The Oracle guys went out to play. Not quite as beautiful as "Elise" but we thought we'd give them a chance anyway.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Oracle
The Oracle guys went out to play. Not quite as beautiful as "Elise" but we thought we'd give them a chance anyway.
Pumpkin Getting Ready For A Day Sail
I am taking my travel litterbox with me, not sure what kind of amenities they have on the boat. This borrowed lifejacket is definitely too big for me, must be horse size. This should be a nice day. I heard that they have a woollen ball for me to play with on board. Kind of cool. And there were 19 birds sitting on the spreaders last time Nat saw the boat. hehe :) Will be a hell of a hunting party!
Elise Health Bulletin #2
Dear Beethovens,Elise is starting to look really really good. Most of the changes are now extremely subtle.
1) Elise has a new clutch on the port side. This cluch has no line going through it but it is red and green and looks beautiful with the blue winch covers. So we thought that we'd put it on anyway.
2) The battery is fully hooked up, and can be recharged through an elegant solar panel
3) The horseshoe has a little hut on the stern pulpit now
4) The interior is now super practical. There is a "push me and I will light up" type light velcro'ed to the bunk of the companion way on the port side. It is then easy for any dripping wet crew to walk to the nav table, open it, switch on the cabin light and then reach out to the individual light switches.
5) We managed to fit an unbelievably narrow piece of red rubber over an unbelievably big round bulb - in fact, we managed to do this twice with no collateral damage. We can now process photographs in the cabin.
6) Elise is now officially registered with the AAA of the seas. This doesn't mean that you should plan a breakdown.
7) The nav table can now stay in an open position without any risk of finger chipping, thanks to an extremely elaborate velcro set up
8) The Cunningham cleat has been declared disabled due to some oblique-looking bent. We will try brute force as a method of recovery. Right now, with limited Cunningham and outhaul, the main doesn't look too happy :(
9) We have tried all the old "mystery" sails and are happy to report that the inventory also comprises
- #4 (that's the tiny one! very cute!)
- #2
- #3
10) North Sails is still trying to fit the mainsail slug into the pre-feeder. They have now decided to bring all their tools to the boat directly so they can do QA in real-time at the mast.
11) The jib tracks are now numbered so we can be a bit more clever about our fairlead positions, seconded in this task by a miracle of technology: a waterproof race notebook!!!
If you must remember only one thing -
The cooler is now FULL with beer and water. We have chocolate chip cookies too and salty grapes on board.
NatGyver M.D. (Mad Doctor)
Good Looking Sailors
Heather: "is this Brad Pitt on that boat or am I daydreaming?"
Mark: ancho(RED) posing for The Gap.And before the rain, a rainbow.
Active Sailors
Mark busy setting up the genoa. We ended up swapping it for a #3 jib. We did not use the genoa at all come to think of it, since we hoisted the spinnaker to get to the start line. So I guess that we made Mark work a little too much...The view was superb though from the bow. No regrets.
Heather is fighting with the main sheet block.
Mark and Nat are helping with putting the boat away. Note the gear...There was a small change in the weather pattern shortly after the race ended. The wind went up to 25 knots and some very dark looking clouds decided to spray their "Grand Cru" content all over our heads...
Elise Race #2 - Berkeley MidWinters - December 9, 2006
Hello music fans,
Nathan will do a professional writeup about the race - but it might be interesting to also follow our brave little Beethovens as they ploughed through a day of heavy weather and laughter.
Here are our positions during the race:
Driver: Nathan
Trim #1: Roger
Trim #2: Mark
Pit: Heather
Foredeck: Nat
And our positions outside of the race:
Driver: Heather
Trim and chit chat: Nathan
Beer #1: Roger
Beer #2: Mark
Wiping off the salt from a bunch of grapes as she is assaulted by waves on the foredeck: Nat
And a few things that you may not read about in the official report:
- Heather hanging off the boom in a strange carp position
- Nat trying to recover a spinnaker pinned on deck between the jib sheets, looking like she's leading a silk painting workshop
- The entire crew trying to figure out why no boat is crossing the finish line...ultimately realizing that there was one more windward/leeward zigzagging to do.
- Nathan hosing off the grapes to get the salt out
- "I am a social cookie eater - if no one else is having some of those chocolate chip cookies, I will have to put them away"
We put the boat away BEFORE the heavy heavy rain started - obviously, this was part of the plan.
Pictures are coming soon :)
Nathan will do a professional writeup about the race - but it might be interesting to also follow our brave little Beethovens as they ploughed through a day of heavy weather and laughter.
Here are our positions during the race:
Driver: Nathan
Trim #1: Roger
Trim #2: Mark
Pit: Heather
Foredeck: Nat
And our positions outside of the race:
Driver: Heather
Trim and chit chat: Nathan
Beer #1: Roger
Beer #2: Mark
Wiping off the salt from a bunch of grapes as she is assaulted by waves on the foredeck: Nat
And a few things that you may not read about in the official report:
- Heather hanging off the boom in a strange carp position
- Nat trying to recover a spinnaker pinned on deck between the jib sheets, looking like she's leading a silk painting workshop
- The entire crew trying to figure out why no boat is crossing the finish line...ultimately realizing that there was one more windward/leeward zigzagging to do.
- Nathan hosing off the grapes to get the salt out
- "I am a social cookie eater - if no one else is having some of those chocolate chip cookies, I will have to put them away"
We put the boat away BEFORE the heavy heavy rain started - obviously, this was part of the plan.
Pictures are coming soon :)
Sunday, December 3, 2006
Dress Rehearsal - and Launch
Nathan and Roger have a strange way of boarding...Truth is that Elise lives on a trailer., albeit in a very respectable trailer park!
Oooo, a view of Elise being dressed up. Looks like the photographer has had quite a few beers. Doesn't look quite straight...Wonder who took this picture.
Kitty Sailors
Hershel is packing the spinnaker Pumpkin is making sure that we won't be leaving without him.
Saturday, December 2, 2006
Out to the Ocean...and Back To The City
Don't tell anyone but we did not have working navigation lights. We fixed this today and I am pleased to announce that Elise is as flashy as a Christmas Tree now.
Fiona asked many questions about right of way. We were on starboard tack and this huge ship didn't seem to be turning onto the usual channel for huge ships. First rule of the road: "if it's big, leave it alone."The effect of "Calissons" on someone's mood are remarkable. Especially when it is combined with a tiny bit of salt and a lot of sun. Nat looks particularly happy on this picture...
If you don't know what a Calisson is, it's a 15th century candy from Aix-en-Provence. Ours were a bit more recent.
Cruising Day on the Bay
Fiona looks very professional but she's still trying to figure out which way is port.And Nathan looks like a star at the Cannes film festival.
The big star of the day, looking absolutely stellar in her new bottom pants, sorry, bottom paint is Elise...
Elise Health Bulletin #1
Dear regular crew, I thought that I'd share some of the newest and greatest about Elise as she slowly but surely advances on the path to perfect tuning :)
Hull (and looks)
- Elise has a brand new bottom paint. It looks absolutely fabulous - a subtle light grey can only add to her elusive personality ;-) The boat was quite fast during the midwinters, despite a few extra coats of paint.
Mechanics/Electronics:
- The outboard is working again! And I have a broken carburator in my trunk for anyone who's interested in salvaging damaged mechanical parts :) I will take 2% on the eBay transaction. It faithfully propelled Elise through the water from Alcatraz back to the dock at a good 6 knots SOG (ok, ok, there might have been a little help from the current), proving once again that Elise under any condition can be a really fast and light boat.
- The battery is hooked up, only for us to find out that most bulbs need changing :) Some of them were too corroded to still work, and a solid arc of salt seems to have established a short-circuit :) And a super sexy solar panel is now on board, awaiting some super sexy connectors and a little extra piece of super sexy technology to avoid battery overcharge. The super sexy battery was steadily delivering a solid 12V nominal to power up the starboard side compass illumination light and the knotmeter (which showed a disappointed 0 kt...but then I guess that we were docked...)
- A sobre-looking barometer now decorates the galley - and should the Internet, all cellphone networks, telephone lines, newspaper and harbormaster VHF channels be disabled at the same time, will help us understand which way the weather is headed.
- We are in the racing business now, with a "turn it on and it works" ICOM hand-held VHF and a buggy GPS which can't find Alcratraz, even as we sail about 100 yards away from the island.
Sails/Wind Instruments:
- A brand new windex is presiding majestically over the recently brushed up/soaped up deck and points to the miracle wind direction. It also has two little pennants to help us during our downwind legs :)
- All the sails now have hanks and can be hoisted - some of the tack fittings for the old sail don't fit the current set up, but nothing that can't be remedied with a magic shackle :) All main sails have been fixed (small tear in one of them, tiny holes that needed to be patched in others) - the Dacron main is missing the top batten but we are actively working on changing this. It looks like North Sails is having some difficulties counting up to 4.
- The spinnakers have two super functional high tech lots of velcro everywhere type launch bags. They make us look really competent and I am sure must be very intimidating to everyone else in the fleet. And the 2nd kevlar main now has a brand new bag, which means that we can all wear the sail ties as necklaces.
- We have a new winch handle...
Looks:
- A shiny blue tarp cover is elegantly tossed over both sides of the deck and rests gracefully on the trailer to protect lines and woodwork from acid sun beams as well as the interior from nasty rain.
If You Remember Only One Thing
- the cooler has 9 bottles of beer in it. Grand Cru.
The Bad News
On the sad side, we have lost a cup holder, a fairly traumatic incident for all of us.
So what's next?
- We need to fix the outhaul which seems to have decided to be frankly un-cooperative.
- We will change the halyards for all the headsails as we believe that they all suffer from high sun exposure with no sunscreen
- We will replace all the lights so that we can be enjoy the illuminated skyline from Angel Island without having to pay a tax to the Coast Guard
- We will service the Cunningham cleat as it works only one way at this time (you can secure the line in but like Hotel California, you can never check out...)
- We will get some wine for the most civilized amongst us
- We are checking with the USCG to see if we can fly a French flag for fun and not upset anyone
Hull (and looks)
- Elise has a brand new bottom paint. It looks absolutely fabulous - a subtle light grey can only add to her elusive personality ;-) The boat was quite fast during the midwinters, despite a few extra coats of paint.
Mechanics/Electronics:
- The outboard is working again! And I have a broken carburator in my trunk for anyone who's interested in salvaging damaged mechanical parts :) I will take 2% on the eBay transaction. It faithfully propelled Elise through the water from Alcatraz back to the dock at a good 6 knots SOG (ok, ok, there might have been a little help from the current), proving once again that Elise under any condition can be a really fast and light boat.
- The battery is hooked up, only for us to find out that most bulbs need changing :) Some of them were too corroded to still work, and a solid arc of salt seems to have established a short-circuit :) And a super sexy solar panel is now on board, awaiting some super sexy connectors and a little extra piece of super sexy technology to avoid battery overcharge. The super sexy battery was steadily delivering a solid 12V nominal to power up the starboard side compass illumination light and the knotmeter (which showed a disappointed 0 kt...but then I guess that we were docked...)
- A sobre-looking barometer now decorates the galley - and should the Internet, all cellphone networks, telephone lines, newspaper and harbormaster VHF channels be disabled at the same time, will help us understand which way the weather is headed.
- We are in the racing business now, with a "turn it on and it works" ICOM hand-held VHF and a buggy GPS which can't find Alcratraz, even as we sail about 100 yards away from the island.
Sails/Wind Instruments:
- A brand new windex is presiding majestically over the recently brushed up/soaped up deck and points to the miracle wind direction. It also has two little pennants to help us during our downwind legs :)
- All the sails now have hanks and can be hoisted - some of the tack fittings for the old sail don't fit the current set up, but nothing that can't be remedied with a magic shackle :) All main sails have been fixed (small tear in one of them, tiny holes that needed to be patched in others) - the Dacron main is missing the top batten but we are actively working on changing this. It looks like North Sails is having some difficulties counting up to 4.
- The spinnakers have two super functional high tech lots of velcro everywhere type launch bags. They make us look really competent and I am sure must be very intimidating to everyone else in the fleet. And the 2nd kevlar main now has a brand new bag, which means that we can all wear the sail ties as necklaces.
- We have a new winch handle...
Looks:
- A shiny blue tarp cover is elegantly tossed over both sides of the deck and rests gracefully on the trailer to protect lines and woodwork from acid sun beams as well as the interior from nasty rain.
If You Remember Only One Thing
- the cooler has 9 bottles of beer in it. Grand Cru.
The Bad News
On the sad side, we have lost a cup holder, a fairly traumatic incident for all of us.
So what's next?
- We need to fix the outhaul which seems to have decided to be frankly un-cooperative.
- We will change the halyards for all the headsails as we believe that they all suffer from high sun exposure with no sunscreen
- We will replace all the lights so that we can be enjoy the illuminated skyline from Angel Island without having to pay a tax to the Coast Guard
- We will service the Cunningham cleat as it works only one way at this time (you can secure the line in but like Hotel California, you can never check out...)
- We will get some wine for the most civilized amongst us
- We are checking with the USCG to see if we can fly a French flag for fun and not upset anyone
Elise First Race
Nathan asking Amy to get him a beer.Jens tired after the race. Or is it because of the beer?
Elise's First Race Under New Management
Berkeley Circle, Nov 11, one design event
Crew: Nat (driving), Nathan (foredeck), and Jens+Amy on trim
Summary:
It was a very encouraging first day (one race, one design around the buoys). We made substantial improvements each leg on trim, speed, and pointing. The results haven't been posted yet but we're probably lower middle. Sail handling (sets, douses, ...) went well.
Details:
Wind was light-medium. A few gusts and sustained puffs made things interesting but in general it was enough breeze to keep moving but not so overpowering as to make it difficult the first day out.
We sailed under 3DL #3 and dacron main, the latter short one batten (the top one). At the starting line, the fleet was split in jib choice.
The course was a simple Olympic (triangle, then windward leeward) with all marks to port including starting pin and finishing pin.
The arrival at the start line was too late to really inspect the line and set up properly, but we still had enough time to pick our spot on the lnie and get set up for a reasonable start. This positioning was a pretty standard committee boat end, starboard tack affair. During the final stages of the start, Nat did a reasonable job with two fairly aggressive people hollering different directions at her (Jens and Nathan).
We had a good start all things considered- todo for next time is to be closer up to the line and drive anyone who's in the way over early.
Immediately after the start, we began to suffer on speed and didn't have driving and trim properly coordinated. We gradually lost distance to the boats we'd started with, and had a little trouble pointing high enough (particularly surprising given our #3 versus the #1 (#2?) some of the
nearby boats had selected). This upwind (first chance to tune against other boats) and the following downwind was where we lost most of our distance.
We had a good spinnaker set at the mark which only suffered a bit from the lack of practice on spinnaker setup (we should have, but didn't, have time to run through at least one set and gybe before the race).
Speed downwind was good, but the course was very unsteady on the first two downwinds (out to the offset and back from it to the leeward mark).
Todo for next time is to give the driver a compass bearing after rounding each mark.
The gybe execution was reasonable, but needed better communication fore and aft about when the pole was made on the mast again (and coursekeeping during the gybe- we wound up too high coming out).
The second half of the first downwind (offset->leeward) was puffy and a tight reach. If we'd had our act together from the beginning, the kite was carryable, but we wound up falling seriously off course to leeward and had to drop. The drop was conveniently facilitated by the halyard coming loose and dropping the spinnaker in the water. Fortunately, no
shrimping resulted (simply wet from being dragged across the surface while half full of breeze). Todo for the next event is to use a velcro strap around mast and halyard just below the cleat (which is vertical on the mast so that the bowman can run everything without help from the pit).
The second upwind was much improved over the first in both boatspeed and pointing. We had a few boats close to compare against (particularly Taz). Todo for next time is to be faster on the coordination of trim and helm to get acceleration from puffs. We had a few solid puffs that just resulted in big heel and Nathalie applying the rudder liberally, slowing the boat down.
The second downwind was straight down, and had clean sail handling. We were playing a long catchup game, and had the chance to play with one boat (Attack from Mars?) to practice sitting on their air, a game we need to practice a bit more.
During the final upwind, we had much better coordination and speed. We made a smart move going right a bit to stay out of the current, resulting in a dramatic pin end finish cutting off three port tackers who had been well ahead of us.
Overall, it was a very encouraging first day out.
Nat: unless you see pulsing arterial blood leaking from one of the crew, whatever else is going on is not more important than steering a consistent course. The two-handed traveler+tiller interplay is the main thing to work on upwind.
Amy: If you don't know what a request means, let us know fast and loud. Be assertive about it. Also, bow and trim#2 need to be out on the rail instantly after the tacks.
Jens: you and I needed to talk more about setup, especially Amy's parts- we didn't adequately prepare her coming in to marks.
Nathan: it's possible to be a lot more efficient about bow setup to avoid moving weight around too far off the rail coming in to windward marks.
Tuning:
The #3 seemed to like the leads pretty far forward- up at the shrouds. We need to number the holes in the track for future reference.
We need to experiment with the main. We had a considerably
tighter leech than our competition in the puffs (might want to allow the top to fall off). We'll also check it out when we have a full crew- being short some rail weight hurt us a bit at times.
-Nathan
Crew: Nat (driving), Nathan (foredeck), and Jens+Amy on trim
Summary:
It was a very encouraging first day (one race, one design around the buoys). We made substantial improvements each leg on trim, speed, and pointing. The results haven't been posted yet but we're probably lower middle. Sail handling (sets, douses, ...) went well.
Details:
Wind was light-medium. A few gusts and sustained puffs made things interesting but in general it was enough breeze to keep moving but not so overpowering as to make it difficult the first day out.
We sailed under 3DL #3 and dacron main, the latter short one batten (the top one). At the starting line, the fleet was split in jib choice.
The course was a simple Olympic (triangle, then windward leeward) with all marks to port including starting pin and finishing pin.
The arrival at the start line was too late to really inspect the line and set up properly, but we still had enough time to pick our spot on the lnie and get set up for a reasonable start. This positioning was a pretty standard committee boat end, starboard tack affair. During the final stages of the start, Nat did a reasonable job with two fairly aggressive people hollering different directions at her (Jens and Nathan).
We had a good start all things considered- todo for next time is to be closer up to the line and drive anyone who's in the way over early.
Immediately after the start, we began to suffer on speed and didn't have driving and trim properly coordinated. We gradually lost distance to the boats we'd started with, and had a little trouble pointing high enough (particularly surprising given our #3 versus the #1 (#2?) some of the
nearby boats had selected). This upwind (first chance to tune against other boats) and the following downwind was where we lost most of our distance.
We had a good spinnaker set at the mark which only suffered a bit from the lack of practice on spinnaker setup (we should have, but didn't, have time to run through at least one set and gybe before the race).
Speed downwind was good, but the course was very unsteady on the first two downwinds (out to the offset and back from it to the leeward mark).
Todo for next time is to give the driver a compass bearing after rounding each mark.
The gybe execution was reasonable, but needed better communication fore and aft about when the pole was made on the mast again (and coursekeeping during the gybe- we wound up too high coming out).
The second half of the first downwind (offset->leeward) was puffy and a tight reach. If we'd had our act together from the beginning, the kite was carryable, but we wound up falling seriously off course to leeward and had to drop. The drop was conveniently facilitated by the halyard coming loose and dropping the spinnaker in the water. Fortunately, no
shrimping resulted (simply wet from being dragged across the surface while half full of breeze). Todo for the next event is to use a velcro strap around mast and halyard just below the cleat (which is vertical on the mast so that the bowman can run everything without help from the pit).
The second upwind was much improved over the first in both boatspeed and pointing. We had a few boats close to compare against (particularly Taz). Todo for next time is to be faster on the coordination of trim and helm to get acceleration from puffs. We had a few solid puffs that just resulted in big heel and Nathalie applying the rudder liberally, slowing the boat down.
The second downwind was straight down, and had clean sail handling. We were playing a long catchup game, and had the chance to play with one boat (Attack from Mars?) to practice sitting on their air, a game we need to practice a bit more.
During the final upwind, we had much better coordination and speed. We made a smart move going right a bit to stay out of the current, resulting in a dramatic pin end finish cutting off three port tackers who had been well ahead of us.
Overall, it was a very encouraging first day out.
Nat: unless you see pulsing arterial blood leaking from one of the crew, whatever else is going on is not more important than steering a consistent course. The two-handed traveler+tiller interplay is the main thing to work on upwind.
Amy: If you don't know what a request means, let us know fast and loud. Be assertive about it. Also, bow and trim#2 need to be out on the rail instantly after the tacks.
Jens: you and I needed to talk more about setup, especially Amy's parts- we didn't adequately prepare her coming in to marks.
Nathan: it's possible to be a lot more efficient about bow setup to avoid moving weight around too far off the rail coming in to windward marks.
Tuning:
The #3 seemed to like the leads pretty far forward- up at the shrouds. We need to number the holes in the track for future reference.
We need to experiment with the main. We had a considerably
tighter leech than our competition in the puffs (might want to allow the top to fall off). We'll also check it out when we have a full crew- being short some rail weight hurt us a bit at times.
-Nathan
Thursday, November 30, 2006
It's a girl!!!!!
Hi everyone,
I am very pleased to announce a new member of the family! Elise, a
20-year old Express 27 (www.e27.org) made her entry into our world on
Thursday 12 October. She lives at the St Francis Yacht Club on the
marina, in San Francisco - with a splendid view of the Golden Gate Bridge
(pour ceux qui ont besoin de lunettes pour lire ca...Elise est un bateau...)
Nat, Hershel and Pumpkin
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