleet. Keeldragger was up against an S2 7.9 and a 6.9. The odds weren't very good. Winds were 5-10 from 160 degrees and generally pretty light. Tomasz, wife (and future Keeldragger) crewed. The weather was quite different than what we had a couple of days ago--i.e. 25kts. Today was calm, clear, and generally beautiful except for the light winds.
We flew the new 155% kevlar genoa today. This is the third time we've bent on the sail and the first chance to race with it. Overall, it's a huge improvement over the last dacron 155% cruising sail I had been racing with. One issue... It's a little broad at the head and it's getting caught at the masthead when we tack.
We had the best start out of the 3 boats. The S2 6.9 was nowhere near the line... still motoring towards the course at the time of the start. We found out later that she was stuck in the mud in the South part of the lake. We appreciated the head start.
I decided to stay on starboard tack and run to the East side. I know that I know better than to go to the wrong side, but I did it anyways. We were second to the first mark (thanks to the head start), but decided to go wing-and-wing instead of trying to fly the spinnaker short handed. The S2 6.9 that gave us a head start had caught up with us by the end of leg 2.
We fought to maintain a reasonably close third place position hoping that our handicap would push us up a point. Amazingly Tomasz agreed to fly the spinnaker for the second run. In spite of being short-handed, we managed to fly the chute with no major c-f's. In fact, not even one STFU from the crew.
On the last leg, we drive right past the S2 7.9. How did this happen? Well, they spent five minutes sitting on top of a berm next to the channel. We'll take all the help we can get.
We finished 3rd across the line.... close enough to move up to second with the handicap? We thought it would be close. After the race, we learned that we corrected over both boats. First place today. Not bad for race #1.
Today was the day of the mysterious and evil second race. Due to slight mixup, the race committee announced that we would be having two races. This was great because I was sailing single-handed and we had enough wind to wear me out... I had a bit of a cold and was congested. On the first downwind leg of race #1, I made an initial attempt to go wing & wing with the spinnaker pole. As soon as I left the helm, the boat headed up about 90 degrees.... I said the hell with it and tried to steer a course that would put some wind in the headsail without the pole. It didn't work very well. While I was screwing the pooch downwind, my upwind sailing went very well. I wound up beating Fool's Prayer both races.
This was the final Wednesday race of the year. Crew included the Polish Fo, Kim Master B, Kelly Bedi & her beotch Manpreet. Overall the race was uneventful: we didn't T-bone anyone while on port tack, no power boats barged the line, we didn't round up and get three inches of water in the cockpit, we didn't lose the spinnaker turtle, there were no electrical fires, and it wasn't even condition 90. We finished 6 out of 9. After the race, we had our usual pizza and pitchers of beer at the Ivy Club and then retired to the Firehouse for even more beer.
This was a fun race. We had 12-20mph WNW winds. The race committee set up a triangle course. There were only three of us in the red fleet and for the most part we were just match racing with Fool's Prayer. As usual, I ensured that the boat was overpowered by flying the 155% and an unreefed main. We had a great start on port tack. We were the second boat to the windward mark, but the genoa sheet hung up on the mast during our last tack and we watched Fool's Prayer sail right past us. We followed Fool's Prayer for the next few legs. On the last windward leg, we found ourselves in a tacking duel with Fool's Prayer. We somehow managed to get the upper hand and finished up on a port tack across the line.
I should note that zero beers were consumed and the Polish crew did not even complain about the triangle course. Great success.
Tomasz and the Admiral crewed this evening. We had a great start. We were right on the line at the committee boat (which was heavily favored). We stayed on starboard tack and maintained our position towards the front of the fleet. About two thirds to the windward mark the wind started to weaken. We tacked and stalled the boat in light air. Baby Wojda was driving a Capri 22 and taught us that we could not point worth a darn and our boatspeed sucked. It took us a while to start moving again and several boats were ahead of us by the time we rounded the windward mark. Although we finished a couple of minutes ahead of Boa Vida, we made their day when we posted the corrected results.... they beat us by less than a second.
The crew consisted of myself, the XO, Richard, and Chris O. This was a short 4-leg course. Al had a great start and slammed the door on Randy S. The race committee was filming. They also showed a Tartan 34, Nepenthe, getting a good start. 34 seconds later or so, we crossed the line. Arriving late was mistake #1. We did ok until the second upwind leg. We badly understated the mark and had to double tack. Luckily, Nepenthe hit the mark as was kind enough to do a 720 (hey as far as they know the penalty is a 720 so please keep it a secret). We popped the chute on the second downwind and wound up 4th out of 5 (6 including Nepenthe).
I was worried before the race. The harbor gun had gone off but no crew had arrived. I was preparing to single-hand this race when Vikas, Anil, and their wives arrived. I believe this was the first time any of them had been sailing before so the first thing I did was set up the spinnaker... just kidding. We ran a pretty conservative race and went wing and wing on the downwind legs. There were only three of us competing in the red fleet--the other two boats being an S27.9 and a US Yacht 30. As usual, the S2 wound up a few hours ahead of us and insulted the blue fleet. We held our own against the US30, but took a wrong turn on the second windward leg and they established a big lead. Thanks to the PHRF handicap, we wound up correcting into second place out of 3 boats.
This is a belated log entry. The winds initially called for 10-15 SSE. I was hoping for close to the 15 side as I had a FULL crew. My dad, along with his friend John helped run the back of the boat and three Polish crew on the front of the boat. We had way too much ballast on the boat for the wind conditions and the captain spent a little too much time on the wrong side of the course. We wound up 6th out of 7.
Wind: 7 S SE
Course: 5 legs, W L
Crew: MasterT, Richard
Beers Consumed: 12 Bud Select + 4 victory Killians
For once I was too early at the start instead of too late... well, I guess we wound up being late after we had to do a 180. We started to push the US30 over the line and had wayyyy too much time on our hands so we barged the line and then turned around after the gun to hit the line. We crawled from 5th to 3rd place. The US30 went too far to the right and got stuck in the mud. We maintained our position in 3rd place until the last windward leg. As we hit the last leg, the wind had died down a bit. A barge was coming out of the channel and I wanted to stay the hell away from it. Mac 26 #40 stays to the right and makes out like a bandit. We finish 4th out of five boats across the line (possibly 3rd place corrected).
Here is a video of the start... http://keeldragger.com/util/showmovie.aspx?url=/flash/sat-709-start.swf
Wind: 5-7 N NE
Course: 3 legs, W L
Crew: MasterT, Richard
Beers Consumed: 6 pack plus a few assorted leftovers. 1 pitcher of Killians.
Our start could have been better but we've done worse. We wound up about in the middle of the pack at the first mark. Our downwind performance was pretty bad. We sat on top of a Mac 26 only to watch it peel away from us. In this light air we really needed to hoist that spinnaker and wing-to-wing just didn't give us enough juice. We were on pace to finish around 6th out of about 9 boats but...... as we were on the last beat, we noticed that the race committee boat was setting up the longest finish line that ever existed. The race committee was the favored end of the finish, with the committee boat about half way between the windward and leward marks. We tacked to the committee boat to inquire about the beautiful finish line and learned that they had engine trouble. The race was abandoned but we pressed on to the windward mark just to prove to my father and his friend that we kicked their butts.
Post-race, we decided that this would be an evening of moderation. After a victory pitcher of Killian's, we headed home. We thought we'd take a break from the Firehouse after the last couple of fiasco's.
Winds light and variable out of the east, northeast, west, and south. There was a brief postponement due to no wind. I was sailing sans crew. It took me about 5 minutes after the gun to cross the line. I was soooo far behind the rest of the fleet is wasn't even funny. Finally, the wind came out of the West and pushed me into the crowd with everyone else. I passed a few Capri's (with a 5 minute head start) and then sat in a hole for a few minutes. A breeze developed out of the NorthWest and it drove me thru a couple of reaches to finish in second place. Not bad considering my start.
Wind: light and variable, SE
Crew: MasterT, Richard, Kim Master B
Beers Consumed: A lot!
We had a new conscript for this race, the Kim Master B. We wound up in last place for a couple of reasons. First, the captain started at the port pin and wasn't able to go to a port tack. We went left and paid for it dearly. Also, we pinched a little too much in the light air. The best part of the race was Kim demonstrating why a boom is named a boom.
Ok... it was 97 degrees today and 3 mph winds when I looked at the forecast. I decided to take the day off and go to Six Flags with the family. The only reason I am posting this in the blog is so I can show it to the Admiral at the end of the season to prove that once in a while I actually do something other than sail.
Wind: light and variables, S SE-ish
Course: 2 legs, W L
Crew: MasterT, Richard, Chris O.
Beers Consumed: 18 cans on boat, 4 pitchers, 3 shots of vodka, plus whatever else we drank
Not much wind on this Wednesday evening race. Prior to the start, we rescued a Buccaneer 18... they had no beer on board. We turned down their first request for beer and told them, "Sorry, we don't have any warm beer."
We did manage to find three luke warm beers from the prior week and figured our friends wouldn't notice the difference. This random act of kindness would pay off later in the race.
During the starting sequence with 1 minute left to the gun, a power boat came racing in between the group of sailboats and the committee boat. They managed to come off of plane at precisely the best time to create the absolute maximum wake. I guess these idiots were actually waving at the sailboats as if they weren't deliberately trying to piss us off... I think they were just trying to be friendly.
With this light wind and lack of water we sailed like a big blue slug. At the start, one of the Crapi's, I mean Capri's, started to push us up. We went up as best we could in the light wind, but didn't do well in getting out of the way. The drama for the evening at the first and only mark rounding. Chris lost his pirate hat. We decided to press on with out it. The MasterT insisted that we turn around since losting a pirate hat is a hell of a lot worse than losing a spinnaker bag overboard (last Saturday's drama event).
Luckily, our friends in the Succaneer 18 retrieved the pirate hat for us. However, they hit the mark during the retrieval and had to do a 360. Thanks, Chuck!
After the race, we put down a few at the club and then got into a bit of trouble across the street....
http://keeldragger.com/Community/forums/89/ShowPost.aspx
I am too "Pissed" to post the blog for tonight's race. Pissed as in I had too much beer and some chick bought us shots of Vodka. More posted tomorrow morning if I'm not not hungover. We iz got video and all of that stuff.
Wind: 8-10 N N, Nice
Course: 3 W L
Crew: MasterT, Richard
Beers Consumed: Twelve or so.
The wind was very consistent today...at least compare to other races lately. We attempted to shoot additional video so I could post a few more movies to the site. Unfortunately, someone forgot to the rewind the tape so I think we only have about 2 minutes of bad footage. Anyways, we started near the port pin and then went over to port tack as it was favored. Nothing extraordinary about the race other than the MasterT dropping the spinnaker bag overboard. Since we were in second place, I decided that there was enough of a remote chance to pick it up on the next go around. We finished in 2nd place out of five boats.
Wind: 12-20 N NW, Nice
Course: 3 W L
Crew: MasterT, Richard, Chris O.
Beers Consumed: Many beers on the boat. A couple of pitures of beer in the bar.
We had a blast on this race! We had a great start (finally!). The port mark was unbelievable favored and we managed to be very close to the pin when the gun went off. We immediately tacked to port and almost wound up in irons due to bad timing with the release and a simultaneous shift. We cut behind a boat on starboard tack and wound up with clean air the rest of the way to the first mark. During our 3rd tack from the mark, we were hit with a strong puff that knocked us over. For the first time ever, we had water coming in over the coamings. Chris O. was releasing the genoa sheet at the time and soaked most of his shorts. We had about 3 inches of water in the cockpit which took a minute or two to drain thru the scuppers. What was interesting about this ordeal was that it really didn't faze anyone on the boat and we got back on track so fast it was almost like it didn't happen. At the first mark, Dave J, who was aboard a Capri 26, complained about our dirty air and called us sons of bitches. They should have known better than to get into the shadow of the Keeldragger. We did well on the rest of the race. We were covered by other boats on both of the downwind legs which didn't help our speed. Since we were on a bit of a reach going downwind, we really couldn't screw around with jibing to clear our air. When we came into the finish, we had to pinch like a motherf****er to make the line. In fact, we came so close to the committee boat I think they blew the whistle early just our of intimidation. The Captain's father was crewing aboard Boa Vida. They made a similar manuvere at the finish. The race committee yelled at them and asked them not to hit them. Boa Vida replied, "Hold Your Course!". That cracked me up. We wound up in 2nd place of the race out of 7 or so total.
Lesson Not Yet Learned: Don't try to keep up with the Polish crew when it comes to drinking alcohol.
Video from Wednesday Night can be found here: http://www.keeldragger.com/About/
Wind: 12 S SW
Nice
80 Degrees
Course: 3 W L
Crew: MasterT, Richard
Beers Consumed: 18-ish
This was a fun race. We had a new boat in the red fleet--US yacht 30. We had an ok start but it didn't take us long to figure out that we were being out-pointed by the US30. Fortunately, we went a little faster so we were able to crawl underneath and get ahead. We ran very close to the US30 and Mac26 thru most of the race. While we established the lead in the first leg, we had to work to maintain it. The US30 farted around with their spinnaker on the first downwind. Luckily they didn't get it set for long because the took off once they filled it with air. The Mac26 was behind but managed to get inside of the US30 on the 2nd downwind. Overall, good race. Despite speaking English, Richard did very well. We even ran the spinnaker on the 2nd run without any f-ups. Final position: 2 out of 5.
Lesson Learned: Don't try to keep up with the Polish crew when it comes to drinking alcohol.
We had a storm line pass over us about 3pm. Heavy wind and rain with a little bit of lightning. By 4:30pm the storm had passed but there was residual rain and not very much wind. As a result, the race was cancelled. This was a good thing because my crew did not show up.
On a positive note, Keeldragger's PHRF handicap has been changed from 223 to 234. I don't know how I ever got the 223 handicap to begin with since I have never seen a T27 with that handicap.
Wind: 15ish S
Nice and then Stormy
82 Degrees
Course: W L
Crew: MasterT, ChrisO, Richard, Little g
Beers Consumed: Many
We had a full crew plus one for the race. Richard Milczarek, special guest crew from Poland and also the MasterT's brother, was able to join us. He doesn't speak a lot of English, but I know how to say beer in Polish (Piva) so we had no problems communicating. For some reason, I didn't learn from the donkey start last Wednesday. We came into the line on a port tack thinking that we could tack to starboard real quick and get a great start. Well, it got a little congested at the line. I tried to tack right in front of Sligo and fouled the *** out of him. He yelled at us, we pushed him over the line, and then we started to do our turns (720). As we were doing the first jibe, the boom hung up on the back stay. We had a clusterf*ck and had to take a little bit evasive action to avoid the committee boat. After our late start, we put on our game face and started the beat to the windward mark. We had enough wind to heal the boat to 20 degrees with four crew on the rails. I was hoping that we would catch Fool's Prayer, but he sailed well and we didn't really gain or lose anything on him for the rest of the race. Finish was 4th out of 4.
Also, I failed to look at the race schedule and learned at the last minute that there were two races scheduled. We had to skip out of the second race because a couple of crew had other committments. I was disappointed that we were going to miss the race. On the way back into the yacht club, we saw a lot of clouds begin to roll in. We made it into the bar high & dry and had a lot of fun watching the storm roll over the boats that were still racing. I would guess winds up to 30mph or so, lots of boats rounding up and a few on plane towards the leward mark. Everyone got soaked while we were enjoying our victory Killians. Unfortunately, the race was abandoned. Everyone must have thought were were clairvoyant (or pussies).
Lesson Learned:
What kind of bullshit was that at the start? I don't know, but I'll try not to do it again.