Category: Updates

…original limerick by Gil, debut performance at the Squirrel send-off:

There once was a boatbuilder I remember

Who embarked on a hard Friday bender

He had lots of fun

Drinking whisky and rum

Then spent the weekend skegging his tender

As we heard last night, “Squirrels take good care of their nuts.”  And that just about summarizes the tone of our Calvin roast last night, helping him leave the dock for a new kind of voyage.  We had Dutch jokes, some advice about the need for tact before raising the pole (nudge, nudge), some playful ribbing about Calvin’s quirks and antics, accusations of forgery, plus heartfelt admiration of our young foredeck captain.  But the capstone was a fantastic original poem composed and recited by our own Gadget, that summed up what is in all our hearts as we watch Calvin take this great step forward in his journey.  I hope to post it soon.

And I think we really shocked him with the gift from the PERSPECTIVE crew.  Thanks to all your generosity, we were able to set Calvin and Renee up with a new Broil King BBQ, cover and utensils. I can taste the burgers already!

Special thanks to Lazy Sheet for organizing the festivities.  Here we are: evidence that we all own a jacket, and that not all our shirts are PERSPECTIVE blue!

Last night, all the flags for the interclub racing summer and fall series were awarded .  Here’s snap of the Green Fleet flag winners, from left to right:  Perspective, Top Gun, Sabotage & Sandpiper.  That’s some great company to keep!

Our flags were for Summer overall (third place), Fall Tuesday (second place), and Fall Thursday (third place).  [Only the summer series has an overall flag]

Sadly, the season has come to rest…on the cradle.

Those of you who have worked the mainsail upwind on a windy, gusty night know that it can be very physical job.  On these nights, the traveler alone is not enough to manage the gusts, and the tweaker isn’t much help.  You gotta go for the big mainsheet, but there is so much tension on it that it’s really hard to pop it out of the cleat.  Last Thursday, Lifeline nearly did a couple of face plants trying to wrestle it out of those jaws.

So last night I tried something new.  I’ve read about vang sheeting.  I’ve tried to talk Gil into doing it, but I’ve never really experienced it myself before.  Kind of hard to coach someone else without trying it first.

After my first taste, I’m a convert!

With the boom vang on snug upwind, there are several big advantages:

• Much less force needed:
  • The vang takes most of the tension, making the mainsheet MUCH easier to pop out of the jaws.
  • It’s also much easier to sheet back in after the gust subsides
• Maintain mainsail shape during and after the gust:
  • When easing the main, the vang keeps the leech shape on the mainsail, by keeping the boom from rising.  So, rather than twisting off the mainsail when you ease the sheet, it swings like a barn door.
  • This is most beneficial when recovering from the gust — no need to double-check the twist, it’ll be right where you’ve set it.

And that is the trick:  set the boom vang to maintain the desired leech twist (top batten parallel to boom, or a tiny bit twisted off).  Last night I did this by setting the desired twist before the race using traveler and mainsheet, then I asked the guys to remove all the slack in the boom vang.  Presto!  We made some minor adjustments upwind, and had to repeat this process after the douse, but it was pretty simple.

Managing gusts was now pretty straightforward.  Traveler was still my first control, but in the big gusts, when it wasn’t enough, I eased the sheet.  And through all this, the back edge of the mainsail kept drawing powerfully, keeping the boat pointing high.

(and of course, I got Kiwi nice and wet — serves him right for steering from the low side on a windy night :-))

Nice to add a new trick late in the season!

I heard some murmurs from the foredeck that the guy sometimes get jammed in the spinnaker pole, causing some consternation when dousing from a hot angle.  Perhaps these will help?

(and hopefully StarPort got the red on port and the green on starboard!)

Thanks for the suggestion, Ken, and for relaying the message Alvin.

Tonight we had the protest hearing vs Battlewagon for the port-starboard crossing on August 16, when Battlewagon didn’t keep clear.  Mark Easden from Sandpiper was a witness, Bob Duggan and Tom Nelson were judging.  Here’s the incident on ‘film’:

The judges concluded that Battlewagon did not keep clear, did not exonerate, and therefore were disqualified from the race.

In the discussion afterwards, I learned a few valuable things, to bear in mind for the future:

• The decision to avoid collision should be made at about half a boat-length before impact (which is approximately when we did it).
• It’s a good idea to send someone to the bow as these situations develop to judge the distance more carefully, but it is not required.
• The definition of ‘close’ depends on wind speed.  In this incident with light wind, 1-3 feet clearance (after turning down) was considered close: this was the distance that Chris and I agreed we missed by.  In higher wind, close can be half a boat-length.
• Chris indicated he was confident that he would have been able to avoid collision by turning downwind at the last second, and swinging his stern out of the way.  The judges understood his reasoning, but indicated that this maneuver is not supported as ‘keeping clear’ according to the rules.
• We also discussed the hail ‘hold your course’.  It is not binding on the right-of-way boat.

In all, it was a relaxed, honest and thoughtful conversation.  I even bought Chris a beer.

Thanks to the fabulous crew on PERSPECTIVE, who took care of business while I was away, we are in the running with three weeks to go.    We’ve whittled away at Sandpiper’s lead, but gave up some ground on Battlewagon.  Net net, that’s a much better place than we were two weeks ago.  It’s a little tricky to say exactly where we stand because as the season extends, each boat will be able to drop some of their lowest scores.  Here’s my projection of where we are in the standings, taking into account the drops available to the fleet:

Tuesdays

Currently in fourth place, three points behind Sandpiper and one point ahead of Battlewagon.  We’ve got to keep beating Sandpiper and can only afford to let Battlewagon get us one more time.  Ideal results for each race:  PERSPECTIVE – Battlewagon – Sandpiper.

Thursdays

Currently tied in 5th place with Remarkable, two points ahead of Sandpiper and 2.5 points behind Battlewagon.  We’ve got to finish ahead of Battlewagon every race to overtake them in the standings.  Even though we’re out of the running for a flag on Thursdays, there’s a lot at stake (keep reading)!  Ideal result for each race: PERSPECTIVE – Sandpiper – Battlewagon.

Overall

Five boats should qualify for the overall contest, and we are currently in fifth, but just one point behind Sandpiper and 1.5 points behind Battlewagon.  Just a couple of wins over Battlewagon and Sandpiper to claim third overall!

BSBC Club Awards

In the Spring series we took the gold flag for both Tuesday and Thursday.  As it stands now, we are ahead by one point on Tuesdays, but behind by two points on Thursday.  For the summer series there is also a flag for overall score: and right now we are just one point behind for the overall. As it stands, we’d get Gold on Tuesday, Red (second) on Thursday, and Red  overall.  Just a couple more wins over Battlewagon and we can bring home three more gold flags for the summer!

We got this guys….let’s go get ’em!

I observed a protest hearing this evening.  First time for me.  Keven Piper and Tom Nelson (Shark sailors on Bedlam — and world champions) were the judges.  They both took some extra time to help me understand how the process works.  Once we had the details straight we called the protestors/protestees into the room to hear them recount the facts and get some clarification.  They were dismissed, we conferred with the rule book and articulated the established facts and the ruling.  The sailors were brought back in and Keven explained the facts and ruling.  Everyone accepted with grace, there were no emotional outbursts, nor even real disappointment.

At issue was confusion about the course.  Tuesday crew may recall that the posted course was changed before the start.  Some boats took note, others didn’t. C’est la vie.  It was a cut and dried case……except….

The interesting part came when reading closely what the race committee is bound to do before the first warning, and distinguishing it from any etiquette, or other best practice.  One boat the sailed the wrong course (Celtic Spirit), expected the committee boat to signal with a flag.  Although this is a best practice, it is not necessary.

In fact, the race committee can change the course right up until the warning signal, in other words right up until the time we start our 5 minute countdown!!!!

After the formal procedings, Keven gave us all some advice:  always double-check the course AFTER the countdown starts.  For us, that will be easy, we pass it a couple times as we are planning our start.  Just gotta remember to have another look.

Had a wonderful day on the water yesterday complete with lunch in Oakville, flying the asymmetrical (with its new snuffer), and a swim in the lake.