Training w/ Dan

On Sunday afternoon, on a fabulous 15 knot-sunny day (that would be about 25 knots at the Gate), Heather, Nathan, Nicolas and I went out on a practice run w/ Dan from Wile E. Coyote (a boat we usually admire the back of)

Interesting learning for us and things to work on

Start: also a proponent of just getting clean air and not start at the favored end of the line (where a big moving wall of bad air will be waiting for us). This makes it easier to also time the start (there should be way fewer boats at the other end, or kind of in the middle of the line). We mainly talked about it (we'll practice when there are other boats on the line I guess...)

• have one crew dedicated to counting down time
• have one crew dedicated to traffic and measuring distance to the line (particularly in strong current)

Upwind: very similar lesson as Jason's (about keeping the boat flat). A few extra tips and changes that we will do:

• have the crew call for puffs (and have the main sheet out of the cleat so the main can be released effortlessly when the puff hits)
• if the boat is not in the groove yet, head down, release the main, get the boat speed up and then slowly work on pointing
• make it easier to pull in the outhaul (maybe add mechanical aid)
• replicate the same purchase ratio below deck for the backstay so it can be adjusted from the main sheet post directly by the driver
• feed more croissants to the crew to increase weight on the rail before each rail, we're usually 50 pounds below legal limit
• Loosen the lifelines to the legal limit
• Tighten up the aft lowers (although Elise will generally be dynamically tuned anyway)
• Install a repeater for boat speed up on the mast, with big bold letters

Downwind:

• Launch from the hatch (already doing that now)
• Bring the twings further forward - and not worry as much about the downhaul
• play the sheet much more than the guy during jibes
• have one person on the sheet and one person on the guy during jibes
• have a person helping the bowperson for takedowns in heavier winds if necessary (particularly leeward douse)
• actively manage weight downwind
• actively manage pole tip (spinnaker wanted to fly a lot higher this time around)

Mark Rounding:

• have a crew bring in 90% of the main during the mark rounding (another crew is actively bringing in the jib) and 1 is at the bow cleaning things up, 1 is up on the rail and the driver is pointing the boat up and will finish the main trim

General Boat Speed:

• Sand the bottom a bit better
• See if there is anything that we can still take off the boat (took a lot of stuff off already though) when we go buoy racing

Bottom line in terms of short-term todos on the boat

1. backstay below deck purchase change (and range so we can adjust the exact same way as we would above deck)
2. add mechanical advantage to the outhaul adjustment
3. move twings forward
4. tighten up aft lowers as we go into heavy air season
5. decouple steaming light from GPS below...
6. add boat speed repeater on the mast
7. replace taktik
8. sand bottom

Any takers??? ;-)