I will be at LLSC on Saturday for the intraclub Small Boat Long Distance Race. For years they had this in August, but finally wised up a few years ago.
It was marginal planing conditions last year and I did pretty well against Thistles & Lasers, etc. The only boats that can still get in the water now are Lasers and catamarans. I'm told a bunch of hotrod cats are entered this year, so it might be tough. But if we get more to the 20 side of the f'cast, it might be interesting.
It's all just for laughs anyway as we're doing that screwy Portsmouth thing. The A-cats, Hobie Tiger, etc have numbers in the 60s vs my rating of 83. (The lower the Portsmouth rating the faster the boat should be). So in a 2 hr race I could finish 20 minutes after them and still 'beat' them on corrected time. CT= ET/HCx100.
It was grueling but fun last year. We started at the club, went upwind to 'A' mark near Vann's Tavern, long reach past 16 (the island straight out from VP) and downwind to a mark near the little lighthouse at Aqualand, then a long upwind past Holiday to an island near Two Mile Creek, back down to the lighthouse, up to a mark near Holiday, back to 'A' then finish at the club. It took about 3 hrs.
I think we're starting tomorrow at around 11. I could use a wind check from Van Pugh (or anywhere) if anybody's out. 404-386-8505
Also the Special Olympics frostbite regatta at Sandy Beach park on Lake Tobesofkee in Macon this weekend. Tomorrows wind forecast should make it very interesting.
Alan
I plan on Sailing Van Pugh Tomorrow, Saturday, whenever it starts to blow.
Gene
Gene Mathis
I will be at VP around noon.
Jeff
Jeff Knight, All Right!
I know we'll have wind and I know we'll have fun.
Gene
Gene Mathis
What's proper attire this time of year? Maybe if we have some wind, we can go out and slow up those Hobies a little for Chris.
Jeff
Wrap that Josh up good, Alan. One thing I bet you've found too with cat sailing in a breeze– it's COLD once the water cools down. WSing is a lot warmer, but I'm guessing the full monty suit is what to wear tomorrow.
I'll be at VP too.
Even when you wear a wet suit on a hobie it still gets cold. You don't work as hard so you don't make body heat. It's kind of like standing around in your wet suite like we do when we take a beak from windsurfing. You get cold.
PeelSkid
Very organized event, I think there were 6 fleets with 5 boats each that went out and each got 3 to 4 races in. Winds were 10 to 20 and we only had 2 capsizes all weekend. Rescue boats had the athletes out of the water in no time. Good food a dance and great racing..awesome weekend.
and yes it was real cold this morning on the boats. I had a fleece jacket over my shorty.
How did your long distance race go?
Alan
I won. yahoo. I sorta got lucky though. The catamarans had a bunch show up and they wanted to do their own thing. The course they proposed was to the dam and back... twice! I could have gone with them but that seemed like a bit much and without any reaching legs, I knew I'd get creamed. Turned out to be a lot for some of them too. I saw 3 of them turtled and I think a couple more went over along the way. There were two Nacra 20s, a Hobie Miracle 20, Hobie Tiger, Hobie 16 and Mike Krantz on his A-Class.
The A-Class is amazing– fully carbonated everything– he had to add weight to it to bring it up to the class minimum of 175 lbs. It has a very high aspect sail, uni-rig (no jib) and very long, high aspect centerboards. It has 'wave piercing bows' that give the boat the appearance of being built upside down. He said his best time to the dam & back is 57 min. (It's ~12 miles round trip). That boat is for sale. I didn't ask how much, but I'm sure it starts with a 2. The Nacras & Miracles with their spinnakers, are faster than an A-class and I think one of the Nacras won. The cats started a few minutes after us and all but the H16 passed me before I got to our upwind mark. They point way higher than WSers (what doesn't) and absolutely blazed upwind.
I sailed my Equipe with the Lasers and Thistles. The wind was pretty up & down and I was worried for a while that I went with too small a sail (7.5) but it turned out okay. Just when I got to the end of the first long upwind, it picked up to maybe 5.5-6.0 wind, enough to stay on a plane for most of the next leg, 3 miles downwind. That part was some serious fun... not as fast as a slalom board of course, but if you're powered, you can turn that big fella waay downwind. The full length of our course was about 18 miles. I finished in just under three hours, 30 minutes ahead of the next boat, a Thistle.
Sounds like ya'll had a great race too, I thought you were racing your hobie though.
did you post any photos anywhere on the net?
Alan
No pics I know of, but there were some worthy images. Me on the Hobie would have been really unworthy. Too much wind for me and I'm clueless on getting that thing to go downwind. I did however get some tips from the rock stars on both of those things.
How did ya'll do? Did you sail w/ Josh? Or is it all kids.
Congrats on your win!
Josh didnt get to sail this time due to other plans that he couldn't get out of but he was able to make it to the dance and flirt with all the women so he was a happy camper.
I took two other athletes out in different fleets and got a 1st place with one and a 4th place with the other. The athletes dont really care what they place they are just happy to be out there...I personally have a goal to beat the South Carolina Guys next year, they were by far the best sailors out there.
Alan
Chris,
Years ago there was a manual called "Welcome to A Fleet" that was a great source for advice on rigging, tuning, sails, and sailing techniques for Hobies. You might want to dig one up.
Jeff
I did learn two very valuable lessons this weekend
Hobies dont handle worth a crap with stuck or broken rudder cams and
getting stuck in Irons 45 seconds before the start horn blows
is not a very good position to be in.
Alan
Thanks Jeff
I found a pdf version for free. This interweb thing is really swell guys!
(Thanks Al Gore)
It's got some tuning/set-up stuff I have been looking for, and a lot of technique things that make sense.
got a link to that PDF?
thanks
Alan
http://www.hobieclass.com/site/hobie/ihca/downloads/hobieu/HobieU.pdf