last pages!! enjoy!! and thank you Peter
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Photos from Corinthians Midwinters 2009 aboard Red Sky
Rich Cox generously offered his talent and his time, shooting a regatta on San Francisco Bay - to support sarcoma research. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of these photographs will go to BeatSarcoma, "for the cause".
View the pictures: photo.beatsarcoma.org
http://beatsarcoma.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=7179619&AlbumKey=CLTbU
View the pictures: photo.beatsarcoma.org
http://beatsarcoma.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=7179619&AlbumKey=CLTbU
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Wind Dance
On days of light wind, Brian has a special chaman-like dance to invoke the spirits of the Winds. It partially worked, we had wind for about 20 minutes and it didn't rain. Apparently the steps for this dance are awfully close to the ones for a rain dance. Speaks to Brian's dexterity.
Corinthians Midwinters 2009 - on Red Sky
Nat went out on Brian's boat, Red Sky, on Saturday at the Corinthians Mid Winters. Rich joined us as he was doing a photoshoot for BeatSarcoma! I will post a link to pictures soon. Lyons Imaging also participated.
Great day - beautiful weather except that we had really little wind at times...and close to the finish line when we were pretty much motionless, boats seem to come out of nowhere at a fairly brisk pace...just because they were still getting wind.
I worked foredeck, messed a few things up which caused Brian to ironically call out to neighboring boats 'I have the best French foredeck in the Bay, believe me'
Nothing was broken and nobody got hurt. so it was a great race ;-)
Here is an apercu of Rich's talent!
We caught a snack at Tartine in the evening to sort out the pictures (Rich is using a fabulous Apple application for this...but I forgot the name of it...not iPhoto) - we stayed until closing time and were offered some free lemon meringue cake. Just as Rich was wondering whether he'd get dessert or not!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Regatta Pro Midwinters - Saturday 10 January 2009
Saturday morning - woken up by Pumpkin's meow festival. Time to get ready, load up the racing sails and grab a nice sit-down breakfast and coffee at Martha's, down the street. I then stop by the supermarket to get food and drinks for the day. My way of selecting beer, as a non beer drinker and in the absence of any kind of instruction, has a lot to do with packaging...if I like the image or the color of the pack, I might just buy it. I then drive to the 24th and Mission BART stop, arrive 10 minutes early, park and wait for Nathan who I was supposed to pick up. I waited. And waited. And waited. I waited until I decided to check my email and realized that Nathan was waiting for me at the 16th and Mission BART station.
All this nice perfectly-timed morning out the window! :)
All this nice perfectly-timed morning out the window! :)
Anyway, we get to the boat with a 5 minute delay, not too bad. Adrian and Rom are there. We have a 4-person crew, two less experienced and two experienced. So today will be a training day 'in vivo'. Note that this is the end of last year's season, eg a counter for last year's ranking and Elise wasn't very active in the one design event last year.
We put the boat in the water, set up the engine and go, dressing up Elise on the way to the west side of the Berkeley circle. Forecast was downgraded to 5-10 knots. The wind picks up slightly though and we hoist the sails and decide to go upwind to try a nice spinnaker run down back to the starting area. The upwind part and the setting up of the spinnaker we did. No problem. The running back to the starting area we also did. The wind played a nasty trick on us though. It dropped in velocity! Getting to the start area 5 minutes after everyone else wasn't a perfect start. We decided to follow the course, staying out of the way of everyone but only go once around to catch up with the other boats and do the second race. Wind was very moderate, we had the genoa up. Maneuvres went fine, with a bit of coaching and it was a lot of fun. Some lunch, some drinks and we are getting ready for the second race.
And then, something terrible happened.
The wind died.
We became all panic-stricken as we realized that we would have to make the beer bottle last for much longer than originally planned. A challenge for most. We were all fighting the ebb and slowly making our way to the Golden Gate bridge, bobbling around like sad ducks definitely not in a row. After a while, the committee boat leaves the starting area with a 'follow me' flag. We looked at each other. With the genoa up, we were managing to remain at the same location. Going somewhere was out of reach at that time. Fortunately, a J24 brought out their engine. Or unfortunately perhaps, they soon became the locomotive of an Express 27 train, launched after the speedy committee boat.
The wind picked up again and we dissolved the snail train. The committee boat was racing around the entire area, picking up marks, dropping them, picking them up again, moving them around. After a pretty long time, over 2 hours, the wind was finally up, moderately but from the NW, so likely to remain stable.
With 20 minutes to go before the last warning was supposed to go off as per the sailing instructions, we started our second race - first for us. We did things slowly as we wanted everyone to really get a chance to practice their position (Rom on the foredeck, Adrian doing pit work and trim 2, Nathan doing trim and tactics and me at the helm) and I was thrilled to get some practice in conditions that I am not usually great at: light winds. Enough to sail well though. I need to get more practice upwind to balance out all the downwind driving that I did during the Pac Cup. I want to be a good upwind driver! West side of the course seemed favored by wind and current (up to a certain point) -
Lessons learned -
- As soon as we are certain that we will be able to make the mark, foredeck can set the pole and get ready for a hoist.
- Foredeck person needs to jump the spinnaker. Priority job at that time is to get the spinnaker all the way up. Then it is OK to take care of the genoa (take down) and the spinnaker bag (bring back to cockpit for later re-packing)
In general, whenever you have to make snap decisions:
- what is the most urgent for safety/good standing of the boat (eg a half hoisted sail cannot really be trimmed and controlled but it could be a liability as it will catch wind)
- what is the most urgent to make the boat go fast (putting the big sail up will definitely do more for boat speed than taking down the smaller one)
Obviously, if wine is involved, priorities might be modified. Everything else is clean up work :)
Thursday, December 18, 2008
More Regatta Pro Photos
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Beautiful photos from Lyons Imaging (www.lyonsimaging.com)
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
RegattaPro (Second Saturday Series), Dec 13 2008
Leading in, NOAA had been forecasting a possibility of rain or even thunderstorms.
Saturday morning, the forecast was upgraded to a fun 15-25 kt day with NW breeze. The expectation was a race near the slot, sailing across the current. We had a fun group with Dayne and David G trimming, Gus making a good first appearance on foredeck, and Nathan+Nat trading pit and driving.
On the way to the start line (having inadvertently abandoned the bucket) we arrived at the start line (roughly Berkeley area but avoiding interference with the other event run by BYC on the Circle itself) to find dead air and a postponement. Expecting a fill from the NW after lunch, we broke out baguettes, salami, and a very nice runny white cheese.
The breeze very promptly filled from the direction of San Pablo bay and the marks were set (standard windward-leeward with no gate this month). Both races were W-L twice around, finishing downwind. For the E27's, #3's were the choice in the first race.
Unfortunately, the breeze rotated right until the windward mark was almost a fetch from the start. We had a slow start- not far from the line but we didn't tack over onto port early enough. Also, we hadn't had the combination of wind and time to tune up- we suffered versus the boats who just knew their settings perfectly.
It took us about 1/3 to 1/2 of the leg to get competitive (point and speed) but thereafter we were keeping up the pace. Unfortunately, there wasn't much opportunity to make gains on tactics because of the unbalanced course, and "as fast as them" wasn't good enough once we were behind (and sucking a little bit of bad air here and there).
Our rounding was pretty good, and our set clean (thanks Gus!) though we took all of our sail-handling at a measured pace to avoid problems since we hadn't worked together before. The first downwind was a pretty tight carry with the kite at first, but worked out. A conventional leeward drop later, we had a nice rounding and were ready for the next (and final) lap. With another fetch (or close to it) there wasn't much opportunity to make gains though our speed was good, and the next downwind was a lower angle. We did well from there on out except for a missed shot at a late overlap at the leeward mark, but only managed to edge out 3 boats across the line.
After the first race, the wind promptly dropped to nothing. Much of the fleet switched over to #1's when the wind came back enough to race, but Nat made the correct call of sticking with the #3- on the bay in the early afternoon, if you've got hanks (not a tuff-luff) and aren't sure, the smaller jib is safer. The breeze built back up for us. We had a better start this time (maybe because I wasn't calling it :) ) and a similar period of orientation on the beginning of the upwind (new driver). However, we'd figured out our trim and were keeping up.
We considered ourselves to be doing quite well to have arrived at the windward mark near Moxie and Witchy Woman, and managed to stay near them for much of the rest of the race. We had another smooth set, and a deeper angle to the leeward mark than the first race. The first leg down, we were able to drive quite deep and hard, with a following swell helping us out a lot.
Our leeward rounding was again pretty good (smooth kite drop) and we held pace upwind (also making gains from taking a hitch to the left). Following the downwind, we were solidly in the middle of the pack, with a very deep angle to the finish line but lighter breeze requiring a hotter angle. Unfortunately, at that point, with some boats approaching from behind, we made two mistakes: #1 gybing early for the finish line, and #2 refusing to acknowledge just how much we'd missed the layline by just sailing low and slow towards the finish line instead of staying fast and gybing again if necessary.
Watching 5 boats sail by you at the finish line was not the ideal way to end the day, but overall the day's performance was still quite encouraging: in a variety of conditions, we'd been able to keep pace and even make gains on boatspeed. The only time we suffered a bit was when the popular choice was #1's but before the breeze had filled enough to prove us right (at least for our quite slim crew weight- I think we might have been even near the class crew limit of 880 lbs only once or possibly twice last season).
On the bright side, the unusual wind direction meant that the trip back to the STFYC was also a fetch, in pleasant wind though a bit more waves and spray after passing Alcatraz. Thanks everyone, for a great day!
ToDo's: possible spinnaker bag in the forward hatch, keep the interior drier (taking waves through the hatch). We had no sail-handling mishaps, and are clear to work on speed.
Saturday morning, the forecast was upgraded to a fun 15-25 kt day with NW breeze. The expectation was a race near the slot, sailing across the current. We had a fun group with Dayne and David G trimming, Gus making a good first appearance on foredeck, and Nathan+Nat trading pit and driving.
On the way to the start line (having inadvertently abandoned the bucket) we arrived at the start line (roughly Berkeley area but avoiding interference with the other event run by BYC on the Circle itself) to find dead air and a postponement. Expecting a fill from the NW after lunch, we broke out baguettes, salami, and a very nice runny white cheese.
The breeze very promptly filled from the direction of San Pablo bay and the marks were set (standard windward-leeward with no gate this month). Both races were W-L twice around, finishing downwind. For the E27's, #3's were the choice in the first race.
Unfortunately, the breeze rotated right until the windward mark was almost a fetch from the start. We had a slow start- not far from the line but we didn't tack over onto port early enough. Also, we hadn't had the combination of wind and time to tune up- we suffered versus the boats who just knew their settings perfectly.
It took us about 1/3 to 1/2 of the leg to get competitive (point and speed) but thereafter we were keeping up the pace. Unfortunately, there wasn't much opportunity to make gains on tactics because of the unbalanced course, and "as fast as them" wasn't good enough once we were behind (and sucking a little bit of bad air here and there).
Our rounding was pretty good, and our set clean (thanks Gus!) though we took all of our sail-handling at a measured pace to avoid problems since we hadn't worked together before. The first downwind was a pretty tight carry with the kite at first, but worked out. A conventional leeward drop later, we had a nice rounding and were ready for the next (and final) lap. With another fetch (or close to it) there wasn't much opportunity to make gains though our speed was good, and the next downwind was a lower angle. We did well from there on out except for a missed shot at a late overlap at the leeward mark, but only managed to edge out 3 boats across the line.
After the first race, the wind promptly dropped to nothing. Much of the fleet switched over to #1's when the wind came back enough to race, but Nat made the correct call of sticking with the #3- on the bay in the early afternoon, if you've got hanks (not a tuff-luff) and aren't sure, the smaller jib is safer. The breeze built back up for us. We had a better start this time (maybe because I wasn't calling it :) ) and a similar period of orientation on the beginning of the upwind (new driver). However, we'd figured out our trim and were keeping up.
We considered ourselves to be doing quite well to have arrived at the windward mark near Moxie and Witchy Woman, and managed to stay near them for much of the rest of the race. We had another smooth set, and a deeper angle to the leeward mark than the first race. The first leg down, we were able to drive quite deep and hard, with a following swell helping us out a lot.
Our leeward rounding was again pretty good (smooth kite drop) and we held pace upwind (also making gains from taking a hitch to the left). Following the downwind, we were solidly in the middle of the pack, with a very deep angle to the finish line but lighter breeze requiring a hotter angle. Unfortunately, at that point, with some boats approaching from behind, we made two mistakes: #1 gybing early for the finish line, and #2 refusing to acknowledge just how much we'd missed the layline by just sailing low and slow towards the finish line instead of staying fast and gybing again if necessary.
Watching 5 boats sail by you at the finish line was not the ideal way to end the day, but overall the day's performance was still quite encouraging: in a variety of conditions, we'd been able to keep pace and even make gains on boatspeed. The only time we suffered a bit was when the popular choice was #1's but before the breeze had filled enough to prove us right (at least for our quite slim crew weight- I think we might have been even near the class crew limit of 880 lbs only once or possibly twice last season).
On the bright side, the unusual wind direction meant that the trip back to the STFYC was also a fetch, in pleasant wind though a bit more waves and spray after passing Alcatraz. Thanks everyone, for a great day!
ToDo's: possible spinnaker bag in the forward hatch, keep the interior drier (taking waves through the hatch). We had no sail-handling mishaps, and are clear to work on speed.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Photo gallery from Regatta Pro midwinters
On our merry way to the Berkeley Circle, I look around the boat and I cannot find 'the' bucket.Nat 'strange, I can't find the bucket. Has anyone seen it?'
Nathan 'well, you had two buckets on board right, from the offshore setup?'
Nat 'right, and I took one home at the end of the Thanksgiving sail'
Nathan - 'hmm, so the one with the cleaning supplies in it that we took to the car was the toilet?'
Crap.
I used a mug...it's in my dishwasher right now.
and the wind went from zero to 10-15 knots in no time. Veering some 70 degrees back and forth during the course of the day. It strengthened in the evening to probably 20+ knots
Wearing matching team uniforms ;-)
And Nathan and David were also wearing matching foulies!
Hi Peggy :)
It rained to our left, to our right, to our left again. But not on us.
note the color of the lifejacket is assorted with that of the foulies. This is not a coincidence.
Courtesy of Dayne!
Nice slideshow: http://beatsarcoma.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=6844729&AlbumKey=UjzgC
And if you want to order prints or get downloads: http://beatsarcoma.smugmug.com/gallery/6844729_UjzgC/1/437619030_dgqT4
Practice Sail - December 14, 2008
Amir, Adrian, Juan and I - the international team, met at 1PM at Elise's home. Amir is from Israel, Adrian from the UK, Juan from Chile and I am one of these cheese-mongers. The weather forecast indicated 10-15 knots, going up to 20 in the evening and 70% chances of rain. In fact, it was raining already when we got to the boat.
Crammed in Elise's main cabin, sitting on top of the flare box, the sailbags and the cooler to stay out of the rain, we shared our most intimate sailing secrets. Amir had no sailing experience, Adrian had raced on J24s and did some bareboat cruising and Juan had chartered boats several times. We were all there to enjoy ourselves and share our knowledge. The dockmaster, looking alarmed, walk up to me and says pointing at the sky 'it IS RAINING, they said that it would rain.' I replied that we were hard core and would go anyway. The other piece of information I should venture out at this point is that the breeze was very light. I was hopeful though as the wind was a late starter the day before, so I wasn't as dumb as I looked...bundled up in my foulies, I stayed amazingly dry and warm. I wasn't sure about the others (although the decision to go out anyway in the hope of getting better breeze was a consensus). As we cast off, I asked how everyone was doing. Now, that was a dumb question on a cold, rainy and not so breezy day.
We did get some practice, especially for new people: setting up the boat, hoisting and dropping sails (we changed from a #3 to a #1 given the majestic and persistent absence of wind), we set up and hoisted the spinnaker, did a few tacks and jibes. Until the wind died completely, really just as we were outside...
The dockmaster must have been scratching his head at that time: what is this only boat doing on the Bay, drifting in an ebb, with a crew that's looking like they are actively sailing, messing around with sails and instruments. Most of us kept warm as sailing does take effort.
Until I took out the engine...and headed us back to the dock. I wasn't tired physically by then but I think that low(er) levels of carbs affected my ability to do precision work. It took me forever to line up the trailer and the boat as we took her out of the water - although I haven't yet beaten the record established with Philip a couple of months ago.
We concluded the day with some great and fun conversation around drinks, to complete the sailing education of the day. Beer is definitely a pretty universal sailing language, except among cheese-mongers apparently...
I actually like being out, in the wet and cold (better than too hot) - tried by the elements on a boat. It feels rough and it feels good. I feel very alive in those moments. A hot shower later on, a dinner with friends and more importantly a very effective set of foulies turned this into a near perfect day. Wind would have perfected the picture.
The marina on Sunday...courtesy of Juan!
Post Race Chat
Nathan will post a race writeup - it was so nice to be in a warm atmosphere back at the club, enjoying some hot Irish coffee, beer, or other warm beverages....really a perfect day. Some nice and exciting sailing, great company, nice social dinner and an evening at the Symphony for their Gospel concert. It couldn't get much better!
Nathan and Dayne - on a oh so artistic picture. Nathan must have been nodding too vigorously that my camera couldn't focus...
A few pictures from the Regatta Pro
a real pack of wolves!
This is from http://cbergstedt.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=album100&page=1
Charlie Bergstedt -
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Thanksgiving Cruise - morning after
Thanksgiving Cruise 2008 - camping
Cristin arranging the port quarterberth
Breakfast. Just kidding.
Thanksgiving 2008 Cruise - sights
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