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Looks like only those smart ones like Stephanie, Josh and Sara know where the boats are.  Wind WSW 10-12 knots, patchy and gusty.

Cover off, winch the whaler off the ramp.  Start engine, off I go.  Josh on soon to be his boat, and Sare on Steph's.  I was not setting any lines or courses as they should have enough fun surfing these patches or righting boats.  I wouldn't recommend washing you boat today in those freezing water,  but Sara went ahead and did it anyway.  After couple full treatment, Steph jumped in and finish it off.  Josh on the other hand standing on the boat with a fully extened trap wire swearing.  I was also wondering why people like to keep cutting wire from the boat, on mine as well.

 Lesson of the day... don't walk like a drunk.

Simon

July, 2007

Team Sunday was Team Solo this week, as I was the only one down for 8 am.  The wind was blowing around 12-15 knots so hoping for some waves I headed out to the lake. 

Worked out on my downwind gybes and S-Turns seeing how that affected the Velocitek.  Worked on reaching through some smallish waves and then headed back.

Practiced my wire to wire tacks and then back to shore.

 A nice little self practice session.

Neil

After going to Trenton to say goodbye to Ian, I again was solo with a hangover.  The wind was blowing around 8-12 knots so just practiced Mark roundings and wire-to-wire tacks. 

 A nice little self practice session.

Neil

We had a great training session with John Curtis, it was moderate conditions being able to get out on the trap but we were high up.

 We did tons of starts, then some starting from 0 drills.  We then did some tuning upwind out to the lake for some downwind practice in slight waves.  Back into shore to do some more starts.

 Some things John noticed

• Staying forward ahead of the tower for tacks in light air made a huge difference.
• Pinching kills boat speed tremendously
  
• Starting from Zero
  • Bear off before pull in the main
  • Ensure you get some speed first before heading up
  • At the starts ensure you keep the hole below in order to be able to bear off
    

• Downwind
  • make sure you lock down the tiller otherwise you are promoting unnecessary rudder movement
  • bring the boat into a 15% angle to the wave then S down
  • watch to see when the wave will hit your ass then sail by feel

We had a great session with good quality time on the water.

Neil

Team Sunday - May 27, 2007

Before he started to get paranoid that no one liked him, Neil was finally joined by Roger, Simon and I for a Team Sunday practice. Simon acted as our coach (and spent a lot of time shaking his head at us). There was no sun, but the breeze was up - a fairly steady East wind - enough for some trapezing!

While Simon set up a line so Roger and Neil could practice starting, I figured I'd work on some basics, like trapezing. Unfortunately, I discovered that I had rigged the trap line wrong on the port side. The first time I slammed down almost into the water I thought the cleat was worn. So I tried it again (pressing the line into the cleat harder), and then discovered it was my own fault. However, I still can't figure out what I've done wrong (this will be Monday's project). Since wire to wire tacks weren't going to happen, I joined the boys on the start line. Here's what I learned:

1.        The contender is very hard to bring to a dead stop - I would go as close as I dared head to wind, but I'd still have decent forward speed. When I asked Simon for tips, he shook his head, and said "it's a high performance boat!" So, you have to be pretty cognizant of the time for starts.

2.        I managed to win a few starts - how? By sitting back and letting Roger and Neil fight it out. The two of them were jostling by the crash boat, and I merely kept inching my way up to the line. While this probably won't work in a big fleet, it's fine for our relatively small (and all-testosteroney fleet). 

Eventually, I decided to try my brand spanking new righting line system. And it SUCKS. I had thought that with the boat capsized I could reach up to the gunnel and grab the line, at least at the transom. Well it turns out I was wrong. With the bleach bottle on my mast, the first (deliberate) dump was ok - I could right the boat from the water. But then I decided to try to get back in using this 505 trick I read about. You grab a trap handle, lie on your back, get your legs in the boat, and quickly pull yourself in. All it did was pull the boat on top of me. But being an idiot, I decided to try the trick again, and again, Princess came down on me like a cranky judge on Paris Hilton. Neil later remarked that this would probably work with the skipper sitting on the boat keeping it flat. Good point. Roger, being the swell guy he is, decided to come save my ass (I now owe him a brewery).

So, back to the drawing board with my righting line system, and more push ups for moi. I'm also looking into arm lengthening surgery.

Other highlights:

-Me nailing myself in the head with the boom during a tack. And then yelling out to Roger, "hey, I got hit by the boom" while gybing and nailing myself again;

-Roger and Neil dry dumping after a start (no doubt to inspire me to try my own, which actually worked well);

And I will note that Neil's note did indeed state "Team Sunday is on for 8am Sunday morning" - not "On the water for 8am". Next time I'll read his emails more carefully.

Thanks go out to Simon who may have been shaking his head at us to keep warm (but more likely it was disapproval). We owe you lots of pop!

Neil Update

What we worked on.

It was a light breeze around 4-8 knots so we worked on upwind light air tacking, and downwind light air gybes.  Both of these are done in front of the tower.  We also worked on buoy roundings.  When the wind picked up a bit we were able to practice our wire to wire tacking.

Roll Tacks in the Contender

What you need to do is the following steps, movement is done in front of the tower.

• heel to leeward to initiate the turn
• lift up extension to make sure it clears all string
• start turning the tiller fairly hard
• heel the boat as far as you dare to windward
• let the sail fall on you and then
• let go of the tiller
  
• over to the other side pushing hard on the new windward deck to pump the sail full and move the top batten
• grab the tiller from behind and clean up
  

Gybing in light air, what I do.  Movement is in front of the tower.

• Make sure you are free and tidy
• have a bit of vang so that your top batten will come over
  
• heel to leeward to keep sail over
• prepare tiller
• turn until sailing past the downwind gybe point and the sail wants to come over
• pump the sail over and hold back to get the top batten to flip sides
  

Steph Update

Steph wasn't nimble, Steph wasn't quick. Steph went swimming. Again.

Due to a happy convergence of Mars with Venus (and Roger's schedule freeing up), Team Sunday finally lived up to its moniker and met on a Sunday, making everyone's life just that little bit less confusing. Having shown up late last weekend, I arrived at 7:30 am - to find OHCC completely empty, except for the large goose that had claimed squatting rights on the newly installed dock. At ten to eight, Neil finally came straggling along, followed a bit later by Roger and Mike.

Since some breeze was forecast (wrong as usual), I had prearranged a ride with Mike Smits on CAN80, since I figured it might be more useful to watch a wire to wire tack up close (also because there's a lot of stuff to do to on KC47 before I will take her out again). While the Garda video is all well and good, those guys are in the middle of a race, meaning things are sped up. Also, you can't really ask questions.

I tucked myself under the boom of CAN80, and eventually the breeze came up enough that Mike could do some wire to wire tacks. While the rigging between CAN80 and KC47 didn't differ too much, the trapeze handles did, so for the benefit of the Texas boys, these observations apply to the "old school" handles (i.e., without the PVC tubing that allows you to unhook while out on the wire). One thing that drove me nuts was how to actually get myself out on the wire. Watching Neil, it almost seemed like he stood up and dropped down, but the way Mike was doing it was much closer to trapping on a hobie or 420 - drop your butt on the deck, then kick out with the front leg. Mike was pushing off against the centreboard trunk, but since I am shorter, I had to make do with the cockpit (making sure all the time not to yank the tiller with me on the way out). One thing that always made it easier for me to do this as crew was having the jib sheet to give me some balance, and in this case, the main did the same thing, which worked out well. Another interesting thing is that Mike throws the tiller away during tacks and gybes. He didn't heartily recommend doing it, but it also looked like a lot of the competitors in the Garda video were doing something similar.

Further re: trap handles: the difference (as I'm told) is that once you have the PVC tubing, you can actually unhook while you are out on the wire and get back out and then hook in. This move will save you time, but you have to be pretty comfortable holding your own body weight up. That being the case, I think I'll be sticking with hooking and unhooking in the boat for a while.

Unfortunately, Roger's extension snapped off (somewhere, Frank Whittington's ears and wallet twitched), and he had to head in early, but Lee Smolin joined us (a bit late, but better late than never!). The wind was starting to get lighter, so we did some more circles with Neil. Entertainingly (and maybe for my benefit), Mike and Neil engaged in a bit of trashtalking (Neil accused Mike of being a pincher (Mike calls it pointing), and Mike accused Neil of just sucking); hopefully, this will make for some amusing races later this season.