Thursday May 28, 2009 SYSCO Spring Series, Cruising-S class

Race course was long: 14-2-R-2-X-14

We had two no shows in crew. They did say they weren't coming before hand. Chuck did show up. Thanks Chuck. While we were eating our sandwiches, I noticed a boat coming in a few slips away and helped the guy dock. He thanked me and on a whim, I asked him if he would like to crew on the race. This can be very scary to pick up crew off the dock. You don't know what you get. Of course, I have put all my crew together that way. It really did work out. Bill is his name. He owns the O'Day 25 3 slips away from us in Tomahawk Bay Marina. We got under way without incident.

The wind was not quite the roar it was last week. But it was forecast as 10 knots. So I wanted to put in the cunningham. Did not want to reef. I had rigged a “jiffy” reefing into the cunningham. The line got in the way. We ended up tying the line to the clamshell cleats' frame on top of the cabin. We sailed to the committee boat. It only took 20 minutes from buoy 2 to 14 with the main sail only. We got the course and made a few runs on the start to gauge timing. On

We nailed the start. We were in the middle of the start line in clear air. Some of the big boys tried to crowd the buoy for the start and missed the mark and had to go around. We stayed on starboard tack for about a quarter mile, then tacked to port. Came up to the barge and tacked again. Most of the other boats had to tack 5 times to get to the mark, too. We ran down river until the concrete wall was abeam and tacked to port again. We rounded the mark and set the pole to port. Sailed broad reach to R. We were grossly over sailed and surfed along. We has let out the head sail all the way. At one time we were passing larger boats. We got overlapped with Cepheron a 33' C&C within 5 boat lengths of the mark and we were windward. He claimed leeward rights and I corrected him that he may have leeward rights but I have mark room rights and he must allow me room to round the mark. Which we did just as a J24 was coming up port tack. I gave him just enough room and rounded the mark and headed toward mid-channel on starboard tack. We tacked for the concrete wall on port tack. We tacked to starboard when the mark came abeam. We made the mark handily, but jibbed wildly and spun around until we were heading in the wrong direction. We got ourselves straightened out but not before letting a lot of boats get ahead of us. We do have to work on our windward roundings. We tried broad reaching for a little but it kept us too close to the Washington side. We could not go over the finish/start line during this leg so we headed for the Oregon side of the river where we jibbed under control this time. We tried broad reaching again but the head sail was being shadowed and loosing power. We set the pole again on the same side of as the boom. This did alright, but I am not going to do that set again. I think the wing on wing set is faster. We were even caught and passed by La Dolce Vida. We rounded the leeward mark, X, and stayed on port tack until the committee boat was abeam. We tacked and finished the race.

Things to remember:
Putting the cunningham in the main sail was good. The boat went just as fast but was much calmer.
We reefed the head sail 75% but after the first rounding we let it out. Since the second and third upwind legs were short, we just left it out.
The wind at Buoy 14 seems less strong than at Buoy 2. It also shifted westward.

Things to repair this weekend:
Boom Kicker. Replaced the 7mm pop rivets with heli-coils, and 1/4-20 SS screws. Added anti-seize compound to help prevent corrosion.
Discovered a very obvious leak at the chain plates. Big problem with the San Juans. The plates come up through a hole cut in the deck. So whenever there is stress put on the plates the deck moves and the caulking separates. I found some very flexible all-weather caulking at Home Depot. I took out a gallon of water from under the port side settee. Maybe the boat may stay dry this Thursday. Might not be a good test. The winds are forecast at 6 to 7 knots.
The mounting on the battery monitor needed fixing.
The propane tank holder had worked its way out of its harness. I put that back.

Things to fix:
The not knot meter.