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.