Have you been out on the water since summer? Don't be a fair-weather sailor! Bring a friend, or email the listserv to find a buddy and give the boats some cool-weather exercise! Study up on wetsuits for dinghy sailing or ask to take a keelboat ride with a recent graduate of the keelboat classes!
Got cool-weather sailing tips? Send them to curator@washingtonyachtclub.org
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Boat acquisitions:
WYC received at least two donations since summer: a yellow-hulled Pearson Ensign (our third!) named Oh Be Joyful (an "-er" was added to "Be-" sometime after we picked up the boat...
The second boat is a Cal 3-30, which were only made between 1973-74. Know any neat links on these keelboats? Send them to curator@washingtonyachtclub.org
Sunday, December 16, 2012
John Courter writes: It's official 65.45. 9.8 knots faster than the kiteboarder that held it last. For years the record has been moving up from a max of 2 to fractions of a knot each time.
http://www.sailspeedrecords.com/wssr-newsletter-no-219.-vestas-sailrocket-2-outright-sailing-speed-record-04/12/12.html
*Have sailing-related news or stories? Send them to curator@washingtonyachtclub.org
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
John Courter shares this link about the sinking of the Bounty in Hurricane Sandy: http://abcnews.go.com/International/legendary-ships-final-hours-battling-sandy/story?id=17849018&singlePage=true#.UL5TEOR_CSo
Thursday, November 15, 2012
A Record Year for WYC at Duck Dodge by Ken Howe
Adrian Johnson sailing the WYC 505 won a gold in the first race in May. Alexia Fischer in Deception won a third place bronze duck. The duck decal is not on the 505.
In the last Lake Union race (Sept. 4) Nate Verge won a gold duck with the I-14.
Evan Abramson won a silver and bronze duck this year on the Laser. He described why they are not added to Opus, “I have a silver duck marked "Opus" on my desk. None of my ducks is on a boat.”
The Ranger 26, Rascal, did amazingly well. The crew won 4 golds, 1 silver, and 2 bronze. The race order on the mast above the boom is silver at the bottom, then gold, gold, gold, bronze, gold, and bronze.
Silver (June 19)
Gold (July 31)
Gold (August 7)
Gold (August 14)
Bronze (Aug. 28)
Gold (Sept. 4)
Bronze (Nov.3)
In the first race of July, Tom Schaefer sailed the 470 to a third place finish and was the sole WYC victor of the night. He described his race this way.
“The 470's new duck is only bronze. Now I know that for some of you seasoned Duck Dodge veterans, a bronze duck warrants a big yawn, but newish WYC member Sue Spaulding and I are pretty stoked! Consider that: Sue and I met for the first time about two and a half hours before our race start.I had never sailed this particular 470 before.Sue had never sailed ANY 470 before (although she did race 420s a few years back).About midway through the race, I noticed that the dinghy contingent looked pretty small and that we appeared to be beating some of them. As we neared the end of our gentle spinnaker run to the finish line, the dudes in the 505 that had captured the gold duck told us that they thought we were on our way to bronze--and they were right. The 470 will wear her new bronze duck with pride and look forward to greater glory in the future.”
Nate Verge added a bronze duck to the stern of the Lightening on August 14. Some boats have competed over several years and built up their ducks across the transom, on the hull, or up the mast.Silver (June 19)
Gold (July 31)
Gold (August 7)
Gold (August 14)
Bronze (Aug. 28)
Gold (Sept. 4)
Bronze (Nov.3)
Kerem described the year on Rascal:
“As far as the crew goes, Greg, Rob and I have been doing DD on Rascal probably for 4-5 years now. Jonathan and Adam were new to Rascal this year but they consistently joined us for most of the races this summer. We also had Mike Klacynzki and Brandon Whitehead join in the last few races where we won golds and Kendra Loebs was with us on some winning races as well. I may have missed a few other names who may have dropped in for a race or two but the names I mentioned were the regulars for this summer.
As far as the starts and spinnaker sets go, it wasn't always that good. I think it got much better over the years. When we first started doing DD 4-5 years ago, we used to come dead last and feel accomplished for completing the course without hitting another boat. We couldn't even imagine being close to winning a duck. Then what changed it was that some of us (Greg, I and Caglar) started to crew regularly on boats like Magic Button, Stomp Dancer and Shada, which were competing in races on Puget Sound. We learned a lot from those experiences and applied what we learned to DD and then started to win ducks finally.
Kerem”
Greg Mueller also described what it was like sailing Rascal:
“I believe almost all the ducks Rascal has gotten either Kerem drove and I did foredeck (older ducks), or I drove and Kerem foredecked (this year).
It was an interesting role reversal for us and I would include it in the story.
We got the black duck last year(?) on Bastille Day theme. I made a 10 ft tall guillotine on the back of the boat with dropping blade. I made balloons with faces drawn on them
and we'd chop somebodies head off, toss the balloon, and then squirt a ketchup/water mix out of a bike bottle for spurting blood. I don't think Deception ever had any spurting blood. Standards have fallen. “
Other boats sailed in Duck Dodge races. Semih Tareen and Hawkeye King both skippered Charlotte.
Semih described his Duck Dodge experience:
“I skippered twice at duck dodge this year. Once on Charlotte, once on Deception.
Both were a success! (no accidents, and decent finishing time without an award)
The great experience for me was realizing that no matter how I planned my starts (which side of the line to start, on what tack, etc...) I realized that there could've always been a better way.
Interesting moments included other boats that would lose speed and come to a stop right at buoys, so everyone would have to go around them.
Maneuvering around buoys with all these other boats, making sure you follow rules of the road and not crash was for me the biggest accomplish of Duck Dodge.
Rafting up afterwards, having skippered a boat, gives a great sensation of relief, success, and this gets acknowledged when Duck Dodge virgins show up to give me a kiss.
Best part of my DD skippering experience was to be a member of a club (WYC) that trusts members such as myself to take their boats out to DD, and then meeting other WYC members at the raft up to share stories, food and drinks. We are a beautiful community of sailors, and participating in DD as a skipper affirmed that for me.”
Hawkeye described what his first experience of Duck Dodge was like when he joined Deception’s crew for a race in June. (A correction-Deception won a bronze not a gold but at night it can look gold)
“My First Duck Dodge or "How I lost my virginity to a mast"
Tuesday night, and FINALLY made it out for a duck dodge!
Out on Deception with Alexia at the helm. It's a different story for me, racing with relative newbies, since I've mostly raced with my pop and his regular crew on the SF bay. There, I was always the noob! Alexia handled the tiller like a champ though, and we sailed to a gold-duck victory!
I don't remember much about the race. Upwind, mark rounding, spinnaker set, downwind, douse and head up to the finish. Pretty uneventful overall, unless you count sailing-by-committee as eventful.
The real fun started after the race when we circled in for the "raft up". "Hawkeye, this is your first Duck Dodge?" I was interrogated with surprised, mischievous looks. "He's a virgin!" someone exclaimed.
The Duck Dodge Virgin ritual was quickly explained to me- which was both titilating and embarrassing. Social phobia quickly set in and I rode the way to the raft in relative quiet.
After a couple of hot-dogs, generously provided by Julian (thanks, Julian!) I received the direct order by two WYC commodores (Ken and Alexia). "Virgin! To the raft! So I set off across the raft with Ken Howe, mysteriously bobbing in my wake (turns out he was letting me take the brunt of the embarrassment).
Everyone knew the ritual, and welcomed us aboard; as often as not with a bottle generously extended in greeting. I quickly developed a schpiel: "we are Duck Dodge virgins on an appointed quest for female captains, designated kissing wenches or attractive masts". Ken generally stood behind me with, looking away wearing an "I don't know him" demeanor. There were easily 30 boats in the fleet, and was a little worried about contracting and quickly spreading herpes throughout!
As we neared the far reaches of the raft up it got quieter and felt like we were reaching a kind of ad-hoc ghetto. After crossing (and kissing) a few empty boats we found the Keg Boat. A group of dead-drunk sailors was carousing below-decks. We climbed on and I began my well rehearsed line, but was quickly interrupted- first by a "kissing wench" being hoisted forwards, and second by loud insistence that I chug some beer. The boat had two kegs down below, and the group of seven was doing their damnedest to put them to rest!
"Chug or kegstand?" they insisted.
"Kegstand!" I shouted in reply!
The next thing I knew I was upside-down below decks, chugging for dear life. It was a pretty good run, about twenty seconds, and made a bunch of new friends.
The rest of the night was a blur, and now I can only recall a general feeling of enjoyment. The next day, however, was not so enjoyable!”
Affiliate boats Waka, Frenesi, and Perspicacious sailed in Duck Dodge too.
Matt Newlin of Waka described his year in Duck Dodge where Waka won three silver ducks.
“I crewed for Alexia on deception in an early season race where we did pretty well. Michael Welty, and Sparks were there too....and? I think it was the first BBQ night, and we used the automatic spinnaker-shredding jib.
The competition that Deception excelled at was winning black ducks. The crew of Deception won more black ducks than any other boat competing in 2012. Each race had a theme and the black duck was given to the boat with the most creative interpretation of the theme. A very stupid sailing “maneuver” could win the duck over decorations but it had to be an amazing blooper. When a police boat stopped one of the racers in the middle of the race for out of date tags that was an event that won a black duck for their boat.
Deception won black ducks on Pirate Night June 12, Tropical Night August 7, and Committee Re-appreciation night Sept. 4. The decorations on June 12 and Sept. 4 were so beyond any other boat that two black ducks were awarded to Deception on each of those nights. Deception ended the summer with a total of 5 black ducks, 3 bronze ducks, and 1 silver duck. Creative crew costumes like the duck warn by me completed the look of Deception on the nights that a duck was awarded.
It was an interesting role reversal for us and I would include it in the story.
and we'd chop somebodies head off, toss the balloon, and then squirt a ketchup/water mix out of a bike bottle for spurting blood. I don't think Deception ever had any spurting blood. Standards have fallen. “
Both were a success! (no accidents, and decent finishing time without an award)
The great experience for me was realizing that no matter how I planned my starts (which side of the line to start, on what tack, etc...) I realized that there could've always been a better way.
Interesting moments included other boats that would lose speed and come to a stop right at buoys, so everyone would have to go around them.
Maneuvering around buoys with all these other boats, making sure you follow rules of the road and not crash was for me the biggest accomplish of Duck Dodge.
Rafting up afterwards, having skippered a boat, gives a great sensation of relief, success, and this gets acknowledged when Duck Dodge virgins show up to give me a kiss.
Best part of my DD skippering experience was to be a member of a club (WYC) that trusts members such as myself to take their boats out to DD, and then meeting other WYC members at the raft up to share stories, food and drinks. We are a beautiful community of sailors, and participating in DD as a skipper affirmed that for me.”
"Chug or kegstand?" they insisted.
"Kegstand!" I shouted in reply!
The next thing I knew I was upside-down below decks, chugging for dear life. It was a pretty good run, about twenty seconds, and made a bunch of new friends.
The rest of the night was a blur, and now I can only recall a general feeling of enjoyment. The next day, however, was not so enjoyable!”
Later, Whitney rotisserie grilled a duck during DD on her boat, Carmen.I crewed for Kregg on Charlotte, sans chute, and we finished just behind Deception and a ways behind rascal. We had a good start. I crewed for Greg on Rascal for the last race, I think, got a good start, and won easily. Everything went smoothly. Despite the good company, experiences on Waka were mostly negative, except for a couple of good light air races and a DD virgin who liked some real kisses.” Waka (sail #4277) passes Deception after winning a silver duck:
Alexia Fischer opened the competition for black ducks with her spectacular conversion of Deception to a pirate ship. She risked permanent brain damage from fumes when she painted everything on with a marker pen. The 2nd black duck was awarded when the race committee learned of the effort she put into creating the black cannons with all those pens.
Sailing the race with all the cardboard was a challenge: the bow sprit fell off early, the cannons caught the jib sheets, seeing out of the cockpit was difficult, and a small hole “needed” to be cut into the stern piece. Deception was a hit with photographers that night and several pictures are on the Duck Dodge Facebook page.
Tropical night the extra crew helped in the approach to the beer barge. More hands to grab the cups of free beer were needed. The five foot inflated palm tree and all the inflated monkeys won Deception a black duck that night and a picture in 48 degrees North sailing magazine’s September issue.
It is going to be hard to top the WYC performance in 2012 next summer.
The final event of the season was Rum Run on Nov. 3 across Puget Sound from Shilshole. Alexia and the crew of Deception brought back the pirate ship so folks at the locks could get a good laugh. Adding a stereo and large speakers on the foredeck made it possible to add cannon sounds and play the theme of Pirates of the Caribbean at the start of the race. No black duck was awarded but it was fun firing on the committee boat. Collecting ducks this past summer was definitely fun.
Want more video?
This is the video of being awarded the black duck on Pirate Night
Try these starting with the Black duck award after the last photo showing the duck being awarded.
This is a video of the start of the Pirate Night race
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Ken Howe gets the scoop from club member Karem on Rum Run, a popular sailboat race on Puget Sound from club member Karem.
Karem writes:
Yes, we did win a bronze duck. We had a pretty bad start because we got fouled 3 times within 2 minutes at the start. Even though we were the starboard boat, we had to crash tack to avoid a collision and then tack back again and then again to avoid another collision. We made up for that lousy start with a pretty straight upwind leg pointing high in clean air almost in the same tack all the way to the West Point mark and then a great spinnaker run afterwards. By the time we rounded the Meadow Point buoy, we were already quite a bit ahead of the pack and only saw 2 boats ahead of us and those were the True Blue and a J-24, which I believe had the name Death. Death tried to reach across to Port Madison keeping their spinnaker up. We contemplated doing the same, however, after some discussion among ourselves, we decided to douse at the Meadow Point mark and switch to our headsail. True Blue did the same.
Our reasons were: (1) we thought the ebb would push us further north and we'd have a hard time keeping a straight line across to Port Madison had we had our spinnaker up (which would force us to douse eventually and sail back upwind with our headsail to make it through the finish line, all of which would translate into lost time), and (2) we saw some squalls approaching from southwest, so didn't want to risk getting caught in that with a spinnaker. We took advantage of a small trick, however. We moved our spinnaker block to the outer rail on our downwind gunwales, and ran our lazy sheet through that to use it as a reaching sheet to have a better trimming angle for our headsail, which probably helped with our boat speed quite a bit. Halfway through the reach to Port Madison, True Blue decided to host their spinnaker (probably after seeing Death), but we decided to stick to our original plan of using just the white sails. So, it turned out to be a a pretty interesting finish, we saw 3 different strategies playing out: True Blue's strategy to go with white sails first and then hoist the spinnaker, Death's strategy to stick to spinnaker all the way and our strategy to just sail a VMG course with the white sails.
Our strategy paid off really well. We maintained our lead from the rest of the pack all the way to Port Madison, but at the same time closed the gap with True Blue and Death. At the finish, it was pretty much us, True Blue and Death. We didn't know Full Moon had finished way before all of us, so we were pretty convinced that we were going for a podium finish regardless. We didn't know whether that was going to be a gold, silver or bronze. Death ended up quite a bit downwind with the spinnaker, so they had to douse and sail up to make it to the finish line. At that point, we knew they had a much longer distance to cover and that it was pretty much between us and the True Blue. True Blue lost a lot of time messing with their spinnaker hoist/douse, which put us within a boat length behind them. That is when we (and True Blue) made a really bad call. We mistook a fishing boat and the orange buoy that marked the end of a gill net that they were deploying as our finish line. By the time we got close enough to realize that it actually wasn't the finish line, we had put ourselves in a really bad position because the gill net was now lying between us and the actual finish line. Both True Blue and we had to sail around it. That mistake gave Death enough time to recover from their lost time, so they finished 1-2 boat lengths ahead of us. We thought they got the gold and we were now competing with True Blue for the silver. Our bow was overlapped with True Blue's stern up until the last few boat lengths, but we were having a hard time passing them because of the bad air we were getting from them. At that point, I decided to fall off somewhat to get some clean air, and that gave us a final push ahead of them and our bow crossed the finish line about 1-2 feet ahead of their bow, so it was a really close finish. We got the horn from the committee boat, but they didn't, which surprised both us and them because we thought we got the silver duck and they got the bronze. Upon sailing by the committee boat to claim our duck, we learned that we actually won the bronze and True Blue got nothing. We were told the Full Moon won the gold. Since we never saw them, they must have been really ahead of us. It was a very fun Rum Run overall.
Karem writes:
Yes, we did win a bronze duck. We had a pretty bad start because we got fouled 3 times within 2 minutes at the start. Even though we were the starboard boat, we had to crash tack to avoid a collision and then tack back again and then again to avoid another collision. We made up for that lousy start with a pretty straight upwind leg pointing high in clean air almost in the same tack all the way to the West Point mark and then a great spinnaker run afterwards. By the time we rounded the Meadow Point buoy, we were already quite a bit ahead of the pack and only saw 2 boats ahead of us and those were the True Blue and a J-24, which I believe had the name Death. Death tried to reach across to Port Madison keeping their spinnaker up. We contemplated doing the same, however, after some discussion among ourselves, we decided to douse at the Meadow Point mark and switch to our headsail. True Blue did the same.
Our reasons were: (1) we thought the ebb would push us further north and we'd have a hard time keeping a straight line across to Port Madison had we had our spinnaker up (which would force us to douse eventually and sail back upwind with our headsail to make it through the finish line, all of which would translate into lost time), and (2) we saw some squalls approaching from southwest, so didn't want to risk getting caught in that with a spinnaker. We took advantage of a small trick, however. We moved our spinnaker block to the outer rail on our downwind gunwales, and ran our lazy sheet through that to use it as a reaching sheet to have a better trimming angle for our headsail, which probably helped with our boat speed quite a bit. Halfway through the reach to Port Madison, True Blue decided to host their spinnaker (probably after seeing Death), but we decided to stick to our original plan of using just the white sails. So, it turned out to be a a pretty interesting finish, we saw 3 different strategies playing out: True Blue's strategy to go with white sails first and then hoist the spinnaker, Death's strategy to stick to spinnaker all the way and our strategy to just sail a VMG course with the white sails.
Our strategy paid off really well. We maintained our lead from the rest of the pack all the way to Port Madison, but at the same time closed the gap with True Blue and Death. At the finish, it was pretty much us, True Blue and Death. We didn't know Full Moon had finished way before all of us, so we were pretty convinced that we were going for a podium finish regardless. We didn't know whether that was going to be a gold, silver or bronze. Death ended up quite a bit downwind with the spinnaker, so they had to douse and sail up to make it to the finish line. At that point, we knew they had a much longer distance to cover and that it was pretty much between us and the True Blue. True Blue lost a lot of time messing with their spinnaker hoist/douse, which put us within a boat length behind them. That is when we (and True Blue) made a really bad call. We mistook a fishing boat and the orange buoy that marked the end of a gill net that they were deploying as our finish line. By the time we got close enough to realize that it actually wasn't the finish line, we had put ourselves in a really bad position because the gill net was now lying between us and the actual finish line. Both True Blue and we had to sail around it. That mistake gave Death enough time to recover from their lost time, so they finished 1-2 boat lengths ahead of us. We thought they got the gold and we were now competing with True Blue for the silver. Our bow was overlapped with True Blue's stern up until the last few boat lengths, but we were having a hard time passing them because of the bad air we were getting from them. At that point, I decided to fall off somewhat to get some clean air, and that gave us a final push ahead of them and our bow crossed the finish line about 1-2 feet ahead of their bow, so it was a really close finish. We got the horn from the committee boat, but they didn't, which surprised both us and them because we thought we got the silver duck and they got the bronze. Upon sailing by the committee boat to claim our duck, we learned that we actually won the bronze and True Blue got nothing. We were told the Full Moon won the gold. Since we never saw them, they must have been really ahead of us. It was a very fun Rum Run overall.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/WYCBoatstats/Rating
Mike K. developed this visual of John Courter's WYC boat use descriptives...check it out!
Mike K. developed this visual of John Courter's WYC boat use descriptives...check it out!
Friday, October 19, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
from John Courter, describing his day windsurfing on 9/30/12:
When I started rigging there was a very light wind in the bay. I decided it was time to take advantage of Kirill's offer to try his Serenity. The Serenity is designed for light air, is pointy on both ends, has a roundish bottom and is only 24 inches wide. By the time I had finished rigging it was glassy on the bay. No ripples on the water and I'm gliding around in the bay. It feels like there's no drag on this board. On flat water it wasn't too bad to stand on, throw a few boat wakes in and it definitely felt tippy. Later the wind starts to build and the long narrow bow starts slicing through the water. Now that is has some speed it feels stable. The wind picked up to maybe 10 kts, the board climbs onto a plane with no transition, it just speeds up above hull speed and the front 3-4 feet of the board is no longer in the water. Off the wind you're doing a pretty good balancing act to stay on this board.
When I started rigging there was a very light wind in the bay. I decided it was time to take advantage of Kirill's offer to try his Serenity. The Serenity is designed for light air, is pointy on both ends, has a roundish bottom and is only 24 inches wide. By the time I had finished rigging it was glassy on the bay. No ripples on the water and I'm gliding around in the bay. It feels like there's no drag on this board. On flat water it wasn't too bad to stand on, throw a few boat wakes in and it definitely felt tippy. Later the wind starts to build and the long narrow bow starts slicing through the water. Now that is has some speed it feels stable. The wind picked up to maybe 10 kts, the board climbs onto a plane with no transition, it just speeds up above hull speed and the front 3-4 feet of the board is no longer in the water. Off the wind you're doing a pretty good balancing act to stay on this board.
I had also sailed Giovanni's Crit D2 earlier this summer, another version of a light air, round bottom board. It also pushes through the water pretty effortlessly and goes upwind like it's on train tracks, but I think the Serenity has it beat for that gliding through the water feeling. 2 things about the Crit D2 that I think could have been done differently are that there is almost no rocker and the bow could have come more to a point. The Crit 630 I have shares these characteristics. The 630 is another round bottomed board, but it has flat sections aft as opposed to the D2 staying round all the way back.
The club's Surfsprint is another round bottomed board in the front that transitions to flat sections aft. It has a lot more rocker and has a much pointier bow than the Crits. It is also a good light air sailer. I like the pointier bows and some rocker, but 30 years of sailing on my own Surfsprint might have something to do with it.
John
Monday, October 1, 2012
Help find and spread the word about apps that boaters can/should use:
Pocket Mariner: Boats, Smartphones and Apps Survey
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/boating_apps
Pocket Mariner: Boats, Smartphones and Apps Survey
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/boating_apps
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Bay Adventures by David Blaszka
Sailing is not only an excellent outdoors activity, but also a genuinely traditional way to develop hard sea tales. I remember one such story:
It was soon after receiving my first rating at the yacht club that I decided to take my girlfriend at the time for a relaxing sail. I coaxed her up with lavish high-speed, boat heeling, sails flapping (of course only during a tack) tales of being on the water. Although slightly hesitant, she nevertheless desired the romance of my rumors.
“I’ll go, but we wont flip will we?” she asked with a worried look in her eyes. Despite the crisp blue skies, it was still early spring.
“A very slight possibility, but I assure you I got this,” I told her. Now, being a rather selfish fellow I did not give her my wetsuit and instead gave her some of my other gear for keeping…well, sort of dry.
Down to the docks, jib hoisted, bailers up, life-vests tightened, and finally up with the main. I look at my girlfriend all puffy from my waterproof clothing meant for mountaineering and the scared look in her eyes as we push off. The winds are strong. Right away we fall into a close haul coming around the outer dock. A gust blows in and I try to let out the sails, but something’s wrong. Some idiot left a fat knot in the mainsheet right before the cleat, and another idiot forgot to check the mainsheet before shoving off. Stuck in a close haul with a monstrous gust heeling the boat flat, I didn’t have time to turn up before water starts pouring in, so over we went. With a giant slash and an AHHH ending with swallowing water my girlfriend hits the water. Soon after water hits my face with its biting cold fangs and my wetsuit took the rest of the punch, but my girlfriend…she was cold to say the least. She clung to the boat like a wet cat and glared at me under her matted hair with the most venomous look I’d ever seen.
“The waters not bad, huh?” I tried to say. She didn’t give me a response. A whaler pulled up and the driver helped her out of the water, a difficult task due to her now very heavy clothing. They drove back to the WAC leaving me to right the boat alone. It was a while before I got her out again.
-David Blaszka, Summer 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
What's it Take to Win a Black Duck? Ken Howe asked.
Some come to Duck Dodge to race. Most come to party. A few get excited about the theme of the night. WYC's Deception, skippered by Alexia Fischer, has made an effort to be both the fasted boat and the best dressed this summer. Unlike other WYC boats, the crew of Deception tries to follow the theme of the night. The crew are pirates on a pirate ship for pirate night, A dead celebrity on the Titanic (a dead celebrity too) for Dead Celebrity night. The crew dress as kids in formals on Prom Night, and wear sheets for Toga night. The competition for the black duck is fierce because it is awarded mostly to the biggest screw up of the night so it is sometimes hard to get noticed. When Deception came to the race covered with card board pieces converting it to a pirate ship the boat was finally too hard to ignore. The card board captain's cabin surrounding the cockpit made it hard to steer around the other boats and the cardboard cannons got in the way of the jib sheets. Not only did we win the coveted black duck but later we were given a second for all the effort Alexia put into creating the look.
I found sailing in costume was a problem. The leather boots of my pirate costume were too slick for the deck and the long Jack Sparrow wig was blown into my mouth the whole race. Wearing a GoPro camera chest harness conflicted with the look but it did let me capture the action like the two boats almost hitting off our bow. Like my costume that I kept taking apart, Deception kept shedding her cardboard. The bowsprit fell off by the first buoy. The card board cannons had to be repaired and a small round hole had to be cut in the stern cardboard about waist high. A working window could have served the same purpose but that was not part of the design.
At the raft up after the race Duck Dodge virgins make the required walk of boat to boat to kiss the skipper or if the skipper allows it kiss the mast instead. This is the time to compare costumes with the other crews. Some Duck Dodge regulars get into dressing the part but most don't dress the boat. Flying a pirate flag just didn't compare to making the boat one big cardboard pirate ship.
-Ken Howe, Summer 2012
Monday, September 3, 2012
Last chapter of Old Boats of the Club, Part 5: the Keelboats
San Juan 21
This boat and the Penguin are the only two classes of boats
that the club had gotten rid of before I joined. I don't remember anyone telling me anything
about this boat. Pretty much the only
thing I know about the San Juan 21 is that it has a swing keel. http://sj21class.org/
Bristol Caravel 22
This is known as a sturdy cruiser with a lot of interior
room. While not a stellar sailor, it
wasn't bad. One thing that made it worse
was when a know it all student who was keelboat fleet captain decided that the
110% lapper which was the biggest sail that came with the boat was too small
and that the boat needed a 150% genoa. A
sail was purchased and a track installed.
Now we had some horsepower. The
problem now was that this was always the last boat to Blake Island if it was
upwind. Years later I, I mean the know
it all, did some math. I had finally
noticed that at best with the genoa the boat tacked through 120 degrees. When sailing with the lapper which sheeted in
between the uppers and lowers to a block on a post at an inboard position the
boat could tack through 90 degrees.
This means if I changed jibs from the genoa to the lapper I could point
30 degrrees higher, but would lose some speed.
I would have to lose more than 30% of my speed or about a knot if I were
doing hull speed under genoa to make it to my destination later with the
lapper. Since sailing that much slower
under the lapper would be a rare circumstance the lapper would have been the
sail of choice for most any upwind work.
By the time I had figured this out the club had bought a used
replacement lapper that no longer sheeted to the post, but instead had to be
sheeted outboard to the genoa track, so
it didn't point very well either.
The blue boat in the middle is Caravel, the boat on the left
is Excalibur.
Caravel with its original lapper.
http://www.bristol22.com/A_Website_Devoted_to_Bristol_22s/A_Website_Devoted_to_Bristol_22s.html
http://www.bristolowners.org/22/bristol22.html
Islander Excalibur 26
This felt like a fast boat, and it handled well. My first cruising adventure was as crew to
rescue the boat from Skyline Marina in Flounder Bay near Anacortes. Keelboat users will trade off in the Islands
to save having to take the boat back to the club. Apparently one user left the boat at the
marina and the next person didn't show up.
The first person made no arrangements with the marina. A week later the marina called us and asked
us about a boat that had been left in the marina with no payment.
I was taught a lesson on this boat. I was sailing along rail almost in the water
and the boat had almost no weather helm.
I commented to the more experienced sailor how well balanced the boat
was with no helm. He looked at me funny
and said look at the tiller. I then
noticed that I had the tiller in my lap, at least 20 degrees from straight. That's when I learned that a well balanced
spade rudder makes it so you don't have to pull hard on the tiller even when
there is massive weather helm causing you to drag the rudder through the water
like a big brake. http://www.toyecorp.com/aquaries.html
Columbia 26
The Columbia 26 was not a well liked boat. Maybe it was the nearly flush deck that made
it look funny, maybe it was that some felt that it was a poor sailor. http://www.columbia-yachts.com/c-26mk2.html
Cal 25
A donation that needed a fair amount of work. Deception, a Catalina 27 was donated before
it was put in service and the Cal 25 was subsequently sold.
Neptune 24
People complained about the transom being weak. I discovered that the transom wasn't attached
to the deck anymore, so when you pressed on it you could move it in to create a
gap at the hull deck join. The
importance of a bridle on the spinnaker pole was demonstrated when the foreguy
connected to an eyestrap in the middle of the pole caused the pole to
snap. The shock to the mast caused the
tang for the lower shroud/spreader base made of pot metal to fail, now that
there was no lower the mast bent. http://cruisingresources.com/Neptune_24
Stone boat
I forget why we took a donation of a 20 foot ferrocement
hull with a wood deck. If you see any
mention of stone boat fleet captain in old club documents, you now know what it
refers to.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Sol cat 15
The Sol cat 15 and 18 were part of the club in 1976 when I
joined. There were only Novice and
Skipper ratings at the time, and you had to get a rating in each boat. You had to have your C-Lark skipper rating
before you could even think about getting a rating in the mysterious, scary,
fragile catamarans. Well that was over
the top, but not much for some people.
The 15 was cat rigged, (mainsail only) and was designed to be
single-handed. The Sol Cat 15 had
centerboards whereas the 18 had daggerboards.
Sol cat 18
The 18 was sloop rigged and designed to be double
handed. Having the tiller crossbar in
front of the mainsheet block was normal for me at the time since this is the
catamaran that I first sailed, but it seems odd now since this is the only cat
that I have seen this way since then.
Most cats the tillers are behind the traveller, so you must throw the
hiking stick behind the boat to tack or jibe.
This frustrates many people that I teach. The 18 allows you to bring the hiking stick
forward, but you must have an extendable stick as it would be too short to
trapeze with or too long to pass through on the tramp. The Sol Cat poster in the sail locker at the
time claimed that the Sol Cats didn't pitchpole like the Hobie 16s. I'd never sailed a 16, but either the
advertising was wrong or it would have been scary to see me sail a 16 based on
the number of times I pitchpoled the Sol Cat. http://sailboatdata.com/VIEWRECORD_METRIC.ASP?CLASS_ID=4399
Sol cat 20
Sol Cat's high performance boat that was 10 feet wide. It's the only beach cat that I've sailed
without a watertight sealed mast, which means not self rescuing. I was sailing this boat to Mercer Island on a
club lake cruise when I noticed the lee bow was a foot or so above the water.
This is not normal cat behavior, the bows normally go deeper and deeper as you
apply more power. I started looking
around and finally noticed the crease in the deck where it had folded in and
let the hull bend up just in front of the crossbeam. I carefully nursed the
boat back to the club with very little mainsheet tension. When I repaired it, I drilled a 5” hole in the deck, glassed in
some stringers and put a port in. First
time it went sailing the port popped up into the air and the hull bent
again. This made me realize that the
curved deck needed to be completely glassed back together for strength which
the port did not supply. So back to
square one, and no port this time. When
the tramp shredded completely a spider's web of line to recreate a tramp was
made. It was a bit interesting to
maneuver across.
Shark
This 20 foot long, 10 foot wide wooden boat was designed in
62. There was no trampoline, there was
solid wood where a trampoline would be found.
The center of the tramp area had a piano hinge so the boat would fold up
in the center to make it 8 feet wide to trailer. This boat was considered fragile and wood
boats tend to not last a long time in the club, so this donation wasn't sailed
except by a few chiefs just to test it to make sure there was nothing wrong
with it. http://sharkcatamaranclass.org/WHAT.HTML
Supercat 20
The Supercat was 12 feet wide. Most cats are 8 feet wide so they can be
trailered without dis-assembling them or buying an expensive tilt trailer. Each
of he Supercat's crossbeams are of two different diameters such that one half
slips inside the other to make the boat 8 feet wide to trailer. The hull and deck is an elliptical shape. This is to minimize drag when the front of
the boat is underwater and reduce the chance of pitchpoling. It was 450 pounds
with 275 ft^2 of sail area. There was a
tall rig version made with 300 ft^2. http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?module=pictures&g2_itemId=2637
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