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Ericson 27 wins at Toliva Shoal race!

Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
Very cool, I remember when Nigel Barron's boat Green Card also won his division in the Swift Sure race up in BC a few years ago. I know he said it was a highly modified E-27. I would love to see pics and find out what kinds of modifications he has done. The race results say he was even up against a big Ranger 32 and a few lighter and newer boats. Wow.
:egrin:
 

Nigel Barron

Notorious Iconoclast
Jeff Asbury said:
Very cool, I remember when Nigel Barron's boat Green Card also won his division in the Swift Sure race up in BC a few years ago. I know he said it was a highly modified E-27. I would love to see pics and find out what kinds of modifications he has done. The race results say he was even up against a big Ranger 32 and a few lighter and newer boats. Wow.
:egrin:

Here are a couple pictures from the race. It was awesome. Finally conditions for us. A nice close reach where we had the jib and staysail, a reach for our reaching a-sym and a run for our running a-sym. I will post a brief description of some of the changes later. Really though, the main things are a fair bottom with 2000 grit Baltoplate, non-overlapping headsails, big main and big kites.

Nigel

PS- Photos from Sean Trew's website www.pacificfog.net
 

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Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
Wow, a staysail? I have never seen one on a E-27. Who made your sails? I am sure a smooth bottom would help me as well. Is it my understanding you keep the boat out of the water when not in use? I know these boats are capable of pretty good speed. My record speed over ground, according to the GPS read, 7.9 Knots on a broad reach off Catalina in April of 2003. I think I read something about you hitting 11 knots down wind in the Swift Sure?

Most of my Family lives in Olympia and some came out as spectators and said it was really cold, but a beautiful day. 30 mile race corse? How long did that take?

I miss the Sound, but I think I would have sat this race out. My bloods thinned out a bit since I moved to Southern California.

Sorry about the twenty questions, but I am truly impressed with what your doing with that old boat.

Congratulations and thanks for the beautiful photos! Go, Green Card!
 

e38sailorman

Member II
Nigel,

I was on JAM, saw you out there, you looked great. Toliva was a great race this year (for a change). Congratulations

Marc Jorgenson (e38sailorman)
 

Nigel Barron

Notorious Iconoclast
Jeff Asbury said:
Wow, a staysail? I have never seen one on a E-27. Who made your sails? I am sure a smooth bottom would help me as well. Is it my understanding you keep the boat out of the water when not in use? I know these boats are capable of pretty good speed. My record speed over ground, according to the GPS read, 7.9 Knots on a broad reach off Catalina in April of 2003. I think I read something about you hitting 11 knots down wind in the Swift Sure?

Most of my Family lives in Olympia and some came out as spectators and said it was really cold, but a beautiful day. 30 mile race corse? How long did that take?

I miss the Sound, but I think I would have sat this race out. My bloods thinned out a bit since I moved to Southern California.

Sorry about the twenty questions, but I am truly impressed with what your doing with that old boat.

Congratulations and thanks for the beautiful photos! Go, Green Card!


It's a lot of questions, but they really get at the heart of what we are doing this year with the program (I will explain my use of the word program). Anyway, here are some answers, and some random narrative.

The reason I chose the word program is that this current year of racing, is the culmination of about a 4 year project. Projects have many parts: The boat had to be made ready for racing. A new deck layout, a perfectly faired baltoplate on epoxy bottom, and all new rigging and hardware are parts of that. Sails had to be developed. The current main is a fifth generation design for the boat. We have spent many hours sailing and talking with the designers about what we want and need, and this main reflects everyones hard work. Part of this has included talk about the best sail plan for the Puget Sound. The designers believed strongly in the idea of big main, a-sails, and non-overlapping headsails (this is what caused the staysail). It has worked. For the racers out there, we even had a code 7 main, but the rig modifcations would have been too harsh under PHRF with that code because we eliminated the backstay. Lastly, and most importantly, has been crew. We have sailed together for a long time on boats from 70ft on down, and each have total faith in the other person. When Christopher Butler was driving through Race Passage while seeing 11kts on the GPS in about 40kts and chop, being able to say to Pat Gibbs our bowman that we should take the kite down before the puffs come, and for it to happen flawlessly is awesome. Pete Dorsey rounds out the square???

Thats the narrative, now to the questions. The boat lives at Shilshole, but as I work at CSR, a boatyard in Seattle, it gets out a little. The sails are the hard work of Doug Christie and Karl Funk, formerly of Halsey-Lidgard in Seattle. Toliva Shoals, as anyone who has done it can tell you, is usually the worst race you will ever do. It is a race you hope they shorten, because you are usually closer to home. This year was for the ages. It was sunny, damn cold, but sunny. Amazingly, every boat finished the long course! According to the Toliva Shoals website, the race is 36.8 miles, we took 6 hours 57 minutes to complete the course, with an average VMG of 5.3. All in all, not bad. In this series, it was nice to finally have a race where the very well sailed Moore 24 could not get loose.

Anyway, thats about it. Www.pacificfog.net will have more pictures from the race available. E38Sailorman is out there on a J160 called JAM. Fun time. Center Sound, PSSR, PSSC, and Tri-Island to go, so plenty more fun to be had. Alas no Swiftsure this year, as I am committed elsewhere. Maybe Whidbey Island, but that depends on how a couple one-design fleets shake out. I do like the one design.

Nigel
 
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Jeff Asbury

Principal Partner
Thank you so much Nigel for your detailed response to my questions. Sounds like you have really created a Hot Rod out of a old Plastic Classic. Makes me feel a little less guilty for investing so much time and money in my old boat and making it more of a modern cruiser. I would love to race her sometime, but I think it would take a lot more time and money that I don't have to make her competitive. In the mean time I will be following your successes with great admiration from the side lines.

Jeff
 

footrope

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
Hooray for old boats

Way to go Nigel. Having crewed a few years on 39 & 40 footers here in Puget Sound, I learned who the competitors are, and they're not always the newest, lightest, space-age, carbon fiber money pits. (They're usually the well-prepared, well-crewed money pits.) The 1984 Frers 40 I spent several seasons on is another example of a "program" that required lots of thoughtful planning, hard work, and went through plenty of bumps on the way to dominating all those new J109s in our fleet.

I missed the early years of learning to fly the symmetrical spinnaker - exciting stories - but I have never even enjoyed watching the other boats laying on their sides. And the skipper and his chosen helmsmen never broached us once. Not even in the Winter Vashon a few years ago when the wind never went below 25 knots and peaked at 50 by our instruments. We can count several wins and high finishes because we had enough skill and luck to keep the rig and sails in one piece and the boat underneath them.

Congratulations,
 
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Seth

Sustaining Partner
too cool

Yeah-I'm back from France....

Nigel, love the work you did w/ the sailplan-BTW guys-a staysail is effective on these boats with or without without overlapping headsails-you can use one (although they are small) under a genoa/reacher when eased out for a close-beam reach, or you can fly them under a kite-S or A-provided you have the right wind angle and windspeeds (too little breeze and the staysail chokes the kite)..

My question has to do with the choice for the non-overlapping headsails. Was this strictly about rating and going with the mambo main to compensate? I would agree, but also I would think you can now get around those wide sheeting angles for the big jibs and use an inboard track for the non-overlappers and get a better sheeting angle-and point better..The argument against this might be that the keel is so wide that there is little benefit from narrowing the sheet angle, but I would likely try it anyway-if it were up to me..So..how are you sheeting those little jibs???? Inquiring minds and all that...:devil:
 

Nigel Barron

Notorious Iconoclast
As you suspected, the reason for the jibs was in part rating based. A big part of the decision was also sheeting angle. We were just not going to point with a genoa. Instead, we installed cabin top tracks. We also eliminated the forward lowers and added a babystay to get a little better angle. We have a light #3, heavy #3 and a #4. We have installed a floating block on the toerail near the where uppers terminate to use to barberhaul when necessary. We also moved the winches to the cabin top.
 

Nigel Barron

Notorious Iconoclast
Some of the stuff...

This picture actually shows (other than the two drunks racing) quite a few of the things that we have done to the boat.

This is like a game. STOP READING NOW IF YOU WANT TO PLAY...









I will point out some of the things that we have done, and you can see if you found them! :egrin:

End boom main sheeting

Vectran backstay with 16:1 purchase.

These both run forward along the floor, through some blocks, and end up where the driver sits if next to the cabin house. Backstay is further forward so you can sit a main trimmer next to the driver, which is necessary is conditions much over 30kts, because of the main size.

The red line is going through the block that floats attached to the forward legs of the stern pulpit. These are the sheets for the A-syms. Coming up onto the cabin house from a block on the stanchion, in line with the whinch is a black/yellow line which are the guys. (The tack line runs along the cabin house on the starboard side, but you can't see that in this picture.)

The jib tracks where the Light 3 is attached that come back to our winches.

Now this is a cool one. The upper is clearly visible. Either side of it are two vectran lines that come to a point where they attach to a single line for the lower. Is essence, we had to find a way to sheet more inboard. We added a babystay as well which we only really need in chop.

On the forward, I guess lower, you can see a little plastic sheave, and below it a black cleat. It comes down to the deck, and is a barber hauler we can adjust the height of when we sheet outboard.

In the back right corner of the picture, inside of the pulpit you can see the camcleat that secures the checkstay. Necessary again only in chop.

A lower lifeline is visible. Albeit briefly.

My new windows!

Thats kevlar in those two places on the hatch. The halyards and topping lift terminate at a winch in the middle of the cabin house, so when tailing from the cockpit, we were tearing the wood up pretty bad.

Anyway, I am sure I am missing something, but I was really playing along at the same time.

Nigel
 

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Seth

Sustaining Partner
Love This

This is the coolest 27 I've ever seen! I am not seeing where you have the inhauler (or "inf....ker, as we call them on the bigger boats) to sheet the jib more inboard-explain that again please (but it is the right idea for sure)...Also for the barber hauler: I see the plastic sheave, and can imagine how you are adjusting clew height when sheeted outboard, but where is the outboard lead attached? Outboard track, so the sheet runs from the clew, through the sheave, then to a block on the outboard track?

I'm sure if you explained while I was looking I would see this, but you have my curiosity piqued..

Baby stay and checkstay..When you say checkstay, do you mean something like a running back but attaching to the mast a bit lower than conventional runners might go? I am guessing so (since this is the common use of that term-this term also refers to the LOWER set of running backstays-when there are upper and lower runners)...When do you use this? Ditto for the babystay.

I ask those last questions because I can't recall if you have a custom, bendier rig than std. If you do, I get it completely (although with fwd and aft. lower shrouds, I wonder how much help you really get from a babystay-and they sure slow down tacks). With a stock mast section, I doubt either of these will help much at all-did you snake a bendy rig from an Olson or Express?

You have done an AWESOME job, Nigel.
Over.....
S
 
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Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
The Formula One of Ericson 27's

Looks like we will spend one whole afternoon in June just taking notes and studying Nigel's boat at the rendzvous!!
:D

Cheers,

Loren in rainy Portland

ps: I once rigged Barber Haulers on my Ranger 20, back when large lizards stalked the earth...
 

Nigel Barron

Notorious Iconoclast
Sorry to overwhelm, but this is a picture of the runner from this last weekend. The other pictures are of the reacher. It looks like, and I recall this being about the place, that we are about to peal to the reacher.
 

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Nigel Barron

Notorious Iconoclast
"This is the coolest 27 I've ever seen! I am not seeing where you have the inhauler (or "inf....ker, as we call them on the bigger boats) to sheet the jib more inboard-explain that again please (but it is the right idea for sure)..."

We actually do not have a system for inhauling right now. It is something that we have talked about a lot this year, and we have a plan to do it. So no, we don't inhaul, yes we should.


"Also for the barber hauler: I see the plastic sheave, and can imagine how you are adjusting clew height when sheeted outboard, but where is the outboard lead attached? Outboard track, so the sheet runs from the clew, through the sheave, then to a block on the outboard track?"

We actually just sheet between the lifelines back to the jibcar and back to the winch as normal. We have an extra cam cleat next to the winch to make the transition easier.


"Baby stay and checkstay..When you say checkstay, do you mean something like a running back but attaching to the mast a bit lower than conventional runners might go? I am guessing so (since this is the common use of that term-this term also refers to the LOWER set of running backstays-when there are upper and lower runners)...When do you use this? Ditto for the babystay."

The checks attach at the spreaders. They really are not something that we adjust, rather just set. There is no purchase or winch, we just pull them on from side to side. We only use them in chop, and the real purpose is, like the babystay, to stop the rig pumping.


"I ask those last questions because I can't recall if you have a custom, bendier rig than std. If you do, I get it completely (although with fwd and aft. lower shrouds, I wonder how much help you really get from a babystay-and they sure slow down tacks). With a stock mast section, I doubt either of these will help much at all-did you snake a bendy rig from an Olson or Express?"

The rig is standard original E27 mast. You have to remember, we removed the forward lowers to improve the sheeting angle, making all the other things necessary.


"You have done an AWESOME job, Nigel.
Over....."

Thanks, but as you would expect this is a team effort. I am very fortunate to sail with a lot of very good people.
 
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Seth

Sustaining Partner
Ahhh, so!

Thanks for the great answers, Nig-makes sense to me-great shot from last weekend BTW-Looking GOOD!

Cheers,
S
 

Nigel Barron

Notorious Iconoclast
Running with a-sails

I have mentioned that I have both a reacher and a runner for a-sails. There is a big difference between the two. Just wanted to show that it is indeed possible to run pretty deep with a-sails. Good times.

Nigel
 

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