Grizz
Grizz
3,000 words in 3 pics, with 103 nm completed in 16+ hours, after 50+ hours of light air sailing to traverse 206 nm. Ugh!
1. The 1[SUP]st[/SUP] pic illustrates our approach to Gray’s Reef Light, 7 AM Monday 7-13, apparent wind @ 12+, we keeping the boat flat (barely) with rail meat dense packed outboard and starboard, aft as far as possible, mainsheet alive and easing/trimming on a spastic cycle, the .75 oz. kite waaaaay overpowered and threatening to explode. It didn’t, the boat never laid over or rounded up and the new rudder helped…a lot!
If you look closely in this picture, the starboard spin halyard is led outboard of the headstay/headsail to the goose neck hooks below the roller furler, used as a means to ‘defraculate’ the mast, essentially becoming an alternate headstay after easing the backstay to its maximum, preventing mast pumping in these maximum off wind conditions.
We did NOT need the staysail packed and ready.
We overtook several boats in our section during this portion of our run (that we could actually see, one is the 36’ Hunter in this picture), they probably choosing a conservative sailplan and thinking ‘look at those crazy SOB’s!’ It was definitely 6+ hours of ‘hang on!’ time.
As a point of reference for positioning on the course, Gray’s Reef Channel = 3 nm, oriented north/south, and once we exited, it’s @ 25 nm to finish, with the Mac Bridge mocking the entire time we tracked a due east heading.
2. The 2nd pic shows a top speed of 8.4 that was witnessed, but we were kinda busy with other things.
3. We exited the channel @ 7:30 AM and finished @ 11, screaming east close hauled or close reaching while trying to stay fast, flat and true.
Quick & dirty math shows that to be a speed of @ 7.14 knots, with wobbly legs at the finish, from compressing and bracing the entire run. Any more miles and Helm Handoff would have been needed. The 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] pic is @ halfway into that final leg, all on board aware that were racing for position(s) and needed to “run through the bag”, a difficult task with fatigue competing with adrenaline and excitement.
And this ends this peek into sailing from the middle of the continent!
1. The 1[SUP]st[/SUP] pic illustrates our approach to Gray’s Reef Light, 7 AM Monday 7-13, apparent wind @ 12+, we keeping the boat flat (barely) with rail meat dense packed outboard and starboard, aft as far as possible, mainsheet alive and easing/trimming on a spastic cycle, the .75 oz. kite waaaaay overpowered and threatening to explode. It didn’t, the boat never laid over or rounded up and the new rudder helped…a lot!
If you look closely in this picture, the starboard spin halyard is led outboard of the headstay/headsail to the goose neck hooks below the roller furler, used as a means to ‘defraculate’ the mast, essentially becoming an alternate headstay after easing the backstay to its maximum, preventing mast pumping in these maximum off wind conditions.
We did NOT need the staysail packed and ready.
We overtook several boats in our section during this portion of our run (that we could actually see, one is the 36’ Hunter in this picture), they probably choosing a conservative sailplan and thinking ‘look at those crazy SOB’s!’ It was definitely 6+ hours of ‘hang on!’ time.
As a point of reference for positioning on the course, Gray’s Reef Channel = 3 nm, oriented north/south, and once we exited, it’s @ 25 nm to finish, with the Mac Bridge mocking the entire time we tracked a due east heading.
2. The 2nd pic shows a top speed of 8.4 that was witnessed, but we were kinda busy with other things.
3. We exited the channel @ 7:30 AM and finished @ 11, screaming east close hauled or close reaching while trying to stay fast, flat and true.
Quick & dirty math shows that to be a speed of @ 7.14 knots, with wobbly legs at the finish, from compressing and bracing the entire run. Any more miles and Helm Handoff would have been needed. The 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] pic is @ halfway into that final leg, all on board aware that were racing for position(s) and needed to “run through the bag”, a difficult task with fatigue competing with adrenaline and excitement.
And this ends this peek into sailing from the middle of the continent!
Attachments
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JOG Mac 2015 (57).jpg -
JOG Mac 2015 (66).jpg -
JOG Mac 2015 (88).jpg
