Video: Crusader sending it.

While this blog is mainly about my experiences sailing a Beneteau 36.7 in the gentle climes of Southern California there are times when other boats in less pleasant, well, less gentlemanly surroundings just catch the eye.

This video is of a boat called Crusader. It's an Elliot 35 so about the same basic size as Kraken but less comfort, bigger sails and some serious miles under their belts sailing at high speed.

It got my attention from the front page of SailingAnarchy and the boat has featured there a few times. I love how calm the crew always seems as their 35 ft boat almost hits 30 knots under jib and reefed main.

Video: Featured 36.7: Lula Belle

Lula Belle showing us how to sail in real weather!

While we're talking about Lula Belle I should mention that she was actually one of the deciding factors in our purchase of Kraken. There's a short but sweet video of her moving at some cracking speeds. I've added it below.

Nice Shot from 2014 NOODs

Trawling the interwebs for pictures from this year, still seeming few and far between, I found this AWESOME shot from last year.

Scuttlebutt

Got a mention on ScuttleButt for our third :)

Race: San Diego NOODs 2015

A year ago our first One Design tournament was the 2014 NOODs. Out of nine boats we were ninth, eighth, ninth and, wait for it, ninth. While we might have been able to improve on the second day we'll never know as I had to withdraw for family reasons.

I'd entered with some illusions on where our limited practice and lack of collective race hours were going to place us, but in the reality dawning there was a glimmer of hope. A couple of legs where we were mixing with the fleet. And it was fun.

2015 was going to be a different matter, on the racing front not the fun factor, and with a great group of people who had all raced on Kraken in the prior year signed up I went in feeling we had an outside chance at a top three finish.

The picture above was dawn on my trip down. The Santa Anna's kicking in already it was going to be a hot hot weekend but looking likely to hold wind in the afternoon. This was true on my delivery trip and held true for the weekend peaking at 15-20 knots breeze for the final race.

Saturday
Saturday started hot and light. We were buried in the start and never got to play the wind on our first upwind beat, downwind we'd closed back up again but as we approached the finish heard them shortening the course and finishing the boats.

6th.

Second race, 8 -12 knots, we were solid on the first beat but had the spinnaker halyard hold the genoa up (hadn't re-led it post the previous drop on the starboard side). This cost some time but once the bow team had diagnosed the hold up they wrapped the genoa in a poor mans roller furler and we finished fourth. The start had been better but still not great.

4th.

Third race we decided to approach the start differently and come in on port looking for a gap. For once the fleet was all pretty cohesive hitting the line and we ducked stern after stern before tacking behind Adventure at the committee boat. This ended up working out really well as we were able to hold the fleet below us as we lifted on the great circle. Adventure was the only boat who remained free and were able to hold in front of us on the final beat. As we've seen them do before.

2nd.

One thing worth noting was that for the first couple of races we were tuned lighter than ever before, about 29 on the loos gauge, and pointing sucked. In the final race we upped to about 31 and seemed to be able to point with the other boats.

Sunday
Coming back to the boat I felt we'd probably worked through a few kinks. The expectation was for potentially lighter winds but that wasn't what transpired.

Our first race we stuck with the 31 tuning and saw 7-13 knots, 13 towards the end. Boat speed was great the furschnaffle was Kodachrome calling a penalty for us as our kite touched their shroud right at the windward mark rounding. Getting the kite down and pulling two 360s was a lot of work and something we need to practice if we're going to get serious about winning these regattas. We got really lucky and the fleet got bunched at the leeward mark allowing for a significant recovery. Second beat and runs were clean and we almost snuck 2nd, ironically from Kodachrome but according to the results got third. Must have been by inches or perhaps they projected their kite better!

We made the choice ahead of time to stay near the committee boat on the start and had a pretty good start with a timedish run.

3rd

The second and final race of the day saw building breeze. We were seeing over 17 knots as the other fleets started and we scrambled to get battens in our #3 and tighen the rig. The fleet ended up split between #1s and #3s but I think the #3 with a moderate rig was a good place to be. Lot of power, fast tacks and good speed. I'll check but think the outers were at about 37 with loose inners.

With the rerig and sail change we were setting up in the five minutes and scrambling for position. We hit the line with speed at the boat end but on the second row, catching a break as Adventure was forced to spin around. Not in a position to tunnel through Sorcerer who'd pushed Adventure out the way we tacked out and sailed a clean beat leading at the windward mark. With winds to 20 knots we headed for the leeward mark deep, sometimes by the lee, with enough separation for the fleet behind to be unable to do anything.

Snagging a piece of kelp shortly after the leeward mark our lead started dwindling but Joe was able to hook some out and we got enough speed back to hold on comfortably for the win.

Our first One Design win.

1st.

And taking us to third in the regatta!

I have to spend some time digesting the weekend. It was an amazing amount of fun and hard fought by our crew racing nearer the top of a strong fleet than we've been used to. There are many things I've read about in the last couple of years that make more sense now, not worrying about a front row start so much as starting with speed, air and the ability to go where you want, sailing clean, tuning right - hell we're still learning how to make this boat sing.

I love seeing the other boats storming and realizing we're doing the same.

I love having a crew come together, get past a disappointing start and steadily improve through a weekend.

I really need to make sure my spinnaker doesn't hit other boats.

I don't like it when big boats collide. This wasn't us, but was in our fleet and there's no call for it if it can be avoided. We have flags and a protest room if needed. We can take our turns and race on or have a panel of experts help us through the rules.

Video: Coastal DNF

From Jonathan!

Video(s): Nathan Outteridge sailing the Moth

Nathan presents a set of videos on sailing the Moth. They demonstrate just how tricky this boat is and present a fantastic level of video presentation and informative narration from one of the top sailors.

I'd love Nathan to do more of these for keelboats and other dinghys!

Halyard maintenance - End for Ending - a trick

After blowing our jib halyard in the opening race I built a new one but then started having nightmares (quite literally!) about the other halyards on the boat, all of the same age, and all with a strange lock(?) knot right in the splice that looks like it was just weakening the line.

So I started "end for ending" the lines. Moving the cover over the stripped and UV damaged core and putting the eye splice on the other end. The first line I did just pushing a foot or two along the rope at a time and it took forever. The second I tied one end to a door handle and stretched the line out, this allowed me to work a couple of yards at a time and the process went much much faster!

First test with my new halyard / rebuilt halyards was okay, sails stayed up. Each halyard has three splices - a locked brummel around a shackle for the eye, a cover bury at the point the core comes out and reaving splice at the loose end to allow a line to be easily attached and pull through. I also added a cover over the main wear point on the jib halyard - again buried back into the core.

Here's the new and bright yellow (most lines on Kraken are blue) jib halyard going up the mast, the others I can just use the existing halyard as a feeder but as the jib had blown I needed to feed again.

At some point I'm going to post a video of the climbing process. I use two ascenders, one to some foot loops and the other to a bosun's chair. I also rig a line to a climbing harness and wrap it around the mast, that way any fall would be checked by the shrouds or spreaders, hopefully before hitting the deck.

To climb you stand up in the loops and pull the chair up, then sit an lift the feet loops. Takes about 10 minutes to get up and down, perhaps less now - with practice!

Whale Breath, and a race with a DNF.

Long slow race in light air into the biggest wind shadow of the area - Cardiff about 12 miles south of Oceanside - we pulled the plug at 8:20pm still 4 miles short and going nowhere fast. Most of the other boats pulled the plug too but maybe Shaman finished still waiting to find out.

Saw these guys -  insane life cycle!!

Lots of dolphins, some seals, a couple of whales during the light and a most surreal experience - while we were sailing at night we were flanked by some whales. We could hear them breathing but not see them.

Race wise I forgot to retune the rig so we were a bit tight but rounded the bottom mark in second (out of eight). Pole Dancer drew a big lead back upwind but as it got lighter we closed and closed and they quit at the point we were passing them. Foot when its light!!!

Shaman took the inside, got the expected shift and were slightly ahead when it got dark, but we were pulling that back too last I saw.

Stunning sunset and amazing moon rise over the mountains.