GBCA Discussion Forum

Quote from: svShearwater on September 17, 2014, 12:39:18 PM
We talked to Fred and Charles a bunch after the race in Hawaii.  They definitely figured out how to make a 30' 8000 pound boat go fast downhill. 

As I understand it they used smaller asym kites and a larger than typical staysail (free sail area).  He was talking about using even smaller kites next time.  Charles was also talking about replacing the keel and carbon rig too, so who knows what they'll actually end up with. 

Old Charlie!  When I did T-Pac with him he brought the best wine.

Freddie and I have been going smaller with the spinnakers for a few years now.  Efficiency wins out over size in my book.  The went with the Symmetrical spinnakers for heavy air, safer for short handed sailing when surfing at top speeds.  I would not put those mods past Charlie, when he does something he does it right and all the way... wish more boat owners that want to go offshore took his lead.

Yes making leg straps mandatory but hearing everyone talk about how much beer they drank on the race.... Priceless.

I raced to Hawaii with Frediie Courable who was on NAOS (Thirsty 30) an am good friends with him.  He broke down the last two DH Transpacs and they really changed thier style from the first to the second.    Their spinnaker selection and inventory was interesting and seemed to work really well when the breeze came on. 

Freddie is designing a small bowsprit for a customer of mine who I am setting up for Transpac.  The guy will use it to fly the Code 0 from and then launch his Ayso's before transferring to the pole.

Quote from: svShearwater on September 15, 2014, 08:25:43 PM
If you put a standard J length pole and a sym spinnaker sized to that pole I wouldn't think you would get much of a penalty if any. Yes you can square the pole, but the spin would be about 50% smaller. Not an obvious advantage.

I know for Pac Cup a guy limited the length of his sprit on his J/92 by 3' and ran an equivalent length spin pole as well. His rating didn't change.  The articulation advantage was offset by the shorter sprit.

We just realized a logistical issue that makes the fixed sprit more difficult. The trailer would interfere. Now thinking more along the lines of a J+2' pole and flying both symmetrical and asymmetricals off the pole. I'm a fan of sprits, but there are a number of good reasons to go with a pole.

Keith, yes, DH again. I know exactly what you mean about the kite collapsing and that is a definite reason to go with a pole.

I have always admired how GBCA get's the most out of rating and boats to ensure the biggest turnout.  After doing the HMR a few times I decided to bring some of the practices to the Newport To Ensenada Race and everyone has been receptive.

In PHRF Southern California there is no penalty to switch between Ayso and Symmetrical.  SOme boats us Symmetrical for W/L here and ayso for reaching. 

Quote from: JayZ on September 12, 2014, 12:05:36 PM
You bring up a couple of interesting points below and also to confirm, there is no penalty for either converting from sym to aysm or using both.  PHRFGB allows the use of both. 

In trying to address the popularity of these mini-sprits and the production boats offering them as an option (mostly the cruisers).  The committee tried to come up with a no penalty rule for converting to a small sprit (20% of J) and a larger assym.  -in this configuration a conventional symmetrical on a pole is not allowed, nor can the sprit articulate.

You mentioned rotating the assym to windward.  In the PHRF region you were racing were you allowed both assym and sym spinnakers? 

Quote from: Keith on September 11, 2014, 10:55:44 AM
There is no penalty nor should there be for converting from Sym to Ayso.  But to add a 3 foot bowsprit and extend your SPL length (effectively that is what you are doing) is another story.  Projecting a spinnaker 3 feet (or whatever) further in front of the bow will always, or should always require a penalty.  It you put a bowsprit that matches your existing SPL length then no penalty.  We did that on a Beneteau First 40 to Hawaii and used it for the Code 0, to set the ayso from and also for gybing.  Immediately after we set a spinnaker (4A for example) we articulated the ayso away from the bow. 

2 days out of Hawaii a 1D35 with a large fixed bowsprit and owing us 11 hours crossed our stern pointing towards Tahiti because that is the angle she needed to sail because of her configuration (We beat her boat for boat by 3 hours).  BUT that being said... Bruce Nelson ran the numbers on a 1D35 for a friend of mine who did Transpac double handed and he said that both configurations are close but he gives the advantage to the bowsprit on a long distance race.  It would be hard in my opinion to sail the angles needed with a bowsprit on a W/L race....  Depends on what your desire is.

Assuming you are going double handed again?  Using a Pole will be safer for short handed sailing.  You will get the spinnaker away from the main and have less opportunities to collapse the spinnaker especially when surfing down waves and you get really deep.

My co-worker has down a few double handed Transpacs and we have a lot of info for the 1D35, J92 and now the possibility of double handed J-125 to Hawaii!

Quote from: svShearwater on September 11, 2014, 02:07:24 PM
Interesting comments. Thanks.

Two points...

The configuration is intended to be optimized for racing to Hawaii. We are consulting with Jim Antrim, who runs the downwind PHRF derived rating that Pac Cup uses. I suspect the sprit will win, but if Jim says no, then we might not go that route.

Regarding ratings though. This is a one-off boat with no previous rating so there aren't really any credits or penalties because there is no base rating.

In the end I really don't care that much about the rating. We are out to have fun on the boat. Winning (or even coming close) is secondary.

I have raced against a modified 1D35 a lot.. many times on a Flying Tiger.  Here is Misfit VS us in a San Diego to Ensenada race.

There is no penalty nor should there be for converting from Sym to Ayso.  But to add a 3 foot bowsprit and extend your SPL length (effectively that is what you are doing) is another story.  Projecting a spinnaker 3 feet (or whatever) further in front of the bow will always, or should always require a penalty.  It you put a bowsprit that matches your existing SPL length then no penalty.  We did that on a Beneteau First 40 to Hawaii and used it for the Code 0, to set the ayso from and also for gybing.  Immediately after we set a spinnaker (4A for example) we articulated the ayso away from the bow. 

2 days out of Hawaii a 1D35 with a large fixed bowsprit and owing us 11 hours crossed our stern pointing towards Tahiti because that is the angle she needed to sail because of her configuration (We beat her boat for boat by 3 hours).  BUT that being said... Bruce Nelson ran the numbers on a 1D35 for a friend of mine who did Transpac double handed and he said that both configurations are close but he gives the advantage to the bowsprit on a long distance race.  It would be hard in my opinion to sail the angles needed with a bowsprit on a W/L race....  Depends on what your desire is.

Fixed bow sprits have been tried on many boats because of the easy spinnaker handling.  Unless your boat will get up and go (on a real plane) then you will probably not see the full benefit of having PHRF hit you.  An articulating standard or oversize spinnaker pole will reap huge benefits when going downwind with an Ayso compared to a fix sprit.  Have seen this tried on 1D35's and lot's of other similar boats.

Nice to see a new addition to the Texas sailing though good luck!

Quote from: ChrisK on July 12, 2014, 07:34:12 AM
Go fast Shearwater! Living the dream

I noticed in the fleet a Moore 24 to Hawaii? Wow.  A shame he can't sign up for our local Harvest Moon 

Moore 24's are KNOWN for doing this race single and double handed.  Amazing boats and fast for their size.  Doing better than a J92

Great job? fun to sail with him in San Diego.

Must remember to give some credit to his amazing tactician Steve Hunt.

Any way you look it I come to one conclusion? an Ullman runner and going wing on wing for a minute would have eliminated this problem al otegther and put you even further ahead

Justin,

Give me an email.

Freddie Courable is the guy to go to.  He designed our J-125 Rudder and also all the foile for Dr. Laura's Katana, SC-50 Horizon's Rudder, TP-52 foils and many more. 

Keith

Quote from: Bee on July 15, 2013, 08:06:46 PM
I wouldn't mind trying it and I agree it should be one my bucket list but the amount of time left to do the bucket list grows shorter by the minute.

I think I would prefer doing it on a J125 like Keith is doing.  BTW, they have finally picked up speed and are flying along in the 12-15 knot speed range as we text.  Winds for them are around 20. As of this morning Creative is still 4th in class but loosing ground to the bigger boats.  Division 4 seems to be in fairly light air.

One can certainly organize the space down below on a 105 to have enough room for 4 for a race this long, but 6 would be just a bit much.  I really liked the idea of freeze dried food.  Going to investigate getting some of that kind of stuff for the HMR.  The mast head kite should make a big difference if the wind allows carrying it.

From my perspective the problem with doing it on a 105 is that you are either killing the other boats in your class because you can plane in 22+ knots or your a sitting duck and their waterlines just kill you.  When we won the Commordore's cup we beat Parrot Tales because a Norther blew in and we flew into PA averaging 10-12+ with lots of 16+ runs for the last 60 nm.  We got lucky when the wind died because BC found a 14 knot wind line that took us right up to the finish at 8+. Had that Norther not come in Parrot Tales would have certainly taken the trophy.

Hi Bee and thanks for following....

We had taken up a southern positron on most of the fleet and seemed to be getting into better wind than the boats north.  They had a better Distance to Finish but as the race panned out the Southern Boats were looking better. 

We started making our move as the wind came on and were into second in class ahead of the other 125 that was North of us so we felt good.  We started to see squalls very early.. before the 1/2 mark.  Best moment was being in a 30kt+ squall with the 4A and full main pumping along at a contestant 18kts and peaking at 22.7..  Greg, the owner, finally looked back at me driving and asked how long it would last... I said hopefully all the way to Hawaii!  Probably one of the darkest squalls I have seen and it lasted a good 45 minutes.. I was exhausted after driving through it as concentration needs to be 100%.

Next night is where it all went bad.  I woke up to the other shift complaining that there was a vibration and we were slow..  We backed down the boat at about 4am... hard thing to do with big wind and waves and 1200 miles from land.  This did not help to much and during the day I assessed the boat with undertaker cameras and could not find much wrong other than the fact we were slow.  Had a guy in the water check the bottom and we found a little bit of what appeared to be damage on the rudder..  The keel damage was a small bit of fairing that came off.

Eventually we discovered the bearing in the rudder had popped up about 3"... sails down, emergency rudder on, quadrant off and bearing back down.  Boat was again fast and wet.  Fast forward 5 hours when I came back on shift.. the boat was dry and I looked around and said. "It broke again right?"  We knew it was broken when the deck was dry.. it transforms from a J-125 to a J-120.. no planing.

Now the collar of the bearing popped up...Same process as before... sails down etc.. collar down but boat still broken.  This is when I got this video of the rudder disturbance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuHHbOhubiU&feature=c4-overview&list=UU7xWMTYKWTIVVufVd6kzzcQ

The vibration this disturbance created was scary.  The entire boat would shake and sleeping was hard as you could feel it in your bunk.. no problem though only 1000 miles left!  I emailed the designer of the rudder and he assured me it would not fail.. so we sailed the boat J-120 style for the last 1000 miles.. still beat one boat in our class and were only a few hours away from others.. not bad after back downs, sails off, and sailing slow for a while..

All in all another great voyage of adventure.  It is a long race but hey thats why we do it!

Quote from: Bee on May 06, 2012, 08:32:55 AM
From Stinger's perspective this regatta was great.  Winds on Saturday (~ 150 degrees, 10-15) did not let us hoist our kites but the spinnaker fleet made it down to Freeport 8 around 4 PM.  This was a pursuit style so not to surprisingly we all got there at just about the same time.

The run up to the marina is a bit long (about an hour) but pretty straight forward.  Barge/Commercial traffic was pretty light so no problems there.  Water depth is not an issue  and the Freeport Marina is brand spanking new with lots of slips.  Was surprised to see so many sailboats there.  Some were older designs but in really great condition.  This should be a really nice place to hold TRW.

Winds on Saturday started out int the 15-20 range but dropped back as we neared the jetties.  The entire 5-boat spin fleet manged to hoist their kites and flew them all the way back to G11.  Stinger was in a slip at HYC aroun 5:00PM.

There was a hell of a lot of grass out there and almost all the boats had to back down.  If you decide to do the TRW and the grass is back be prepared to execute this maneuver.

Met some interesting people on the cruising side, one group of which were older then me.  Yeah I know that's hard to believe, but these ladies and gentlemen had sailed to many places around the world and looked to me to be able to continue it for some time to come.  Made me think I should stop bitching about getting old and just get after it.  Yeah, that's the proper response!

One of the more interesting things was to race against a MacGregor 65.  What a sled.  The fella that owns and sails it is a very interesting and friendly guy but that 39 handicap was just a bit to low.

I think this race should be continued in the foreseeable future.

Sounds like fun.  Walter who owns the M65 is a great guy and will soon have a new Aysm. Spinnaker to tear down the coast in.  Looking forward to coming sailing with him on the Texas coast this year.

Was a sad day on the water.  I was close to where the boat ran into trouble but did not see anything unusual.  There was a lot of traffic in the area with cruise ships, navy and cargo.  Very sad day for us west coasters and everyone involved in sailing.