Port...Port!

Did someone say PORT? We had a great start Wednesday for race #4. Not often we get to port tack the whole fleet and have it actually work. Thanks to David Meiser for the photos:

SMSA Spring Invite 2010

Awesome day out on the water. RC set a 10.5 mile course across the bay and back. Winds were forecast to be from the west at 22kts. The winds dropped just before the start as the front passed overhead...we shook the reef and had a downwind spinnaker start with winds around 12kts. We held our own against mostly 'A' fleet boats until the wind died on the far side of the bay. It's a pain to be the small boat in a dying breeze. After bobbing around for about 20 minutes, the wind filled back in from the NW...building steadily. We did a sail change to the 108 jib at he second tack. We finished in 20kts of breeze. Additional races for the day were abandoned when the winds built from the west to nearly 35 sustained. Glad we have a storm jib! It was a lumpy ride back home. Here is our track and a photo from last Wednesday:
http://www.tqci.net/~jkriz/SMSASpringInvite2010.htm

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.