1. Hope to see you out this weekend! With the change in the Commodore's Cup hopefully everyone now has a "free" day to sail!
2. It's time to get your GPS units for Kattack. I bought an eTrex Venture HC from Kattack for about $150. Please let me know if you would like one too and we can make a bulk order. We'll have the Kattack units for one more weekend and then everyone needs their own starting next week.
3. Here is Stewart's race rap from last week -- seems like the left paid all day.....
Based upon the weather forecast, we were expecting the wind to back right as the skies cleared and the land heated up. This never really happened with the exception at the top of the beats when there were some shifts to the right.
The first race we started at the boat and the breeze veered slightly left shortly thereafter. Three boats crossed us with ease. So we dug deeper into the left which paid off as there was more velocity and more left to be had. We led at the top mark and held on the rest of the way.
The next two races we started to leeward of the fleet and the left side continued to benefit as we led to the first mark in both races. In the second race, we split from Tyler on the second beat letting him go to the right. We did this in an effort to find a lane amongst the Rhodes, but ended up getting sat on coming in on the port tack lay line. We lost Tyler but were able to pick him back up on the run.
In terms of set up, we are not yet experimenting with the loose rig. We suspect that while that may work great on LIS where there is little sea, it may not work as well when there is a sea like we had on Saturday. So our set up was traditional Doyle tuning guide,light air tensions and blocking. The key for the day was to sail very full, never pinch to keep the boat moving through the slop.
I hope that this helps and happy to answer any questions.
If you are new to the fleet or interested in learning more about Sonar sailing in Marblehead, take a tour through the website and give me or anyone else you know who is involved a call.
Larry Ehrhardt,
Marblehead Sonar Fleet Captain
