Great Pumpkin Regatta 10-24-2009

I have much to catch up on by now. I'm putting the S21 up for sale, actually posted it on Craigslist and in the new issue of Latitude 38. Won't be the end of the world if it doesn't sell as I still have a short laundry list of things I'd like to complete before sending it to a new home. One of the things I really want to do is write up a summary of what the boat is like. For that matter, I should do the same for the Lido 14. You can research all over the web, but it is rare that you can find something that tries to communicate what it is actually like to sail a specific vessel. Things like, 'Does it Plane" or how quickly does it come about. How heavy or light a boat feels under you in various wave conditions. All important stuff that I just need to focus on.

In addition to putting "Isabel" up for sale I did some crewing this weekend past on a santana 22. It was a great time and I learned a lot. In hindsight I didn't pay as much attention to the main sail as I would have liked. This was because it was behind me ... I spent most of my time focused on the jib & spinnaker trim. I suspect that we were still running the sails too tight and that we were losing boat speed because of it. Also helped the fore deck crew deploy the Spinnaker. Only now, days later, am I really getting an idea of what we were doing when putting this sail up.

I can really feel how much heavier the S22 is than the S21. It is about 1000lbs heavier and it manifests when pushing through chop and a general "heavy" feeling in the boats movements. Not bad, just different. This particular S22 was set up for racing with all kinds of control lines running everywhere. It took some adjustment on my part. It was a great day of sailing out of RYC (Richmond Yacht Club) and when not entirely focused on the boat I got to see a lot of other sailboats that I am interested in. Moore 24's and ultimate 20's and j22's all were in evidence. I would have liked to see some J24's, but maybe they were on another course. It was a gas watching these folks sail out of the harbor engineless.

One thought that keeps lingering for me concerns the PFD's that we wear while out on the bay. I'm thinking about this because Nick our foredeck crew member fell of the front of the boat while setting the spinnaker. He ended up hanging from the bow pulpit and was having some difficulty getting back on deck. I scrambled up to him and held his leg down so he could use it to better advantage while hauling up on the back of his PFD harness. Even as I pulled on it, I wondered if the plastic buckle on the front would hold or pop. I picture a worst case scenario where the hraness buckle fails and I am left holding the PFD and the man falls overboard, a bad situation made worse. I think I'll likely wear a carabiner through the D-rings on my harness to defeat just such a scenario.