Full Tilt Sailing Team

Thursday 9/15 Race and J/30 NAs talk

Here's a picture of last year's J/30 North American championship, held in Rhode Island. Sadly, this year's NAs were scheduled for New Orleans in October, but obviously it's cancelled. There is some talk about moving the championship to Long Island Sound, but it's getting late in the season to do that, and besides, I'm hoping they get to host it here next year, so I'll have enough time to get a crew together and compete. So far, there's no definitive word about what will happen yet.

BTW, that photo is "Blue Meanie", the J/30 we collided with during the 1998 NAs at Cedar Point. It wasn't much of a collision; during the start, they were just behind us and to leeward, and tried to push us up. We didn't have room and were afraid of going over the line early, so we came down slightly. Suddenly their bow pulpet bounced off our port stern rail. I was steering, and I reached over, grabbed their rail, and shoved their boat about three feet to leeward.

I've always wondered what their protest might have been if the entire start wasn't recalled. "Unlawful shoving"?

Tonight was the first of the last three races of the Thursday night season, and all three races start at 6:00PM instead of 6:30, since sunset is around 7:00 these days.

It was also a spinnaker night, but we had some cancellations and it turned out that only Rob (from "Bayou Blue") showed up, so with only three of us we had to sail in the 27+ class.

Because of the crappy weather we had earlier in the day, coupled with the early start time, there were only about 10 boats total out there. There were NO boats sailing in the 26- class, and only two or three boats in the 27+. That left 7 or 8 boats sailing with chutes.

The wind dipped almost to nothing just before our start, so we got caught late and took about 3 minutes after the gun to cross the line. But the wind came back enough for us to do the course (WNWNS), and after a great sunset, we finished the race and headed in. I think we won our class, but I'm not sure if the committee boat knew that.

The motor was running funny tonight; every time I idled it, it died. Which made it difficult to switch between forward and reverse. But then, coming back in, I made sure we had a good amount of speed as we turned into the docks. I shifted the throttle/shifter combo into neutral, and the motor vibrated like it was going to die, but then started running fine while idling. So I don't know what was causing the problem. But it's fine now.

I hope.

posted by CT Bob @ 7:11 PM