Today is Race Day #2 for the 2.4 Meter US Nationals
Someone should tell Gene Hinkel that rudder pedals are for steering your feet!
Tags: 2.4mR, nationals2.4mR 2008 Nationals, Day 1
2.4mR 2008 Nationals, Day 1 (Photos by Bill Blevins)
Day #1 of the 2008 US 2.4 Meter National Championships is in the books! WHAT FUN!!
Winds were light and shifty. I mean, very shifty! One race took us upwind towards the yacht club and for the next race we headed up Long Island Sound towards New York City. The race committee did a great job.
Our first race was canceled due to a severe wind shift - so severe that I was in the back of the pack one minute and next to the mark in front of almost all of the boats the next! The race committee did the right thing and canceled that attempt and called it a “practice start”.
I finished 6th in the “real” first race. Straightforward race and I sailed pretty well. I caught a nice lift heading upwind near the left middle of the course on the second windward leg and sailed in front of a number of boats.
Races 2 and 3 weren’t so good for me.
I chose to avoid a port-tack boat at the start and I didn’t protest, instead, tacked away and jibed all the way around then got off the line several boat lengths behind the whole fleet in bad air. I did catch up for a bit, making the second boat to round the second windward mark, but my tactics fell apart on the final downwind leg and I finished in 15th.
Race 3, I tried to squeeze in on the RC end of the line and got taken up and over the line early and had to re-round the boat end. I never recovered from that one and ended up 16th.
Overall, I’m in 13th place after 3 races.
Tomorrow, I’ll work on my starts!
I’ve met lots of really nice and helpful people. Having a great time. Tracy is here, sick, but doing better.
More to report tomorrow and many more photos that I’ll post after I get home.
The low point leaders after the first day are John Ruf (7 points), Jerry Wendt (15), Burce Millar (15) and Peter Wilson (15) and Mark LeBlanc (16).
Tags: 2.4mR, nationalsTwo “Guns” in first GO fleet races
I sailed in the Genoa Only or “GO” series races on Wednesday night at the Canandaigua Yacht Club. The fleet was divided in half with my 2.4mR sailing in the “B fleet”. There was a Capri 22, a Catalina 22 and a Beneteau 210 racing with my group.
The winds were extremely light and there were only a few boats out. I earned both “guns” and after the results were computed, managed to get two first place finishes. The corrected results are posted on the Canandaigua Yacht Club “GO” Fleet site.
A Beneteau 210 gave me stiff sailing competition and actually cut me a few breaks in the first race which were much appreciated, especially not taking me up at the finish line at the end of the first race and pinching me above the pin!
The finish line for the short triangle is directly lined up with the reach mark so if boats are overlapped coming from that mark to the pin end of the line, I could definitely see problems!
The second race was shortened to a two-leg windward leeward course. I rounded the upwind mark behind the first boat, but loosened up the whole rig and ran down underneath him on the downhill leg which by that point had turned in to a very light broad reach. I worked my way to the windward side after getting clear ahead, continuing on to pull out a 90 second lead at the finish line.
Winds were so light by that point that the “crash boat” gave me a much appreciated tow back to the docks.
Tags: 2.4mR, canandaigua yacht club, GO Fleet, racingSunday June 2 Race Track
Race on Sunday June 2, 2008 Track
I got out on the water very early today. Winds were great, blowing at 8-12 knots. I sailed for about and hour before the harbor gun, signaling the beginning of the racing sequence and my start in 45 minutes.
I noticed a problem steering to the right so I headed towards shore and lighter winds, luffed up and looked inside of the rear hatch. A guide for the backstay had popped two screws through the fiberglass on the deck and the backstay control line, over the rudder post, was dragging on the right side of the rudder control cable. Poor design, or poor choice of mounting points for that guide if you ask me. The fiberglass where that guide was mounted was as thin as any on the whole boat. With that much tension on the backstay control line, I think I’ll fiberglass in a small wooden block and re-attach the guide with screws into the wood. Hopefully, I’ll not need to drill and bolt up through the deck.
The race started at about 2 p.m. (they don’t use GPS time here) and then the nice winds over the past 90 minutes, or so, dropped almost immediately to 4-6 knots for my race - though race committee recorded results as a 7-11 knots or “3″ on the Beaufort scale although I never saw one whitecap. I guess it was probably 7 kts. for the first couple of minutes of the race when they wrote down the information for the afternoon.
I had a nice beat up to the first windward mark, then things slowed down - a lot - with two very light reach legs, a slow windward leg and a really slow downwind leg followed by a short and slow leg upwind to the finish.
The course was a triangle and then windward and leeward legs with an upwind mid-line finish. The flags posted by the RC didn’t signal the mid-line finish but they said on Sunday’s they don’t use the square with the red “M” so I sailed what everyone else did and being in the back of the finishers made that choice easy.
Canandaigua Lake so far has been light and puffy. I hope there is wind here in mid-summer!
Here are the stats from today’s track as recorded by my Velocitek SC-1:
Sunday Open Fleet Race June 2, 2008
Canandaigua Yacht Club
Canandaigua, NY
Total Race Distance Sailed : 6.534 Km / 4.06 Miles2.4mR #161 - Bill Blevins
Total Avg. Speed : 3.62 KnotsBest 2 second run = 5.27 Knots
Best 10 second run = 4.84 Knots
Best 60 second run = 4.59 KnotsBest 100 meter run = 4.68 Knots
Best 500 meter run = 4.18 Knots
Best 1000 meter = 4.04 Knots
I will link to the race results when they are posted. I think I came in 2nd.
Tags: 2.4mR, canandaigua yacht clubView from the cockpit of my 2.4mR today
View from the cockpit of my 2.4mR today, (Photo by Bill Blevins)
Have you ever wondered what sailing downwind in light chop and 5 knot winds looks like from the cockpit of a 2.4 Meter?
Tags: 2.4mR, canandaigua yacht club“My other Hot Rod is a 2.4mR” sticker
“My other Hot Rod is a 2.4mR” sticker, (Photo by Bill Blevins)
The little round sticker on the back of my Skeeter ZX20 Bay fishing boat says, “My other Hot Rod is a 2.4mR”.
Tags: 2.4mR