Category: Updates

Here’s a snap of the new #2 sail in action.  Photo credit to Four Hands who always gets wet whenever we need to take pictures of our headsails!

And here’s the cool video from North Sails about how it was made:

 

In this case, a red flag is good news.  The boys in blue captured second place for the Spring Thursday series of races.  Here’s proof!

Let’s go get more of these!

Last night was our first race of the summer series, and we started off with new headsails.  Here’s a short video of them.   The new #2 is black and sinister, while the new #1 looks deceivingly innocent!

Fit seems to be pretty good for both sails.  They’ll need some time to lose their creases from storage, but a couple of stiff breezes will take care of that.

The new #1 has a couple of flaws though:  some holes in the fabric — you can see us spotting them at the tail end of the video, and here’s some photos.  I’m sure North Sails will sort this out.

Last week the spring series finished up.  And even though we weren’t there to compete, results for the series look promising for PERSPECTIVE.  We’ll know for sure on Thursday evening, but I think it looks like this:

Tuesday nights:

4th place, behind Top Gun, Sandpiper and Eclipse, just squeaking ahead of Battlewagon.  Too bad the May 30th race was abandoned, since we were on track for a 2nd that night for sure.

Thursday nights:

2nd place, behind Top Gun, ahead of Eclipse and Battlewagon, who tied for third — and I think Eclipse will win the tie-break, if I understand how this goes.

Overall:

If I have tallied it correctly, it looks like 3rd place overall, behind Top Gun and Eclipse.  The margin between us and Eclipse is very thin so far this year. Let’s go get em.

BSBC only:

We finished ahead of Battlewagon every time we were both out there, which was enough to make up for missing one more race than them.  So that should be a first-place flag for Spring overall!

Great start, lads!

I’m still glowing from how high we pointed last night.  Three reasons for that:

1. Shorter forestay with much less forestay sag
2. Re-cut #3 with much less depth
3. Driving with more power from the main (after of the center of rotation) — an advantage of using a smaller headsail.

For point numbers one and two, check out the before and after shots of the headsail.

Here’s 2016 (after the first re-cut):

And here’s last night (shorter forestay and second re-cut of the sail):

Notice how much less the forestay sags, and how the entry angle of the sail is much finer.  And, it holds its shape all the way to the top of the forestay.

Bingo!

A little break in the rain gave me just the window I needed to finish the reinstallation of the halyard brake, now sporting a new 6-10mm cam for the main halyard.  A little silicone oozing out of the base is a good sign of a reliable seal on the deck…something to trim on Tuesday before routing the new halyard.

We had some halyard trouble, lads:

• On Thursday night, we broke a sheave on the spinlock deck organizer

• On Friday morning, I noticed the halyard slightly frayed.
• By the end of my solo sail on Friday the halyard casing had completely parted and separated from the core. (ask my how I got the mainsail down!)

The remedy is well underway, but we need take a few steps to maintain the halyard better.  First the remedy

• A new halyard will be ready for Tuesday evening
• Bert and I replaced the spinlock deck organizer with a new one — a tricky job that required us to remove the headliner.

• A new cam has been installed into the spinlock halyard brake.  This one won’t slip, so we won’t have that press down to get a grip on the halyard.  Thanks to Bert for help removing the old one, and to Gadget for the disassembly/reassembly.  Just need to install it and replace the headliner.

So what do we have to do differently:

1. Don’t press down on the brake when locking the main halyard — let the brake do the job.  The new cam is rated for 6-10mm line, and we are using 10mm line.  Perfect fit.  Last one was worn, and rated for 8-14mm line
2. EVERY TIME we release the brake on the main halyard (any break, in fact), use the winch to tension the line before opening the brake.  This will save wear on the line and on the cam.
3. STOP using the halyard to hold up the end of the boom.  This puts strain on it unnecessarily, and might have been the root cause.

Thanks for your help keeping PERSPECTIVE in racing trim.

 

Here’s my new favorite picture of PERSPECTIVE:

And here is the photographer — Bert at the top of his mast.

7.5 knots upwind!!!

9.15 knots broad reach!!!

Yup.  Summer has begun!

This being Memorial day in the US, my phone being quiet, and calendar empty, I took the afternoon off and Skootch and I tested out the newly recut #3 in 17 knots of wind.  Woohoo!

Cars well forward, backstay on nice and snug and we washed both sides of the hull.

Sun shining, wind from the southwest — summertime!

Fuel for my addiction 🙂

We are off to a great start for the 2017 season!

It has been fantastic to be out on the water again, and now that nearly all of us have sailed a race or two or three, I can see the rhythms coming back, so I took a look at my notes from the end of last season.  At that time, I jotted down a few priorities for this year:

1. Improve starting.
2. Upwind pointing and boat speed
3. Better PHRF rating
4. Faster downwind angles and jibes
5. Tactics and Strategy

Let’s take them one at a time.

1. Starting.
   • So far: a mixed bag.
   • Next steps: This is going to take practice and repetition so that we get our timing right and our position relative to the rest of the fleet.  Fun!
2. Upwind.
   • So far: This is off to a great start.  Thanks to the shorter forestay, we are definitely pointing higher, the boat is balanced better with just a touch of weather helm.  It feels like the net result is that we are able to sail a shorter course to the windward mark without any loss in boat speed.
   • Next steps:
     • Rig tuning. On Tuesday, with looser shrouds, and a bit of backstay we were able to trim away the backwinding at the luff of the mainsail and gain speed.  On Thursday, in similar wind with tighter shrouds we couldn’t trim it away with the backstay without losing speed.
     • Sail trim.  Let’s keep tweaking with our eyes on the speed meter!  The iRegatta app should let us know if we have reached our speed potential.
     • New #1 and #2 Genoas will arrive soon!  I’m sure they’ll have a better shape, with a flatter exit angle that creates less drag.  Maybe this will reduce some of the backwinding we’re experiencing on the mainsail. (The old #1 scoops inward at the leech)
     • Use the polar table feedback in the iRegatta app to optimize Course Made Good (aka VMC), the net speed to the windward mark.  We may be pointing too high or too low for the given wind conditions.
3. PHRF rating.
   • We got 3 seconds better than last year.  Probably all we’ll be able to get
4. Downwind.
   • So far:
     • We are still able to hoist faster than anyone else in our fleet, and are dousing with more and more confidence, closer to the mark and other boats.
     • Jibes are coming along quickly, and we’ll get to confidence in all kinds of wind conditions with just more practice.
   • Next steps:
     • Choose our sailing angles to get to the leeward mark as fast as possible.  The polar table feedback in iRegatta should help with that.
5. Tactics & Strategy
   • So far:  Not so good!  I’ve been making some classic mistakes
     • Splitting from the fleet early in the race.  Sure, if they are all wrong about where the better wind is, we’ll get better wind.  But what are the odds that they are all wrong?  And the downside of staying with them?  Not much at all.  We should only split from the fleet late in the race, when the passing opportunities are limited.  Just need to maintain clear air.
     • Painting the corners, and setting up on the layline from a long way off.  It’s better to sail up the middle of the course to better judge the laylines, and minimize the downside of overstanding.
     • Missing laylines
     • Getting Greedy!
   • Next steps:
     • Have a modest upwind goal of rounding the weather mark close to the fleet, and use the downwind leg to gain/overtake
     • Save the bigger risks for the last leg.

Boiling it all down, I think there are three things to focus on:

1. Rig Tuning.  I’ll keep tinkering until we like it. Might take all season!
2. Sailing angles & Speed.  When we have a full crew, let’s start using the app for real time feedback.
3. Tactics & Strategy. Remind me to stay with the pack, and save the risks for later in the race 🙂

But the most important part we’ve always done well: LAUGH!