Century Club: Richard Turman

First time with my whole crew of 4.  Last week with only two of us onboard, we declared non-spin, and used the genoa on the downwinds.  Worked great.  Came in 4th out of 12 by correcting over 4 boats.  This week, light winds of 7-8 knots, and got squeezed out in the scrum at the start, with Flagfest below me and Winsome Ride above me.  Tacked away for clear air, but better angle and wind would have been to stay on starboard.  Lost ground to all the boats upwind, and while we gained a little on the spinnaker run, not enough to affect the outcome.  Finished 7th out of 13.  Jibes were ok until a catastrophic one about 200 yards from the finish.  Absent that, we would have had a better outcome.

Wonderful to wear shorts again whilst sailing.  Nice 12-14 knot breeze from the South gave me a great ride, first following and passing a Hunter 26 and then an Aeleron 28.  Cooking along at 5.3 knots upwind, on my ear.  But delightful!

On the downwind, re-rigged the genoa leads to the spin blocks.  Got back up to 5.3 knots, which was fun.  Worked fine until time to jibe, and ended up getting my head whacked by the mainsheet apparatus as she came across.  Knocked off my hat and glasses, but was able to finish the jibe.  Needed to rest, so next tried to furl the genoa.  Fouled the furler halfway in.  Dropped main in a hurry, as headed towards land.  Wrestled with the furler to try to get it unfouled, to no avail.  Tried to wrap it up in genoa sheets, and only made some progress.  Used engine to get home, with 1/4 of genoa flogging the whole time.

Once home at the dock was able to unfoul the genoa pretty easily, which was a relief.

A great ride until things went south on the way back.  Left part of my head still a little sore.  Still pretty exhilirating when I was out there going 5.3 upwind.  Helped by bearing off to 38 degrees from 33 or so -- went from 4.4 knots to more like 4.9 or 5.  And blissfully warm out there!

Only had two of us to crew instead of four, but with winds forecast to be 12 with gusts to 16, we thought we'd be all right.

Wrong!  With full main and genoa, before the start had winds around 15 knots.  Upwind we went 6.3 knots, a record.  Then during the last 2 minutes of the pre-start, the winds increased to 19 sustained with gusts above that.  Knocked over, but not out, we did manage to start.  With only two of us as rail meat, we were hopelessly overpowered, so ended up with a poorly-trimmed genoa driving us upwind, and a main flogging a tad.  On the first downwind we did fairly well getting the genoa out and with a decent angle treated it like a small spin -- performed far better than the jib would have.  Wind came down a tad by the time of the second upwind, at which we were more in control, though our tacks were ugly.  2nd downwind we moved the sheets to the spin blocks at the rear of the boat and got a better angle for the genoa, and did a nice 4.5 knots most of the way down the course.  

And exhausting night.  Should have at least reefed the main.  If not used the jib.

Went out with my daughter and her friend on our sailboat in breeze that built from 2 knots to 12 sustained with gusts to 15.  Glad I swapped out the genoa for the jib, which gave us a less exciting ride.  

Had lunch and then went out for a delightful powerboat ride with them on our 21' SeaRay.  Breeze as now 15 gusting to 20, but found a cove to anchor somewhat out of the wind, and enjoyed hanging out in the sun on a 70 degree day.

Motored back, washed both boats, and had a bonfire!