"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." -Andre Gide



Sunday, February 27, 2011

Morro Bay Yacht Club ocean fleet Race

I participated in my first ocean race of the new year today with the Morro Bay Yacht Club (MBYC). The Winter 2 race was under clear skies and 12- 15 knots of wind with 4-7 foot swells.  A great day for sailing.

I crewed on a Dana 24 with Captain Ken. It was nice to be in a race on a boat the size of Training Wheels especially one as well appointed as this one. It had all the electronics which come in handy during a race. The fleet was split into two classes today, basically a slow group and a fast group. We did fairly well finishing first in our class (slow group) and placing second after the handicaps were applied. With the handicaps we finished 5 overall in the fleet.  Not too bad a showing.  

We blew a big lead we had ending the second leg of six legs in the race. We made a poor jibe around the marker getting the jib stuck on the staysail during the jibe and lost about 4 minuntes. It is pretty tough to get the big jib around the staysail quickly.  This is why I changed Training Wheels from a cutter rigged sailboat (has 2 sails in front of mast close together) to a sloop rig (just a main and a jib).  

A good example of a cutter rigged sailboat from the Biscayne Bay Sailing Club website.

As for Training Wheels, the kill switch on the Engine broke so the next post will be outboard engine maintenance tips. 

3 comments:

  1. I know this off topic for this post, but we wanted to check in after the tsunami warning and let you know we're thinking about you! Keep us posted...

    -Nicole & Aaron
    s/v Bella Star

    ReplyDelete
  2. I too have a Coronado 25 and replaced my kill switch with a toggle switch.

    ReplyDelete

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