Oh, to be sixteen again...

David getting the pole ready for the set and working at the speed of light.

Up or down (note that David is horizontal...getting the spinnaker out of the forward hatch)

Elise is at the back on port tack, with Nathan at the helm. Close pack of boats, hard to get clean air (and cruisers and ferries are not helping...)

Downwind: Nathan doing pit, Lisa trim #2 and Dayne #1. Working at the speed of sound. Oh, reminds me...the tiller extension also needs changing...Glad it held throughout the day!

Nice downwind...and we were not entirely last at that time...
Our proud singing frog...overlooking the operations.

This time, Lisa is at the pit, Nathan at trim #2 and Dayne is doing trim #1

All the photos were purchased from Peter Lyons from Lyons Imaging (www.lyonsimaging.com)

This past weekend, Elise had signed up for the Express 27 Nationals 2008...Unfortunately, the boat was ready to be splashed only on Thursday...the regatta was due to start on Friday. We delivered the boat and unloaded a lot of the ocean stuff...We still couldn't get the boat just right for the bay
1- still the ocean lifeline in place (back breaker for the driver and makes it hard to hike out)
2- using our spare set of spin sheets as we haven't replaced the lost one
3- still an issue with the top batten of the ocean mainsail
4- still the old forestay (so caution...) - we have yet to replace the broken new one...
5- still some impractical (read slower) setup: as the shackle for the spin halyard got detached from the halyard...due to a little too much chafe...
6- the boat wasn't tuned up at all

We had a full crew - super light crew though. Dayne, Lisa (from Wile e. Coyote, pushed out of the race by an accident), David - a promising 16-year-old sailor, Nathan and myself. The first race, we came in last...the second race, we improved our position by 2 places and the last race, by another two places. Not that we cared much about the rankings since we didn't have an active bay program this year and since we missed 2/3 of the Nationals... but it is nice to see an upwards trend.

I felt so out of practice. The Nationals is one of the best one-design events of the year. Loads of boats on the line, some of the best sailors show up. Very competitive and a lot of fun. This year was no different. The course was along the city front. Short tacks followed by a short downwind, and back up again. Some 19+ boats on the start line. light winds slowly building up but nothing really bad on that last day. Perfect sunny day and warm temperature (I took off my jacket after the first race as I was boiling!), I was feeling just fine in my tank top.

Racing around the buoys on the Bay is very different than long distance ocean racing. Fast, constant changes, short maneuvers and involving a lot of tactics. Every second counts. Just like a sprint. The Pac Cup was more like a marathon...It is important to know when to rest, when to eat in order to last the distance. We had focused our practice, boat setup on the latter (and double-handed sailing!) so it is hard to get back into shape for a sprint...especially among sprinters, and with a full crew!

Great crew work and individual performances!

David, with all the energy of his youth did foredeck. He was everywhere at once, jumping up and down to set things up, catching lines, stuffing the spinnaker down the hatch, juggling with the pole, doing windward or leeward douses, impeccable jibes and calling traffic, puffs and current from his front position. If Elise had enough deck distance to offer running grounds, I am sure that he would have been running around too.

Dayne was doing jib/spin trim for the first two races and calling tactics on the last one. (Nat did jib/spin trim then) - fabulous job also, cool-headed and reactive. Calling for pressure, tactics and working nicely with Lisa working on the pole. I think that he did a little bit of pit work too at some point... Lisa moved very fast, and worked neatly on pit, trim #1 and trim #2.
Nathan drove the last race and worked some pit and some trim. Nice job too and he got us our highest ranking of the day. Compared to David, we all looked like Boeing 777s flying next to an F16...

Everyone was fast, up on the rail quickly, executed great maneuvers and were generally happy. Although it is possible that the wine ritual at the end of the race is altering my judgment (no, David did not drink any wine...but we enjoy the brownies that his mother made for us!!)

I did a pretty lousy job driving though - especially upwind, I am not used to it anymore :) Let's say that there is plenty of room for improvement!

We had a near encounter with Kolibri, involving a crash tack on our part and wet pants for Dayne as he was hanging off the lifeline with only his torso, head and shoulders out of the water...Everyone and Elise were fine, so no worries. We just kept going...

Next project for Elise is to get a very thorough cleaning job to remove all the salt and rust...The deck also looks pretty filthy and needs to be bleached. I also need to replace a couple of shackles and lines and get France repaired. Then I will work on the next improvement project, this time for bay racing.