Wednesday 7/13/2011
Good breeze starting at 10-15 from the WNW building to 15-20 with puffs up to 25 knots. The current was flooding. Course was from H to 26 to K to H. Full Moon course was from H to 26 to 24 to H.
I arrived at the marina early this week to fix a winch. When I arrived, the bottom was nice and clean. This was the first time I paid to have the bottom cleaned and it was well worth it. The temperature was a nice 80 degrees and the light breeze in the harbor made working on the boat pleasant.
Two of the paw springs on my primary winch had lost their spoke. This caused the paws to not stick out and catch anymore. Luckily I had replacement springs on hand and was able to fix the issue quickly. I took the time to clean and grease the primaries hoping to avoid any future issues. Everything went smooth this time, but be careful with those little springs. About three years ago, I lost a spring overboard and had to fashion a new spring since the old ones are no longer available. Draping a towel over the lifelines will help keep those little springs from liberating themselves to the sea.
We then headed out to the race area. We immediately set the main in the lee by the harbor. We lost a hat and were unable to recover it before it sank. The breeze was fresh and took us to the Race Marshal quickly. When we got there, the line was skewed, but the RM corrected this before the start.
We had a nice start to the race and were able to keep the lead up to the first mark. We saw a port-starboard incident, but were too far away to know what happened. If anyone else saw that, please add a comment.
Rounding 26 was easy since the current helped push us north. Once we turned downwind, we winged the jib and sailed straight for K. The wind got lighter before building to close to 20 knots for the final upwind leg. The last leg was a nice ride to the finish. We were near Hard A Tack who seemed to be having another great race. I am always pulling for them since they are a boat that is constantly out there sailing to get more experience. Their effort is paying off well.
After the race, we sailed around and had a sandwich before the full moon race began. The moon rose around 20:00 and the full moon race began. The wind was still up in the 15-20 knot range and it was a tough slog to 26. The flooding current working against the breeze was building up some nice square waves.
We finished the race and headed straight in. We were all a bit tired from the fresh breeze. It was a great night of racing. We don’t get too many heavy air nights this time of year.
Both race committees did a great job. Matty Mozar of A Line Up volunteered to do the full moon race on short notice and pulled it off without a hitch.
I believe the radio interference we are getting is coming from the Hudson National Golf Club. I spoke to the FCC again Thursday morning and they indicated that they would monitor the area again the week of August 1st. So it looks like we will have a few more weeks of interference. Please try anything you can to get through to these people that they should not be using a marine radio.
learned a lot
ReplyDeletePleasant Post. This post helped me in my college assignment. Thanks Alot
ReplyDeleteI am glad my blog helped. I just hope your college assignment is not something like "find an idiot blogging about sailing."
ReplyDelete