GBCA Discussion Forum

Back in the days when sprit boats weren't as numerous (I think Xcitation J105 was the first around here?), it seemed that building or dying breeze during the RumRaces had the most influence relative to handicap. Typically, a building breeze favored the bigger-faster boats who started later, or a dying breeze favored the smaller-slower boats who started earlier. With the sprit boats carrying chutes to 75 AWA or less, that added another factor, as Kevin mentioned, they're more likely to get 2 of 3 legs riding the kite.

Another thing though, is the TGIF races started an hour later on Friday, and though memories of that have been diluted with time (and maybe rum too), I think we've had less TLE since going to all Saturday races. With the breeze dropping at sunset, that used to let the symm-boats carry chutes a bit higher and longer.

G4B

I though dip-pole was going out of style ...

... Seriously though, I'm generally considered a bit on the hefty side for working the bow these days, but I can show somebody how it's done if needed ...

G4B

Somewhere in the middle of hitting a few high-9kts on the second leg, after the crew went to much effort to swap up from blade to genoa, I really didn't corellate that with serious windspeed whoopee on the third leg. Maybe just an overdose of enthusiam or something like that.

Great Rum Racing again, wish I could have made it out for more of them.

~

A link to maps of the proposed new marshland/spoilbank:
http://www.swg.usace.army.mil/reg/notice/2011-01183.pdf
(see pages 2 & 6)

The proposed new spoil area could involve roughly a third of the cove between Morgan and Red Bluff. The conceptual feature as shown could force all commercial and recreational traffic into the ship channel.

As swampland bordered by rip-rap, it would be a serious navigational hazard to small craft, in addition to the risks of forcing them into the channel, where they would be forced to deal with large commercial traffic. As an elevated dewatering containment, it could also have significant effects on the hydrology of storm surges (some trade-offs on that, in duration and height along the El Jardin and Shore Acres coasts).

It looks like the CoE chose that site for mostly for economics; it' s close to the dredging and so would cost somewhat less to dump spoils in the new area than to pump across the channel and build up PA-14/15. They might be reluctant to site on the south side of Bayport channel, because of silting-in effects (similar to what happens at North Boater's cut).

It might be possible to tie the CoE up in court for years over the hydrology and hazard concerns, forcing studies, etc, but that could be megabucks in tax-dollars down the tubes too. Maybe it wouldn't take as much to convince them that using the existing spoil areas would be net cheaper and better.

G4B

Thanks for a great day of racing, GBCA! I hope everybody who volunteered had as much fun as the competitors.

And a special thanks to my crew: Liz Biss, Bridget Schieb, Walter McNeil and Jim Powell.

Shelton

There was one Icicle race, either last year or the year  before, where the entire keelstub/sump was full and frozen solid.

And it was still frozen the next day ...  ...

Should I havedeclared that as ballast to PHRF-GB?

...

Pre-Ike, we sailed Holdaway's J24 in that marina near Bubba's with no problems, but didn't lighten the beer-buckets enough to make up for a stiff northerly dropping the water level. I don't recall when or how he got the boat back. It looks a couple of feet silted in since then. No-go for now,unless you've got a dinghy.

The folks at Topwater said that some big trawlers stop in there, but didn't know the depth. I'd try it sometime, if the wind was right to keep off the gnarly finger piers. Definitely go the long way around Redfish to get there.

Check here, though I don't know how often it's updated:
http://remedyandcrew.com/Destinations/destinations.html

G4B

Well, seeing as a couple of my favorite Jay/OneOhSomething skippers have chimed in, and the J-24 headroom seems well under your specs, I'll just second their comments, both boats are great to race, easily cruised, good local fleets. etc. 

Compared to J/Metrics, the Schock is definitely more old-school; fin-keel, bigger fore-triangle, symm-chute, etc, good L-70 boat back in the day. You'll need roller-furl and maybe jiffyreef/dutchman to keep shorthanded from getting too busy.

I don't recall the Schock's interior, but I'm a big 6ft, and the 105 seems fine inside ...

G4B

Okay, as I understand the GPLC rules, power boats are allowed to use their tachometers, which gives them, if they do some practicing beforehand, an instrument that they can map to their knotmeters in various conditions. Those of us in the, ummmm, perhaps more venerable 'Sailing Auxiliary' class, from what I've read so far, are allowed to use an anemometer to measure windspeed, and have to translate that via polar charts or whatever to our boatspeed, tacking/gybing angles, etc.

That's tough on the naviguesser, but so be it. Will there be a minimum speed for the course, bearing in mind that beating VMG for a 24ft sailboat is maybe 4kt in ideal conditions (might be much slower in light air), and how close to the start-time can the prediction be finalized?

G4B

We had several 10kt+ surfs enroute to the starting area, and decided, after a few minutes, that even a small headsail just wasn't all that necessary to sail any direction in particular. And a few minutes after that, heading anywhere other than back to the dock began to seem rather un-necessary too. The chop wasn't quite as bad over by TCYC, but it still took another hour of slogging to get back under the bridge.

Hats off to the stout-fellas who stayed out and finished.

...

Try this, I'm not sure the all the marks are exact, but there are sailboats scatterered more (or less) along the rhumblines.

Link? http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&client=dell-usuk&channel=us&ad=w5&adsafe=high&safe=high&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=209698258695424100196.00049d28efe30d2a50e70&ll=29.561513,-94.944878&spn=0.157677,0.290451&t=h&z=12

G4B

Yeah, based on the crew's poise, they were either old-hats or clueless about that entry ...

... The first time I saw the video, that low-lying bulkhead inside the entry (he leaves it to stbd) was a surprise, obviously he knew it was there. And just before he clears the outer structure, the boat wallows a hard roll to port in a wave. That looked like the chanciest bit, but once he'd gotten into the eddy with a wave behind him, as long as he had enough thrust and steerage to anticipate the surge, it was all his to make a go of it ...

... Heck of a ride though. I wonder how much room he had to go-around ...

...

Well ...

... If he'd run out of options other than surfing through that gap, I'd have to give him about 9.5 for technical merit and at least 11.2 for lucky bastard. It did sort of look like charging a hole in the J24 stbd-layline parade during heavy weather, except that the concrete very rarely tries to avoid collisions.

... It looks like a section of breakwater on the left side extends out a couple of boatlengths beyond and left of the gap, but its top is several feet lower. (It's exposed in some of the waves.) He barely misses that, and it looks like the eddy behind it slings him into the harbor. The wave preceding his entry had a surge just like the one he rode: over and around that outer limb of the breakwater then sloshing into the marina ...

... Either he scoped that out, and plowed it well enough, or he was damned lucky ...

G4B

The area between Red Fish and Eagle Point (old-timers call it Todd's Dump) can be great for fishing, but not so good for even medium-size keelboats. Take a look at NOAA chart 11326 to get the general layout, but don't use it as up to date, because every big storm or surge shifts the bottom around. The next time there's a stiff northerly for a couple of days, drive down to San Leon, sometimes there's enough shoal exposed to be educational ...

http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/OnLineViewer.html
(Go to the Gulf Coast page, then scroll down the list of charts.)

Like Bee and GW said, stay north of Redfish going in or out of the ship channel from the west side, marker 59 is usually okay. If the water is low, use the marked South Boater's Cut north of 61/62, especially if you head into the eastern parts of the bay. (Also, Dwight reported the east side of the North Boater's Cut as too silted up for Bay Cup the last couple of years.)

G4B

I just finished installing a new fwd hatch, and redoing the bowlights turned into a 2-weekend project at about 4:30pm last Sunday, so I've swapped one duck-tape spot on the foredeck for another ... Argh!! ... It needs to get done, though, so y'all have fun racing for turkeys, I'll be wedging wiring into the pointy end ...

Silver Bullet won't be out this weekend but look out in January, and I've got 2-wks of use-it-or-lose-it vacation in December. So, if anybody wants to bang around the bay on weekdays, get in touch ...

G4B