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Season End 2018: A Chicagoland Lake Michigan Report

Grizz

Grizz
Quite the journey, this 2018 Season, beginning with a January decision to upgrade from OEM Datamarine instruments to a B&G Zeus³ Chartplotter + Raymarine Wind/Depth/Speed displays. Sessions inside the unheated building #5 at Chicago Yacht Yard, deciding where to put the displays and how to mount the B&G so it can be viewed from an array of angles, seems like they happened ages ago. 8 months later the calibration and language interpretation tweaks between the 2 systems continues, but it's getting closer (I'm told!). The simpleton view that 'Plug and Play' would work has proven to be elusive.

Even with the challenges, we made significant strides on the course, the B&G critical to our pre-start decisions, illustrating which end of the start line is favored, in easily discerned distances, and showed wind shifts as they occurred, helping answer "is port or starboard still favored?"

Having True Wind Speed and True Wind Angle, after decades of access to only 'Apparent' , has been a revelation, bordering on 'this feels like we're cheating', knowing we are not.

The Trailer was constructed from a cache of files by a Shoe String crewmember, unprovoked and unassisted, he toggling between PC and Mac worlds, using IMovie and a Divinci software movie editing program. 'Movie magic' indeed!

Over the season, the boat seemingly bristled with new electronics, cameras and Apps: (2) GoPros running simultaneously, a waterproof Nikon AW100 capturing POV stills and video and the RaceQs App capturing our course management for post-race analysis. We never figured out how to activate the 'Streaming on a 5-minute Delay' feature of RaceQs, which would have allowed Friends/Family to watch our races 'live' (if a 5-minute delay counts as 'live'). Perhaps next year...

The area where the new instrumentation really proved invaluable was racing off wind legs, with the B&G interpreting/calculating our Polars (downloaded in May) to create VMG data, creating a 'target speed' for use on a specific leg, with us flying only an A-sail (no pole, no symmetric). I.e. - if '5.7' is the target optimum speed, helm and trimmer were linked, helm heading 'down' when speed increased above 5.7, 'up' when it fell below 5.7, all with an eye to sailing the fastest/shortest course to the next pin. The Trogear sprit, now in it's 3rd season of service, allowed for Inside Gybes, which we have finally mastered, the keys being to turn the boat slowly, slight pause at TDC (Top Dead Center) and make certain that 'Ease' and 'Trim' of the sheets are at matching speeds (plus making sure the tail of the former working sheet is 100% clear to run w/o fouling). Lots of talk between cockpit/helm, the Spin Trimmer and the Pit.

The pictures show the process for making big Datamarine holes smaller and the dryfit of the B&G in the Navpod & Arm in it's eventual position on the pedestal. Thickened epoxy and a Dremel with a sanding drum made the 'smaller hole' procedure very easy.

The Science Experiment that is this Olson 34, an 8-year+ petri dish, still remains fun and interesting, key components to sustaining the effort.


Big holes made smaller.jpgApril 2018 B&G, Raymarine and Boat Prep.jpg 2018-Beer Can 1st place trailer.mp4
 
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Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
Great Video

Can that intense guy on the helm really be the kindly gentle person that visited us a few years ago?
Oh My.
:0

(Sorry Jay... cannot resist...)
:egrin:
 

Grizz

Grizz
It's a medical condition...

That's just the tip of the iceberg, vacillating between 'focus' and 'sphincter crinkle', the latter a condition not currently recognized by the AMA. This is the side effect that happens when tunnel vision takes effect, induced by a myopic focus on wiggling thin wisps of red and green yarn affixed to a headsail. It's also an non-recognized AMA addiction! :)
 

bgary

Advanced Beginner
Blogs Author
That trailer was awesome! Can't wait to see the full-length movie (grin)
 
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