We leave for Italy and the Hobie European Championship tomorrow. I just counted 118 Hobie 16's registered for the Open event.

http://www.hobieuropeans.com/

30: A difficult week for us. We got thrown out of another race Friday for room at a leeward mark. We finished 17th. I’ve sent an appeal in to the CYA on our first DSQ so it should be interesting to see how that goes. I’ve never appealed a decision before.
Mostly it was upwind speed that we were lacking this week.
We get to try it all again next week at the Europeans.
Lots of great pictures here.
Results here

29: Another bad day going slow up wind. We sailed the second race with one rudder up even though it wasn't quite windy enough for that and it went a little better. I'm thinking our rudders are not set up correctly. We checked them after sailing and took out some of the toe-in.

28: Well not a good race and we got a DSQ to boot. I still don't feel like we fouled after looking at the photographs but c'est la vive.

Here's the picture from the Facts Found by the jury. We are the green boat found to be tacking to close to the yellow boat.

27: A little better today. The wind was light from the east. First race we had a good start and got out left to the favored side but our speed was not good. We got rolled 3/4 of the way up the leg and had a bad position at the windward mark. We had a good run and raked a bit more to help us point. We managed a 6.
Second race was difficult. We had to tack out after the start then had to do a crash tack to avoid a starboard tacker. We were in about 40th at the windward mark. There was a big left shift and so the run was a fetch. on the next beat we got hard left and got a good left shift and puff to get us back into the game. We finished 21st.
Last race for the day we were set up for a good start until someone luffed us on the line at about 20 seconds. Both of us ended up in irons at the start. We tacked out and went right and rounded in about ten. We jibed on some good shifts on the run and got into first. We managed to hold our lead for the next lap but the Guatemalan kids got us at the finish and we got a second.

26: A difficult first day at the North Americans. Race 1 we won the pin in single wire conditions but way up and down. Our speed was not great so we fell back a bit. Liza fell off the boat and we lost a few there. We got it together on the last two laps for a finish in the teens.
Race 2 was better. We won the boat end but and worked left but our speed was not great and we could only manage a 6th.
In the last race of the day we were set up for a great start at the pin when someone tried to win the pin via dip start and crashed into the pin boat. We had to pinch around them and were way deep before we got going again.
Tomorrows another day to try again.

Getting the boat ready and weighed. Maybe get out for a short sail this afternoon.

Getting on the road to Kingston at about 11:00

Packing the car. Open Championship starts Monday.

25: Newport Regatta
I stepped onto a good F18 with a great crew for the weekend. The results are here. We had speed to burn and that was all we needed. Thanks to Trpp Burd for the invite and for talking me through all the moves.

Pictures



Even More Pictures

23: More practice at Pettipaug.

22: A good day of practice at Pettipaug today. The wind was good but shify and puffy so we had lots of in and out work on the trap.

I got all new rigging from Murrays and didn’t specify the lengths which was a mistake. The bridle dimensions where fine 3 ft 8 inches. The forestay was too short and the shrouds were on the long side. The longer forestay required that I put the second adjuster-plate back on the bridle (like on most 16’s). This drives me crazy. Of all the places to add extra weight the bow is probably the second worst, second only to the top of the mast. My old forestay was exactly 19 feet long, and it was perfect (no extra adjuster required). The old shrouds were 18 feet 11 inches and I had them pinned three holes up from the bottom of the adjuster plate. The new ones need to go all the way to the bottom which makes me uncomfortable because I can only adjust them in one direction.
What I do like about the Murrays rigging is that they use less weight aloft. The trap wires only use one ring for each side and the forestay doubles up with the jib halyard tail in the same way.
The moral of the story is if you order new rigging go with 18’ 11’’ on the shrouds and 19’ on the forestay.

21: We put all new riging on the 16 and set it up at Pettipaug YC for the weekend. Not much wind today but we drifted around for a bit. It looks like we will have some wind tomorrow.