Tag Archives: 2.4mR

Two “Guns” in first GO fleet races

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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.

Sunday June 2 Race Track

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Open Fleet Race 2 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 Miles

2.4mR #161 – Bill Blevins
Total Avg. Speed : 3.62 Knots

Best 2 second run = 5.27 Knots
Best 10 second run = 4.84 Knots
Best 60 second run = 4.59 Knots

Best 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.

2008 Memorial Day Regatta

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On Memorial Day, I went out and raced with the “big boats” at the Canandaigua Yacht Club in the 2008 Memorial Day Regatta. These little one-design 2.4 Meter sailboats weren’t really designed for racing 14.6 miles against J-24′s, Ensigns and Sharks!!

memorial-day-regatta

I got great start and then it slowed down for a while – through the first two legs actually.

I made it out to the course really late and as the 5 minute gun was going off I checked in for the race.

I forgot to lock down the shrouds and since I was reaching behind the line, I didn’t noticed until about 30 seconds after the start when I hardened up to windward. I reached down and popped in the leeward bracket on that starboard tack and was planning on tacking over to snap in the other side but I noticed that if I did, I would be tacking in front of  several Catalina 25′s. I had committed at that point and was in irons and luffed up to fix things. From then on I playing catch-up for the rest of the day.

I did get some early wind and managed to cross ahead of several boats on the first upwind leg. By the time I sailed several miles and rounded the upwind mark, the wind died. I ate my lunch on that first reaching leg, drifting across the lake toward the next mark.

By this point, everyone was gone and the wind had clocked way to the right and everyone in front of me was close-reaching towards the downwind mark. I was way too late to get the new wind to catch up, even though I was sailing pretty good once it came down the lake to me.

The rest of the race was a reach because the wind kept clocking all afternoon.

I learned a lot about the boat today. I had plenty of time (3 hours, 40 minutes) to try everything.

I didn’t have any problems but I did hear a really loud pop once when I hauled in the backstay. I turned around and it looked like it was still there so I kept going.

The winds were between 3 and 9 mph during the race. There were occasional stronger puffs that lasted a couple of minutes. I stayed surprisingly dry.

I crossed the line last. I had heard the Race Committee call out to the “crash boat” to see if they were within sight of “the little 2.4″. At that point, I was rounding the second reaching mark with nice wind and was on my way down the final 5.5 km of the race. The race committee stayed on station and clocked my time.

“Thanks RC. I appreciate you waiting for me and my little boat“!

Here are the stats from my SC-1 computer:

2008 Memorial Day Regatta
Canandiagua Yacht Club
Canandaigua, NY
Total Race Distance Sailed : 26.890 Km / 16.71 Miles

2.4mR #161 – Bill Blevins
Total Avg. Speed : 3.86 Knots

Best 2 second run = 6.88 Knots (7.1 meters in 2 seconds)
Best 10 second run = 5.67 Knots (29.2 meters in 10 seconds)
Best 60 second run = 5.35 Knots (165.1 meters in 60 seconds)

Best 100 meter run = 5.53 Knots (102.3 meters in 36 seconds)
Best 500 meter run = 5.16 Knots (504.8 meters in 190 seconds)
Best 1000 meter run = 5.09 Knots (1,000.1 meters in 382 seconds)

Here is a link to a .pdf of the results file posted on the CYC site. (Since we haven’t picked names for the boats yet, the scorer assigned mine a temporary name of “Rocket” sounds fitting for the boat, but not reflective of my sixth place finish time.)

No photos today. Got a really late start and didn’t take my camera (or anything to drink).

Sunday Afternoon Race #1

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race one

Sunday afternoon Race #1, (Photo by Tracy Blevins)

Tracy took this photo of my little 2.4 Meter sailboat in front of two Catalina 25′s on the downhill leg of the first Sunday afternoon race of the season at Canandaigua Yacht Club . Very shifty and light winds allowed for practicing all points of sail on each of the legs of the triangle course. I did manage to get the gun but I haven’t seen the results yet for the handicaps. Fun!

Sailing Practice Track on May 24, 2008

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Google Earth Track

Sailing Practice Track on May 24, 2008, (Google Earth)

This is the track export from the Velocitek SC-1 and viewed with Google Earth. With no place to go, it seems like I just sailed around in circled. The winds were very puffy and shifty and I’d say constant at 10 knots with gusts over 20 on occasion. This export function is new to me and this is the first time I’ve used this feature. Once the device is used in a race, the computer automatically will divide the tracks into separate races and then it can export data on each race in HTML. It shows things like wind direction and speed over periods of time from “best 10 second run” to “best 500 meter run” based on average speed. Still playing with this one. Stay tuned.

Our 2.4 Meters Have Spots

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Getting Our Measurement Dots

Our 2.4 Meters Have Spots, (Photo by Bill Blevins)

Gene Hinkle drove up from St. Petersburg, FL this week to deliver boats in Rochester for Canadian customers and today he stopped by the Canandaigua Yacht Club to place measurement marks on the hulls of our 2.4mR sailboats.

Gene is the official measurer for several international sailboat classes including Sonars and 2.4 Meters. He had to make due with a tape measure today since his new templates are over in Qingdao waiting for him to return before the 2008 Paralympic Games begin later this year.

Thanks a million Gene!

(P.S. – I’m glad you connected with Dave Troyer about “Krugerrand” too. That was cool!)