Intensity Sails Practice Sail-Full Rig

I've probably used this sail about a dozen times. (Hopefully I can at an upcoming 4th of July Race.) The nice thing about this sail is that since it's a practice sail, the rules are waved, so the maker can do what they want. Thankfully they decided to go with a bit of a heavier cloth, and its noticeable too, there is a severe lack of leech flutter, and the only main difference is that the sail requires a bit more downhaul than the class sails, which isn't a bad thing. I use tons of DH anyways, so it wasn't a big deal. At the end of the day the sail is a steal, you come away with a clew strap, two bags if I remember correctly, battens, numbers, and tell tales for $190. Far and away cheaper than a class sail. Buy yourself one every two years or so and use it for non-class events and you'll be happy.

I had some draft stripes thrown on the sail, they work quite nice.






*This will be an on going review, so stick around.

Intensity Sails Winter Pro Sailing Gloves

So I've used these gloves a couple of times, and gloves very similar to these a couple of years back. In theory a design like this should work. I mean, a wetsuit usually works well when surfing, and hiking pants seem to work well enough when sailing. And boots are halfway decent. That's kind of how these are. They are just ok. I think they would work really well if your a skipper on a big boat, or working a mark set boat, where your hands don't get wet too often, just a bit of spray here and there. If your sailing a boat like a Laser, its a different question. The problem is that since they aren't exactly form fitting, the water tends to build up so the gloves get heavy, and your hands can get cold. Also, the grip on these gloves leaves a bit to be desired, its a bit slick. I think if one were to use these with a fleecy type glove liner, and they were used in a not so wet environment, you could be very happy. 3 out of 5 stars.



*One should note that for Laser sailing, I don't wear gloves anymore, and if I do, they are the gardening glove variety, so for me its all about grip and not warmth. It is SoCal after all.

Coming soon

New post coming soon. Ohh summer procrastination.

Mid Winters West 2009: Cal YC

Removed for political reasons

We're going to Mexicooo!

This is going to be a very busy month for big boat racing! A Bogart race this Saturday, practice the next Saturday, and Ensenada the following weekend. And after that is Yachting Cup in SD. And school ends about two weeks after that! The next five weeks are going to be awesome!

ABYC OCR 2009

So yea, welcome to the magical land of excuses. Lets see what went wrong... Haven't been in a Laser since Turkey Day.. Only going to the gym twice a week.. Ugh this was just a miserable regatta. Saturday the wind was just too light for the first 3 races, and that's not a fun way to get back into it, and my results show it. The last race the wind picked up to pre and then mini hiking, and my results improved to almost normal, I lost a couple more places than I wanted, but I was getting there. Sunday was hell in a hand basket. It just nuked, not even funny. Mid-ish 20's, like 25-27, gusting into the 30's. I didn't even go out, thankfull that was the only race so it was my drop, no worries there. I didn't want to break something, or injure myself. Plus MWW is next weekend, so there's 3 days of sailing. I don't remember how many went out Sunday, but 7 got scored for the race, 1 DNF, and 10 DNF's, out of 18! That's saying something.

So yea, whats up?

I know I haven't posted much, but its mainly because I haven't done much lately. I've been doing a good bit of big boat racing which is great fun. I used to be on a NM 55, but that looks like its trying to be sold, so its not racing too much. I've been grabbed by a NM 41, and am doing bow for them, and I think I can learn a lot more with them which is great. Also the possibility of doing Ensenada with them is very appealing! Laser racing is coming back into the picture, ABYC OCR was this weekend which I'll report on, and MWW is next. Other than that school is kicking my ass, but grades up as always. Back to the gym again, and always working on the house. People said the college life was easy, they were obviously liars!

Turkey Day

Man, this is usually the greatest regatta to go to in SoCal. But this weekend I should have stayed home.... I mean, don't get me wrong the sailing was half decent, but it was everything else that totally sucked. Sometimes ABYC just isn't capable of holding that many people. There were 319 registrants! Think about that for a minute, just a couple of people... And I hear something like 200 something volunteers. And they always do turkey dinner Saturday night which is the main attraction, so all those people plus more have to be fed, madness. Getting back in the dock is absolute carnage, I won't even go into that for fear of my blood pressure going through the roof, same thing with trying to leave the bloody place on Sunday. Saturday was pretty interesting, the wind was coming out at 160, and about 7 knots. It really became interesting when the fog trucked in during race two. And they actually raced us for two races in full fog. (Interesting, it's raining here..) You could see from the Commadores face his horror of it all, there was so much potential to go wrong, when you were at the RC boat, you couldn't see the mark! ( No wonder they moved it closer, bastards....) Day two was just uncalled for, it took us and hour and half to do a race that should have taken 3o minutes. Why on earth would the RC send us on the long course once around in less than 5 knots? Probably for separation from the other classes... Like eight people dropped out and went home at the top mark! (frick this rain is ruining the sat tv, thank god I don't live here and am only watching the pooches...mmm dvd time, Bourne Supremacy anyone? I think so...) That race was just horrific, at some point I didn't even know what point of sail I was on. they just should of called it. Outside of that the regatta was a success, I went sailing, had a bit of fun, learned a smidge, and I beat David Hughes, fun for everyone! ugh.... The pooches want to go to bed, and I have surgery tomorrow, till later, sail hard.

Bits and Pieces

November has been a crazy month. School is winding down a little bit, which means I have a little over 3 weeks left to finish 3 big graphic projects, but sailing has gotten very busy, as I've been sailing every weekend this month, which is pretty nice. I got really lucky and was asked to do bow on a match race yacht club challenge in J24, in Ventura of all places, and that was a great learning experience. I learned that match racing is a LOT of fun, and definetly something I want to get into in the future, and would love to pursue heavily, and that J 24's are very uncomfortable. They did not have ergonomics in mind when they designed them. But hey we won so who's complaining. More on the Silver Cup here.




I've also gotten myself into i14 sailing, which is a great deal of fun. It's like learning to sail all over again, and puts hiking to shame. The learning curve is straight uphill, it's not even funny, nothing from the Laser translates at all. In the Laser you might think of three things at once, and only do one, but in the i14 you think of ten things at once, and do 4, the boat is absolutely insane. I went sailing with Art from Sailing Pro Shop, and we're using his boat which he uses to teach people, and we broke it a bit, need to fix the mast track and the spreaders, and we want to move the mast back and add a self tacking jib track. Hopefully we can take care of that over Christmas. I've also been doing a bit of graphic work for Art, we're trying to get a postcard done for SPS, gotta finish that. It's pretty cool to be able to be doing that as a first semester graphic design student. And I might actually be doing some work for him in the shop over the season, so thats nice.

Also had a BCYC Hot Rum on Bolt, and it was nice to be back out with the boys. Racing is on Bolt is a nice change of pace. Half the time for them its serious, and the other time it's just for fun. Either way I take it seriously as I see it as my future, racing on big boats a job, so I try and learn everything I can. I think our next race is Sunkist on the 7th..


I also went out and practiced a bit in the Laser last month, just to get out and make sure I still have it. One thing I did for giggles was to add a bungee to my downhaul to keep it in, and it made such a difference. I never had to worry about it getting caught in the gooseneck,which is one of my biggest gripes of the Laser, and it should be legal in every way. The piece of bungee costs less than a buck and should be available at every West Marine in the US, and can double as a vang keeper, so everybody wins. Here is is with the downhaul eased.

LMVYC FAll Regatta

I know I'm a bit late with this report, seeing as the regatta was on the 21st. You start to realize in college that you procrastinate a lot , which is something I gotta stop doing, I'll deal with it tomorrow.....

But yea, I was all set for this race as my Mum had to do duty of some sort at the YC, so I thought I would make an appearance and do some racing, and while I was at it I would test out a sail for Intensity. But it turns out in my absence that the lake, or at least lakes in the area have developed a muscle problem from some ship in Europe. News to me! And because of this, the lake is quarantining all boats that want to use the lake, which is a 30 day period. Sucks for me... Thankfully someone always has a backup plan. The YC has a couple of Balboa 13's, which I happen to quite like. This day really worked in my favor, my greatest competition was racing with his wife, so I weighed a good bit less than him, but he was still a big threat, and ALWAYS on my heels. The other guy had sold his Finn and bought at B13 and tricked it out like a Finn, which is something I would do, but he hadn't quite worked out the kinks yet. Basically this was some of the best racing I've had in a long time, work all 1500 shifts and you'll come out on top, short course racing with nothing longer than an hour so your always fresh, only the finest. The cool thing is that's it's handicap racing, so anything could happen, my class had a couple of B13's and a Coronado 15. Race one was pretty good, I totally missed the time and winged the start, yet got away clear. The course was short and the wind in my favor, I rounded every mark in first, and first across the line. Can't complain. Second race was just as good. The C13 beat me across the line, but I lead the B13's all the way around, nothing wrong with second. The third and last race was just like the first, the C13 had to head in to set up the Oktoberfest dinner, which was excellent as usual. Just like the first I led the marks and crossed first. It was great racing, sail the boat loose and like a Laser, and you can't go wrong. Ya really can't go wrong with 1st overall, by a 5 point margin at that. I'm really looking forward to the next race at LMVYC, lots of fun and really relaxed, perfect.