Aground...
Aground...
Aground...
Stuck on the committee boat anchor line...
will Paxton (from Motorcyle Irene)
Stylish...
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Vallejo Sunday Picture
Remarkable balancing feat ... there is a seal on this small rock...
Can you spot the woman up in the rig? That was one tall mast.
Roger sewing up the sail
The new 'Foam Leg Protection Technology'...
Tough wake up call...The Great Vallejo Race - 2010 - more pictures
Rafting up next to Ergo!
Saturday - San Pablo Bay
Nathan driving - note the color coordination between the horse shoe and his lifejacket...this is not a coincidence...
Mark, trimmer extraordinaireVallejo Sunday
Sunday morning in Vallejo, after a nice hearty breakfast at the Sardine Can (just like every year...) meeting Nick (after who Elise's autopilot is named) and Mike (from Desperado), we were back on Elise and ready to break up the raft.
Elise's crew was Nathan, Roger, Belle and Nat.
The start was a little confusing as it was hard to hear the guns and horn and the race committee wasn't counting down at all. There was a postponement because one of the Islander 36 got stuck in the mud (it was VERY low tide and the YC is very very shallow, a lot of boats were aground when we left our spot, still rafted up on docked) getting out of the Yacht Club and couldn't make it in time for its start.
Same as on Saturday, the sailing instructions clearly specified that 'Checkin on the radio or in person was NOT allowed'
Start was downwind, under spinnaker - and up (or down) the Vallejo channel. Elise did well and kept its place in the fleet. Nathan was at the helm (Nat drove most of Saturday). We started a little late in the pack but still w/ other Expresses this time :-) It was particularly hard to time this start because of a slight ebb + the downwind part (harder to slow down the boat). We were a little over-conservative and we could have hoisted the spinnaker slightly earlier.
As we were rounding the last mark of the channel, some weird things happened. There seemed to be an exact cancellation of the wind coming from San Pablo Bay and the wind coming out of the Vallejo channel...so boats were dropping dead in the water right in front of us, left and right. We quickly dropped the spinnaker and maneuvered our way out of that mess pretty skillfully but in no wind. A few boats were caught only on the edge of this mess and managed to escape at that time. A couple of Expresses (and other boats) suffered a couple of small bumps as inertia wasn't the same for all boats...Nothing serious at all, and just a penalty here and there. It was definitely a very crowded mark.
Up the channel, we decided to stay in the channel initially because there was still some ebbing current and move out as soon as the tide would turn which we did. We had great boat speed (above 6 knots) the whole time, played well with weight around the boat and wind was pretty steady at 10 to 13 knots. We'd tack if the wind speed would be consistently down.
We overtook a couple of Expresses at that time -
The wind then became very very fluky - boats on the left seemed to have no wind - there was also a big no wind bar crossing the entire bay. It was really hard to guess where the wind was going to fill from. We played this pretty tactically, following the little wind there was by very actively looking at variations on the water, while remaining out of the adverse current.
By then, we had passed two Expresses and caught up with a third one (who had disappeared after the 'mark mess'
Opa! with whom we talked after the Finish approached this more strategically (a better move) and hedged their bets, pretty much choosing the middle. Lower risk (and lower reward) strategy - we were a little too far to the left, also going for min distance to the Finish.
Desperado took a big bet (high risk and high reward) strategy to the left, which didn't really work out in the end.
We had put in *some* strategic thought in our approach, as the wind was very light, wanting to have a tighter angle so we could move faster through the water to the Finish.
The boats on the left were dead in a big wind hole. The boats on the right had to go further right to catch the wind. We were never dead but the wind filled out a little later where we were, and this totally killed our distance advantage. We still caught up w/ one more Express before the Finish line, and we finished right after Ergo (again) and exactly mid fleet (again), ahead of Desperado.
We did a disaster drop of a Belle who was going back to RYC and headed under #1 in really light air up Raccoon Straights, back to the St Francis - well dined and wined. (it's Elise after all...). Roger drove us back to the Club.
I got a little wet as we crossed the Bay, past Angel Island...both the air and the water temperature really dropped, making us long for the Delta Ditch Run, another one of these balmy sunny downwind races...
Great boat speed the whole time, boat for boat, we were creeping up places. Elise pointed great and we managed to keep her really balanced, even though at times we were really hitting the top of the range for the #1 and we had only 4 people on board, including two elves. We will see what we could have done better strategy-wise, but our short term tactics worked great as we were never completely dead in the water, and were dealt bad cards twice during the race - making the best of a bad situation seemed to be our motto on that day!
Overall, we had a lot of fun and once more admired how well the Express 27 will sail in all sorts of conditions, downwind, upwind, etc...
I may be really falling in love w/ that boat...
Vallejo Saturday
Elise sailed to Vallejo and back this weekend -
The day started weird...first we ran aground on the way out of the St Francis (the shoal markers do not seem to indicate the actual boundaries of the shoal...) and a Protector had to drag us out. Elise's bow was pretty much on the beach, I could have jumped out on the sand and keep my feet dry. Impressive :-)
The wind then died and we had to turn on the engine. Current was really bad and it took us a while to sail to the start line which we crossed pretty much one before last (Motorcycle Irene was hooked on the Committee Boat anchor line and must have crossed the line way after us...) and at the same time as the next start.
This means that we had nearly 5 minutes to gain back on the rest of the fleet. We were last at the turnaround (windward) mark but by the time we reached the Richmond Bridge, we had caught up w/ one Express and we were side by side with a couple more, and gaining on a 4th one. Turns out that we beat quite a few Expresses to the finish (including Top Gun who did not seem to have registered as he was not scored). primarily by boat speed.
There was a big lull at some point right after the Richmond Bridge - we were in a no wind strong favorable current area and we drifted toward Vallejo at pretty much the same speed as a bunch of boats that were in a light wind no current area. Crazy.
The wind finally picked up and pushed up at about 10-15 knots down to the entry of the Vallejo channel. Mark did a fabulous job at trimming the spinnaker and we passed another boat during that leg, catching up to 3 to 4 minutes to the other boats.
We dropped the spinnaker and hoisted our #1 in the Channel since it wasn't really a tight beat. This seems to have been a good jib choice as save a couple of gusts, we were zooming along.
So despite a pretty gruesome start, we had good boat speed, played wind and currents (at least what was visible and attainable based on our position) well - good sail trim, strong maneuvers, did not lose any time changing sails, tacking or jibing. Elise behaved extremely well in these weather conditions and finished exactly mid-fleet - within 15 min of the top boat but less than 5 minutes behind the next one up.
The next few races, we are focusing a lot on boat speed and crew maneuvers - and a little less on tactics yet. Our logic is that over a 2-year plan, no matter how good your tactics, if you have good tactics and bad boat speed, faced with good tacticians with good boat speed, we'll lose boat for boat to the finish - and in round the buoy races, the big strategy (north Vs South, etc...) is less critical to a win.
First things first - and given that we were short-handed (only 3 of us on the boat), I'd say that we sailed a good race.
Once we got to Vallejo, we had a 'push boat' which was awesome, and which took us to our rafting place. Nathan and I spent the night on Elise, who turned out to be very comfortable again. Definitely camping-style, but more comfortable than most tents I know!
Elise To Dos - going down the list
Twing lines are now much longer (re-using a broken topping lift line after the mast broke at the end of last year)
Still to do to go fast -
- fix port primary winch
- add speed repeater to the mast (and put back some kind of Taktik there)
- loosen lifelines to max fleet spec
- fare bottom
- remove (light) SSB tuner still stuck at the back of the boat
Misc.
- Re-connect steaming light
- Replace set screws for forward hatch (one of them seem to be broken)
- Start thinking about upgrading racing #1 (in the fall, after the summer season, we rarely need a #1 anyway)
- Connect / fit stereo (and a way to get iPod music in...)
Vallejo Photos - Set 1 - May 1 and 2, 2010
Vallejo is a great race - it took place this Saturday and Sunday. First set of photos uploaded.
Saturday
Start line is South of Southampton Shoal (Berkeley Circle waters)
Finish line is in front of the Vallejo Yacht Club
Sunday
Start line is (often downwind) in front of the Vallejo Yacht Club
Finish line is North of the Richmond Bridge
Saturday night w/ Mark, his wife and Nathan, enjoying some Italian dishes at a local Vallejo restaurant.Courtesy of Mark.
Ouch...
Elise on Sunday - There's Roger, Nathan and Bell. I am behind Nathan...We were starting to crank off to get to the Finish.
Ouch...Photo purchased from Lyons Imaging (www.lyonsimaging.com)
This was the youngest crew enrolled. Baby's thinking 'pole needs to come aft guys, never mind the photographer.' - the little girl is thinking 'look how at well I have trimmed the sail. Can I get a lollipop?'
Photo purchased from Lyons Imaging - www.lyonsimaging.com
Elise on Sunday - There's Roger, Nathan and Bell. I am behind Nathan...We were starting to crank off to get to the Finish.Note the comfy blue foam patches to make the hard aluminum edges of the toerail a little smoother...The toe rail is required for our Ocean races but can be a pain for long legs on the rail...
Photo purchased from Lyons Imaging (www.lyonsimaging.com)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)