AdMob Sailing Offsite - Deb's Photo

Team Great White

AdMob Sailing Offsite - Zubair's Photos

Nat, Patrick and Sharif

Team Great White

Team Great White

Demon of the South Tower

The afternoon got really really sunny...don't think it was such a gloomy day!

This is also Team Elise...

Admob Sailing Offsite - Sharif's photos

Great White under the bridge

Great White under the bridge

Seth, Anuj and Zubair

Nat and Patrick

This was Team Elise

AdMob Sailing Offsite

4 Express 27s:

• Ergo (with Chris and Belle)
• Great White (with JP and Deb)
• Wetsu (with Phil and Jim)
• Elise (with Nat and Patrick)

A bunch of AdMosters (from www.admob.com)

A day of sailing on San Francisco Bay. We had spare foul weather gear and spare sailing gloves for the AdMosters. The AdMosters brought food and drinks to the boat.

We first went out the gate on a sailing clinic. Night light/foggy morning. Back under spinnaker

Lunch at the St Francis YC

Out racing in 25 knots gusting 30. Spinnakers up

Start line in front of the Golden Gate Yacht Club

First upwind mark was 'A' in front of St Francis YC. Starboard rounding

Then to Alcatraz, leave to starboard (under spinnaker)

Then to Blossom Rock, starboard rounding

Then back up to Golden Gate YC in heavy flood

Elise won...

couple of enhancements made to Elise

• Backstay can now be adjusted from either the back or the mainsheet post
• The twings attach point to the deck has been moved forward
• The interior lights work again...
• The steaming light has been disconnected from the GPS...(and has yet to be reconnected)
• The little hole through which the mast wires get into the boat is now sealed off
• The old (now just for cruising) mainsail now fits perfectly inside the mast...and through the pre-feeder
• Elise also has a new hot knife

Elise Crew Dinner for 2009 Season!!

Patrick is missing but this was Elise's regular crew!

Thanks Nathan, Roger and Mark for all the fun!

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??? ;-)

Elise Health Bulletin

Just a quick update - Elise does not have the temporary padeye that Nathan had fixed on the cabin top during Pac Cup 2008, and the openings are now sealed with some solid 5200.

We also put some 5200 on a small leak (not structural) along the motor mount insert.

We also realized that the hot knife is toast...and needs to be replaced (pun intended...) and we diagnosed that the deck nav lights were not working b/c of a small corrosion issue (as opposed to a light bulb issue, corrosion affects the connection quality)

Crewed Lightship - 201

Saturday was the crewed lightship - the crew: Tom (trim 2/foredeck), Mark (trim), Heather (foredeck/trim 2), Pete (pit) and Nat (helm) - very light winds (from 2 to about 7 knots all the way, except near the gate (topped 16 knots at some point) for the last 10 minutes of the race.

It looks like we could have cut off on distance a little but after we rounded the mark and shave a few minutes. Although, we would have been unable to keep a hot angle without a lot more jibes and zigzag, so 100% sure it would have been a better trace. We played the currents heavily, particularly because there was no wind, so we stayed in the middle of the channel on the way out and on the way back.

The start was the weirdest thing. The flag didn't seem to agree with the horn. We weren't the only ones confused. Everyone was looking at everyone else effectively saying 'are you in our start, I think you are in our start, are we starting yet?' Even after boats at crossed the line, everyone was still looking around to make sure that everyone else had started. We didn't hear any recall on the radio so we kept going.

The divisions were a bit weird. We were in the same division as super fast boats...the two synergy's were on the same start. Hard to beat those!

On the upwind, the forecast indicated that the wind would stay pretty much, and if anything move to SW (a few minutes before the start), so we decided not to go too far North of the course. That was our big bet of the day. Looking around, it doesn't look like we had less wind than the other boats on average, although at times, we could see boats move and we never really got the push they did.

Pete actively shifting his weight around to keep the boat at a roughly 10% angle. At times, we went over to 15% when it was so light that the sails would become floppy and we really needed the weight on the leeward side.

A couple of times, I felt that boat speed was kind of low, probably my fault, mostly when the wind was very floppy and kept changing direction by over 10%. I may have been too slow to react. We actively moved weight around which I think made a BIG difference. We are less than 10 min behind the other Express (which probably had a 45 second lead at the start to begin with) which isn't so bad after 24 miles and a new crew.

And apparently, I eat in a specific order: carrots first, sometimes fruit, then almonds and other related nut products, then my sandwich, then some kind of dessert. Never paid attention to that...

What we did well:

- maneuvres: all of our tacks were real smooth - and we kept the spinnaker full on jibes. We even jibed right under the bridge in a tactical maneuvre and we made it no problem.

- sail trim, particularly on the upwind - out telltales were flying horizontal the whole time. We tried playing with the traveler and the various mainsail control (less outhaul/less cunningham when it was really really light) to shape the sail better and we monitored boat speed to see whether what we were doing helped at all.

- current management: we tacked or jibed right before bad current lines.

What we could have done better

- start (although we weren't the only boat confused by the discrepancy between the flags and the horn)

- driving (especially in the really fluky winds) - particularly expensive in light winds as dropping half a knot in speed could mean a reduction in 50% of boat speed!

- course? (not entirely sure what would have been a better course, would be great to see what the winning boats picked)

6 out of 9 on corrected time.

Would love to hear others' thoughts on what we could have done differently and on what we can take into our next event. Was a nice cruise I guess ;-)

Elise's new scarf :-)

Thank you Nathan!!!

Double-Handed Lightship

Not quite sure what went wrong with this race...Late start but we were one of the first boats to host the spinnaker (Yes! on the way out!!), slowly catching up to boats. We tacked away from the North shore (and the no wind area) and kept going where the wind seemed to be, kicking ass.

The wind then started to drop and we weren't sure whether it would pick up from the North West as planned or not. It seemed to be taking forever and wouldn't want to just fill from the right direction. looking at the boat further North, there didn't seem to be any wind on that side of the course.

We narrowly avoided a ship (we were well clear and out of the channel, just impressive to be so close to a big tanker) but that didn't really take us off course.

We had a few minutes of dueling with Diane, and then for some reason seems to just be stuck in the same place for 20 minutes...Not going anywhere and no breeze in heavy swell was a little 'barfy' (Nathan's description but my experience) - things were fine again as soon as the boat started moving again. By then, though, we had lost 20 minutes. I am still not sure where those went. We were further South than a lot of boats by then (part of it was our bet, the other part was kind of bad timing) so this can explain the discrepancy between us and other boats.

However, there is no reason why we fell behind Diane and Witchy Woman that I can find! Maybe just a bad day...or just losing concentration. Or again, feeling so elated that we kind of lost track of the race? Not sure.

We had a really nice downwind, kissed the South shore up until the bridge (to benefit from favorable current) , and Witchy Woman went the other way at that point, despite them having to cross the channel, in heavy ebb, they were still faster than we were and beat us to the finish.

Don't let this post mislead you - disappointed by the finish because we started strong and can totally do better. I have this nagging feeling that it is something that I did that kind of made us take a turn for the worse...but I can't pinpoint it. So apologies Nathan!

The fact that we could keep the spinnaker full nearly 1/3 of the way up to the lightship and then all the way down to the finish, surfing up and passing much larger boats was so much fun, that I even forgot that I hadn't had lunch...It was kind of a mini-Pac Cup. The waves were just perfect for the day. Overall, I had a great time and I wouldn't have traded that day for anything in the world.

France forges ahead

A little duel with Witchy Woman I think

Things were looking up at that time...

Purchased from Lyons Imaging (www.lyonsimaging.com)

Big Daddy 2010 photos

Nice downwind on Racoon Straights, back to Richmond YC. Nice job guys.

Photos purchased from Lyons Imaging (www.lyonsimaging.com)

More Spring Keel Photos

We had some really good speed upwind, and very smooth legs - we did two things wrong in the first day and everything else right (as in really good)

1) Tacks (very slow and cumbersome, but it was new crew, so needed to share things out a bit)

2) Calling lines and current management, particularly close to the mark: after THREE attempts at making the windward mark, we finally rounded...we were in the first half of the fleet initially getting there, one before last after rounding...quite exasperating!

I did not make it easy for the boat as our tactician had called lines just fine on the first mark rounding, but I turned way too early, causing us to miss the mark. I can't quite remember what I was thinking, maybe that I needed to work more on my right side tan.

So I would say that we can improve our performance by

1) doing more crew practice and more races with the same regular crew (there was nothing in what happened that cannot easily be fixed by practice, everyone was great)

2) have the driver better listen to the tactician as opposed to making random unilateral decision and stay focused focused focused on boat speed at all times.

3) practice on estimating currents' impact on boat direction, etc...and better calling the marks

Our starts were that bad on the first day (worst was 5 seconds late to the line, which we made up because we had clean air and really good boat speed upwind)

The second day, with the #3 jib up, our tacks were much smoother already - and we had a few bad tactical calls too - one race, we ended up on the wrong side of the course - and a couple of poor mark roundings (leeward gates). So overall, we did not do very well, but most of it was around mark roundings and boat handling on the second day. Boat speed was still great, both upwind and downwind, we were actually passing boats on both sides.

We had good speed downwind, and did play currents well, we actually did pass boats on both upwind and downwind legs, and lost our advantage rounding the marks and calling currents at the marks on the second day, and pretty much tacking and rounding the windward mark on the first day.

Overall, it is pretty disappointing if you just look at this race. And it is soooo tempting to do that (I am guilty of that!)

However, the reason why I have told all the Beethovens to work on a 2-year plan with Elise is so that we don't have to look at one race's individual results. Every race, we have a goal and this is what we are focusing on improving. We can take risks and better ourselves. It isn't practice in that we will do everything we can to maximize our changes to be in a good place, but we will be satisfied if we meet our goal, just an improvement over last time.

Also, because it takes at least a season to train new crew, and so we are hoping to reap the benefits of this in the second year. Elise had only 4 or 5 regular crew last season, and most of these people could not make every race. High crew turnover was definitely hurting our round-the-buoy performance.

There may also have been a 'oh my God, I cant believe we are kicking ass right now and this is our first upwind legs, we just pass 4 boats and we are seriously keeping up and pointing just as high as the top boats'. By the time, we think that, (or well, I think that), my attention is taken away from what I should focus on: boat speed - and perhaps our tactician's attention on what he should focus on: calling the lines.

After the practice with Moxie Man, our goal was to increase upwind boat speed (downwind was never a problem for Elise) AND starts. We didn't have great starts, but we didn't have really bad ones - I would say we had 75% of good starts over the weekend. We stayed out of the way of boats, focused on clean air and boat speed, even if we were sacrificing distance away from the favored end of the line. So from that perspective, we did well.

One other key to winning in my opinion is consistency. We can't just have random bad and good starts. 99% of our starts need to be B+ at least, so that our average moves up.

We will go into the next race without feeling stressed or pressured and will just do our best.

Purchased from H20shots (Camera at Large) - www.h2oshots.com

Spring Keel 2010 Photos

The Spring Keel crew: Nathan, Andrew, Nat, Suzanne and Steve!

Purchased from Lyons Imaging (www.lyonsimaging.com)

Erik - didn't you take photos on that day too??

Big Daddy - Message from Mark

"geez, thanks for a great day Elise! and I really enjoyed the new company, Belle and Suzanne whom I had never sailed with before.

Not sure on the results yet, but we had a great finish. The downwind leg was well thought-out, well-executed, and resulted in a great opportunity at the finish line that Nathan aggressively took advantage of. Bravo.

I thought our upwind leg to Alcatraz was good, and on the run to Angel Is we certainly picked up a few boatlengths. We cut it a bit too close on the approach to Alcatraz (bad communication) and then went a bit too wide as we
rounded (my bad) but neither cost us much. Other than that, our only big mistake was a bad start, and a lot of that can be blamed on the DELAY, the wind and the committee boat, but of course the final answer is to BE MORE
PREPARED.

Andrew had a great first race on foredeck!"

Pretty cool site

http://www.sail-the-net.com/translate/parts-of-a-boat-translation.html

Berkeley Yacht Club will be hosting the 2010 Sarcoma Cup

From the Sarcoma Cup Regatta Chair -

Howdy Sailors –

In our continuing efforts to provide you with the best possible regatta experience, and after months of top secret meetings with deep-pocketed sponsors, interviewing prospective host yacht clubs, carefully reviewing their extensive application forms, and performing thorough background checks, we have finally reached a decision. Our complex application scoring process heavily weighted kick-ass sailing, parties that would be illegal in most states, and dedication to this charity cause. One applicant towered above the rest…

…those wild and crazy folks at the Berkeley Yacht Club will be hosting the 2010 Sarcoma Cup !!! Congratulations BYC !!

Unfortunately, we are still sworn to secrecy on some of the event’s details. You may have heard rumors about special appearances by some of the SI swimsuit models at this year’s Sarcoma Cup. At this time I can neither confirm or deny these rumors. As soon as we can declassify the rest of the event details we will be making further announcements. Stay tuned.

So, far the following fleets have committed to the event and have it on their calendar:

J105

Express 27

Wabbit

Alerion 28

Open 5.70

Viper 640

Santana 22s (Sunday)

So, if your fleet is not on this list, now’s the time to fix that J. Do your sailing friends a favor and pass this email on.

We will also be posting updates at http://www.sarcomacup.org/

Cheers,

Mark Lowry

2010 Sarcoma Cup Regatta Co-chair

Practice with Moxie Man

Sunday was practice day on Elise -

Mark, Heather and Nat (coach) did a Double-Handed practice, primarily around the mechanics (transforming things that happen in parallel during full crewed events into a sequence of events when short-handed), I will let Heather and Mark comment on that one.

In the afternoon, the Beethovens Mark, Andy, Heather, Nathan and Nat went on a racing practice with the skipper of Moxie (top of the E27 class) - and learned a TON of stuff.

1. we practiced starts (where to be with respect to the line when, how to work with the bowperson to count down the distance to the line, when to jybe Vs tack during the sequence, how to hit the line w/ speed, etc...) - out of 6 or 7 starts, we hit 4 or so really well, one was 5 seconds late and one was on time but not with full speed. Our strategy going forward will be to actually take a quiet portion of the line, say 1/3 down, or through the middle of the line - not because it is the best location on the line but because given our level of skills on the start line in such a competitive fleets, we want to favor a) clean air and b) complete control of when we hit the line. So we don't want to have to worry about other boats around us. It'll just be us and the line and our goal every time will be to cross the line right on the mark fully powered up.
2. we practice upwind boatspeed (and discussed a better way to run the backstay so it can be adjusted entirely from the traveler post) - in 15 knots of wind or so. We managed to keep the boat nicely flat, slightly pinching, keeping her in a very narrow groove, not moving the tiller very much, using loads of outhaul/cunningham and playing the backstay a lot - focusing on the head sail and releasing the main in big puffs. Having a full crew hiking out hard and the driver's butt on the toe rail made a huge difference. Overall, in these moderate wind, the boat felt like it was just nicely trotting around. Very relaxing.
3. we practice jibes - and we will make a couple of changes to the way we handle things. 1) always launch from the forward hatch when on the Bay and use the shackle to keep the spin halyard out of the way of the jib (the part is actually planned for that purpose, but we have rarely used it). Saves repacking, minimize weight on the foredeck during setup. Just needs to prepare this ahead of time. Nice tip during a jibe for the driver: follow the spinnaker, eg point the bow at the middle of the sail at all times to keep it full. Finally, making sure to gather the foot of the spinnaker (eg blow the guy and release the sheet), before releasing the halyard which can then be done at a leisurely pace.

We talked about reducing the purchase on the main sheet in light air so I can bring in the sail faster.

Couple more tips: when rounding the mark, just point the boat upwind, then worry about taking in the sails as quickly as possible.

Try cross-sheeting (but practice first as otherwise, you can end up in a real line mess)

The bag that we are now using in the companionway for the halyards is really helping keep the cockpit clear of line and is making our tacks nicer. We practice one-person tacks w/ the #3, much nicer weight-wise...and a slight depowering of the main during the tack to allow for a smoother maneuvre.

We talked about avoiding to come down on the wrong side of the wave (to keep the boat flat) and give the tiller a slight push as the boat gets on the crest. We will also make sure that the instruments just display boat speed during buoy racing, in big big numbers. We don't actually need to see the compass reading at all times...We can check wind speed occasionally if we have to make sail change choices, although typically.

Elise has hanks (a safe choice for the Ocean, if you are short-handed and you just want to drop your sail, you just drop the sail, it won't be going anywhere and will fall on deck, worst case, it'll get a little wet) which can make foredeck maneuvres faster at mark roundings. However, it forces us to make the right sail choice for an entire upwind (as we can't put up a sail through the second track)

Not very ordered I admit - but this was SO helpful. And we now have our plate full of things to practice and focus on this season. And we have a strong regular crew. It will take time, but commitment makes a huge difference :-)

Thanks Jason!

Berkeley and CYC Midwinters Photosd

The Race Committee at the Pin end of the line... ;-)

Beautiful shot of CYC Midwinters

Elise clearly doesn't want to be mixed up with the crowd...

Great photo of a start at the Berkeley Midwinters -
Purchased from Lyons Imaging

Elise Traveler Car

Needs some re-adjusting...the plastic/bearing just exploded on the last practice...Sounds impressive but it's no real big deal, if you just want to sail. Massive problem if you want to race.

She'll have a nice new system actually attached to the traveler track for the Spring Keel...

More Berkeley Midwinters

On the way to the race course - did Heather get some dust in her eye??

Pete and Andy, human masts

Happy Andy!

More Midwinter pictures

Nathan playing w/ something...

Cookies, Pete, Heather and Mark apparently holding up the phone

Nathan and cookies
self-portrait :-)

From the same camera! Thanks Mark!

Last Berkeley Midwinters - photo shoot #1

Nathan
Mark and Nathan

Happy Pete
Heather

Courtesy of Mark (or rather, of his cell phone)

Race Committee with Sarcoma Cup PRO at RYC midwinters

I was on the El Toro course (no Optis on that day) on the Committee Boat - I would recommend doing some race committee work. You learn how tricky it can be to ensure a square start line, the beauty of flag codes, how to sight finishes (with 2 or 3 people so you can compare notes) and if you do this w/ a very seasoned PRO you learn a ton of tactics tips as you typically have a running commentary of the race. It is SO helpful.

Health Bulletin

Elise's jib track is extended so the #3 should be trimmed really nicely now -and Elise got a new tiller!

She's ready for prime time :-)

Elise's new mast maiden voyage

Belle, Suzanne, Pete and his mom and I took Elise out for her new mast's maiden voyage. Picked up a couple of things that still need to be fixed, but overall, looking pretty good!

Mast is up and new clutch is available. We put up the new mainsail which goes up and down like a charm (better than the old one which incurred a lot of friction) - the new mast stayed up which is a relief obviously.

The boat was static tuned for light air and as the breeze was becoming heavier and heavier, we decided to head back to the Club. Backstay felt really tight and I wonder if there is enough play in it. Will discuss with the rigger. We also noticed that the cam cleat on the side of the mast which we use to cleat off the spinnaker halyard when we race around the Bay was missing.

A couple of other minor things were discovered - and this week, the following will get done:

• dynamic tune the boat (incl. for heavier/stormy weather)
• add cam cleat (otherwise, no biggy, we can run the halyard back)
• replace tiller (the current one is starting to crack itself loose...)
• extend jib car track forward by a couple of inches
• connect tri-color to the connector box

and she'll be all ready to sail!!!

Then a couple more projects on the list -

• fix emergency nav light (deck level, for some reason, they don't light up anymore. Either a bulb change, or a loose/corroded connection somewhere probably)
• Change a flush Harken block used by the Vang line
• add stereo system (it will be nice to have this for Vallejo)
• re-paint deck (it's becoming very see-through)

Photo of Elise's new main courtesy of Belle!