Surprise's Log Day Sailer 11750

May Series Race 4

I think we had a great race this day. We were first to cross the finish line, ahead of the Vanguard 15, the Coronado-15, and the Thistle. Here's the track, I think that there is some bad data, however some of the upwind tracks have too many jagged points.

Here's the start, I decided that the pin end was favored, so we stayed over on that side and managed to get off the line ahead of much of the fleet.(click for a larger version)

Centerboard status

After bringing Surprise out of the water Sunday, I took her home and with the help of a couple of friends, we took her off the trailer and rolled her onto her side. Took out her centerboard to compare it with the new one - the pivot hole is in the right place, thankfully. I test fitted the new board in the trunk and realized the top aft corner radius was too small, so the board would not retract all the way. I traced the old centerboard's corner on the new board and cut away the excess. I placed three layers of glass on each side of the head of the board to build it up to the 1-3/8" width I want. The centerboard trunk is 1-5/8 wide, so I'll have 1/8" to build it up on each side. I'm referring to this article for the technique to build up the trunk.

Water day

I took Surprise over to my friends' place and sailed her a bit with a few folks were unfamiliar with Day Sailers or sailing. Nice winds, and I had forgotten what sailing on Galveston Bay is like - rolling waves, powering through and over them on beats, and surfing down them off the wind. Kept her moored head and stern overnight and spent the night there.

May Series Race 3

We finished third today. I'm not sure what we did wrong, because we had a good plan, at least it seemed good at the start. I thought getting on to port tack as early as possible was the thing to do, and it seemed we were ahead of a lot of folks, but in retrospect maybe the pin end was the way to go. We did have some trouble with our rudder and the tiller extention during the race, but I didn't think it caused that much trouble. I guess it did. The boat did seem overpowered a lot. We would be sailing along close hauled, the the boat would power up, and heel over hard. We'd hike, the helm would load up, and I'd have to feather the boat up into the wind. the boat would depower and I'd fall off and it would power back up. and I'd have to do it again. Perhaps less tension on the jib halyard to increase mast bend and depower the main?

In any event, the Vanguard-15 and the Finn sailed great races. Jim Wells sailed well, too and was a close fourth. I'll need to work harder at beating them next week.
We had one port-starboard sitation with two keelboats, We were starboard, the others port, and unfortunately for them we were near their port layline. The first bore off and ducked us, the other tacked and came up on us from leeward. We tacked, they followed, and we did the same to them. Eventually we separated... Not fun for either of us, I really would have preferred to stay on our original starboard tack, and he was taken to windward of his weather mark. Too bad, but I've been dinked by those guys in other situations. Karma, dude.

Centerboard Status

I've been working on a new centerboard for Surprise, and here's a recent picture (Click on the thumbnail for a larger image)

The core is Sitka Spruce built by my father, designed by me to be a NACA 0009 cross section, and conforming to the DS specs for the planview. I hope to have it ready for the NACs in VA next month.

May Series Race 2

We had a big wind shift occur sometime after the starting sequence began at 6:15pm and when the Portsmouth fleet began at 6:32. Winds were originally out of the east, or east southeast. but shifted southeast so we had a long starboard tack. If I had gone to the right first, I would have made out better. As it was, Dick Hoover in a Lido-14, went right first, and when we crossed 4/5 of the distance up the course he was ahead. I got stuck behind Paul Shields in his Flying Junior and I thought I was holding my own, then I saw that Jim Wells, in the other Day Sailer, had made substantial gains on us, after having to do a penalty turn. Lesson: get out of bad air.

CLSC Spring series 4,5,6

We had three boats out this day, myself, a coronado-15, and a Lido-14. Winds were really puffy. There were some times where the winds were below 10, and then would gust up to over 15. We had one nasty wind shift that took us aback.
There were a lot of cumulous clouds over the course so that accounts for the winds shifts. We had one downwind run where we brought the wind with us and made ups a lot of time on Joe. It's fun to do that, but I know there will be another day where the roles will reverse and someone will catch up to me. A terrible feeling, and I think that the good sailors know how to predict those things to minimize the loss or to maximize the gain.

Don Pearson took some photos, which I'll post here and also on the CLSC web site.

May Series race 1

Don't remember much from this race. We finished first, I think we hung with the faster boats well. As I recall, we finished ahead of the coronado-15 on scratch time. I think I downloaded the track to my PC, but I haven't had a chance to upload it.
UPDATE:
Here it is, I remember we got headed at one of the windward mark roundings and had to throw in another tack. I think this was the day we corrected out above the Finn by only 7 seconds(!?)

More Chris Brown Photos

We were on plane a lot this day. The sunfish is really going.

A few moments later, getting ready to strike the 'chute.