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.