Autopilot Bracket trial assembly
The last race in any series is always bitter sweet. It is always sad to part tacks with the folks you have crewed with. Like any good team, these are your friends and comrades. Together, you have been through a weekly struggle for a common objective. And after spending time together every week for months, after that race, you may not see each other again until the racing starts a new season. Yet there is an odd relief to not having one day, or one night, of your week inked in for months at a time.
But if there had to be a final race of the frostbite season, this one was definitely going out with a bang. According to Weather Station 44063 in Annapolis Harbor, the winds were blowing around 20 knots with gusts to 25 knots, including one 6 minute interval with gusts approaching 30 knots. That may have been easier sailing than the reality on the water. According to our wind instruments, the ambient wind was in the mid-teens, but would suddenly jump up to around 20 knots and chaneg direction sometimes dramatically, That meant a day of being underpowered in the lulls and being knocked down and over powered in the gusts. Those conditions are a mainsail trimmer's worst dream. The helmsman is almost along for the ride at time, For the rest of the crew, those conditions are about as physically demanding as it gets racing here on the Bay. But we had a good time, came home with the full crew intact, and didn’t break anything on the boat.
Once I got home I continued building the mounting bracket for the autopilot. I cut out and trial assembled it before prepping it to fillet and glass the parts together. Seeing it in real life decided that it is a little too heavy and so I am revising the design, and will probably use foam coring for the bracket sides rather than plywood coring in the picture.
But after two days of heavy air sailing, waking up on Monday morning, my body greeted me with the clear message that the age on my driver's license is accurate, no matter how hard I try to ignore it.