Sharps Island 2010

Downwind to the lighthouse was very slow after our 10:10AM start...and pretty much the whole fleet converged on Sharps at the same time around 4PM. It was discouraging to have the non-spin fleet catch all the way up to the spinnaker fleet. Back upwind, the breeze built throughout the late day and evening...eventually we were running a #3 and there were pretty big waves and white caps at the gas dock. We worked past Valiant, and stayed close to Status Quo (an Olson 30) and Cheetah (a NY 36). Little Lattitudes and Pursuit were visible to us when they finished..but too far to get an approximate time. Great Ride! We played the shallow waters, lifts, and currents in this one...here is our track:
http://www.tqci.net/~jkriz/SharpsIslandRace2010.htm

Fast Frostbite

Had a good race today...5th against some fast boats (missed 4th by 3 secs and 3rd by 30)....should have let my soda spill! Doh. Wind was in the mid 20's..had the reef in and the jib with 5 crew. Track is here: http://www.tqci.net/~jkriz/3-28-10Frostbite4.htm

Bottom Done

Just a couple pics from Saturday before I splashed showing the completed through hulls for depth and speed, plus the motor and paint. :)

Backstay progress

It was nice out today and made it up the mast with a bag of tools, drill, extension cord, etc. and got the flicker installed. It took longer than I thought because there was less real estate up there than I planned. I'm glad I made a special nut holding/reacher tool to get the nuts inside the mast head...it would have been impossible without it. :) I still need to work on line lengths in the lower sections, but for now it's functional. A good thing too, Frostbite #1 is tomorrow!!

Backstay Additions

I finally got around to mounting the hardware for my cascading backstay. Plans are for a 16:1 unit similar to that found on the S-2 7.9. There is a nice flat spot on the back corners where I mounted a cam cleat and turning block leading to a cluster near the backstay chainplate.

Faired the transducers and ran some wire

Spent some time this weekend fairing the transducers and running the wires for them:

Flush Mount Through Hulls

Akoni is out of the water for the year and one of the projects I had lined up was to install a new ST-40 system from Raymarine for speed and depth. The old depth unit was barely working, so it's time for a new one. After looking at the bottom of a couple of the other racers in the yard, I decided that flush mounting the transducers and fairing them in would make sense. We had a warm weekend so I decided to get started and drill some holes. The job was easier than I thought, so I got pretty far.

Here is akoni after the haul out:




Here are interior and exterior shots after I removed the old transducer and cleaned out the existing 2" hole. I traced a circle around the new transducer flange so I knew what to remove in the next step:



What I did to recess the transducer was to use a router set at the thickness of the flange to remove the hull material around the hole up to the circle I traced. I also added a second hole for the other transducer:



I mounted the depth transducer ahead of the speed paddlewheel to prevent turbulance from potentially interfering with the depth sounder. I ran out of time and needed to let the 3M 4200 sealant dry before fairing everything over. I do that next week if the weather is good: