laser sailing on puget sound-seattle

calicosine

calicosine

New Member
i will be going out on the race committee boat today(march 12) to help with todays race,this will be first day of a two weekend series before the main race season starts.

for those of you who have never been to seattle, the cyc(corinthian yacht club) races on puget sound(shilshoe) and on lake washington, both very nice places and has a pretty strong laser classs, not sure of exact numbers though.if you ever get a chance to come to seattle, i highly reccomend it! very cool place to live if you like outdoor activities and don't mind a little rain.

i'll take pictures and try to post them this evening , i might need some help on how to post pictures(bradley???)

day looks to be nice in the 45-50ish range and weather is calling for winds in the 8-12mph range, should be a exciting day. so stay tuned for further updates.....terry
 
calicosine said:
. so stay tuned for further updates.....terry
Click to expand...

We're looking forward to it!

To post pictures, after you've started the message, scroll down below it to add files. The files have a size limitation, so you will need to cut them down. I use Photoshop's Save to the Web feature to get custom sizes.
 
ok.. was abeautiful day on puget sound, temp about 45-50, winds variable from 6-10. as i said i went out on the race committee boat and helped to run the races. i set up the card on the board for the courses, checked in boats, did the finish(wrote down the numbers), raised the class flags and generally had a great time.it really helped to see how a race was actually run and being able to do it made all the reading i've done fall into place. it was amazing watching how each guy chose how to run the course. there were 6 radials(all kids) and 14 full rig lasers. first race the wind was about 8-10 and they ran x-u-z-f and it was the closest race of the day. one of the radials started with the lasers by mistake and ran the whole race without relealizing he was in the wrong group. next race wind died down and wasn't even close,one guy ran away with it. third race, same story. so far 3 races and all the radial kids decided they'd had enough and went in.i asked the captain(kevin c) how many races they usually run and he said" laser racers are like the enigerizer bunny they just keep on going, they're like a dog who likes to chase ball, as long as you keep throwing he keeps going" so we ran two more races, by this time we were down to 10 racers from the origional 13, unfortunatly wind was down to about 3-4 so we ran a x-z-x- with a down wind finish. and that was the last race. 5 races total and the same guy won all 5 races, but i didn,t get his name. all in all a really nice day and all the people on the race boat, kevin, jim, erin,and one other guy who ran the small whaler settting the marks and he never came onto the big boat so i never got his name, all really nice and friendly people. i will be going out again next sunday to finish the series. look for the pictures, i'll try to post them....terry
 
cyc in seattle will be having their spring frostbite regatta this week end and i've decided to jump in and race for my first time. after spending a couple of days time on the race committie boat i think i have a grasp on the basics, plus all the books i have been reading.spent the last 3 days on the water practising and today went out onto the area where they run the races. i guess i'm as ready as i'll ever be, everyone keeps telling me just go do it, so here i go.....wish me luck. forcast is calling for winds in the 10-13 mph hour range, should be just about right for the first time. anybody have any advice for me for my first time?................thanks ....terry.....its a two day series, will post my:cool: results tomorrow.
 
calicosine said:
cyc in seattle will be having their spring frostbite regatta this week end and i've decided to jump in and race for my first time. after spending a couple of days time on the race committie boat i think i have a grasp on the basics, plus all the books i have been reading.spent the last 3 days on the water practising and today went out onto the area where they run the races. i guess i'm as ready as i'll ever be, everyone keeps telling me just go do it, so here i go.....wish me luck. forcast is calling for winds in the 10-13 mph hour range, should be just about right for the first time. anybody have any advice for me for my first time?................thanks ....terry.....its a two day series, will post my:cool: results tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Have fun--and keep a sense of humor! Good luck.
 
o.k well here goes, my first regatta race series. i arrived earily to the marina and got everything all set up and met some of the other sailors and it was blowing about 10-13 with gust hitting 20 at some times, almost stayed in because i felt it might be a bit much for me but threw caution to the wind and went out at 11, a hour before racing started. at the same time as the cyc was supposed to start their series there was also another race for the big boats going on(blakely rock race) so there were i'm guessing 30-50 boats milling around right where cyc sets up their course.so boats everywhere going in every direction. waves were running 2 feet plus and it was blowing. so i figured just stay out of all the big boats way and check out my settings. i'm running out to the middle on a beam reach and i look up and this giant tri-miran and i are on a collision course! so i bear off and turn downwind, as i turn downwind the knot tied to the primary block on my new harken vang come off with a loud POP and the boom flies up and my clew hook comes undone and the sail clew goes all the way down to the clam cleat on the boom. sail is still attached to the boom with the velcro clew strap.so i get it under controll and try to pull the sail back down to the outhaul and hook the clew hook back in but no go wind is to strong and i cant get the boat to luff up,everytime i turn into the wind the sail fills up like a spinnaker and takes me downwind!!so for the next 20 minutes i keep trying to pull the sail back down but with 13 mph constant wind and waves i just couldn't get it back far enough to rehook it.while all this is going on i'm gettting blown farther and farther downwind away from the course, by this time i'm at least a mile away.since i went out earily i didn't get a chance to check in and and nobody on the race committie realizes i'm having trouble(not their fault, i found out the next day they were down a whaler driver and just figured i was out sailing by myself even though i had checked in and paid at 9 oclock) so needless to say i'm a little ratttled by this time and the only point i can sail on is downwind so i head down and try to hit the beach on the other side, now this is the puget sound and at this point it's about 2 miles to the near shore.wind is still blowing and gusting and i have no real controll. it takes me a hour to finally hit the shore and by this time i'm 7 miles from the course and around a point.so i beach it and rerig everything and start back to the course. now i have to sail all upwind against big wind, ebbing current and big waves, not the most ideal conditions, i will admit it was fun and i learned a lot about ocean sailing against waves and cuttent. it took me 4 hours to get back to the course!so i go over by the rc boat and its at this time that i tip over, the whole time out there and i never rolled the boat, but get up to where everyone can see me and the first thing i do is tip over.i scramble over the edge onto the centerboard and right the boat, i wave to the rc boat and start back in( they were running their last race of the day 5 total). by this time i'm so tired all i could was get back in and unrig and drive home.i head back the next day for day two and we sit in the parking lot for 4 hours and wait for wind but it's a no show and no races. all the guys were asking me what happened to me why didn't i race so i tell my sad tale of woe. the head of the laser fleet takes a look at my riggging along with 4 other guys and they show me how they do it and suggest not using a clew hook for racing, just tie it insted, much more stable if something like the vang comes loose. also they all say the line that comes on the new harken vang is too long in the part that hooks to boom and the other line is way too thick, so they modify my set up and check everything else and pronounce me up to speed.everyone says it's too bad the race committie lost track of me, but since i was still upright they thought i was o.k. they said next time if there is one to capsize the boat and eventually someone will come get me, but since i was so far away i didn't think that was a option and did the best i could to rescue myself.it all worked out in the end and there were times i was scared senseless( like when i saw the two finns of something going by me in the water, either killer whales or small dolphins, i'm not really sure because of the waves and they never showed more than the finn sticking up) all i could think of was don't capsize now! so first race series and i never got into one race in two days and my score was 66.0 and my cost was 55.00 dollars. on the plus side the race committie said i could sail in the next regatta for free.great bunch of guys and it was still fun eventhough i had problems. all the guys said it was the best first time story, or worst that they had ever heard.hahahah............i learned more in that one day than i have since i got the boat, so there is my tale of my first regatta............terry:D
 
Wow! I'm impressed!

It's kind of scary that RC wasn't looking for you, despite your kind words for them.

Your experience reminds me of something that happened to me last summer, but not nearly as traumatic. We were short of RC too, in fact there was a committee of one for just the regular Sunday afternoon race. The wind was around 15, and the committee of one set up a "ghost" race. He took the RC boat out, anchored and posted the course. He then started the automatic sequence on the committee boat, his crew sailed his boat up, and he abandoned the committee boat and sailed in the race too! Meanwhile, after the sequence was started, my sail popped off the clew hook and the velcro bit that holds the sail to the boom came off, so my sail was flogging. One guy sailed up and said that the only way to get it fixed was to capsize the boat, so I did. But I still couldn't fix it. When I tried to join the sail to the boom, the weight of the water kept me from moving the sail to where I needed it. I ended up letting the boat drift to shore so I could rerig because everything was so tangled and shore was close. Race committee was already gone, which was OK on a nice summer day. The committee kept up its 5,4,1,0 beeping sequence throughout the race. Hence the ghostly effect. I did get my boat situated and sailed around the course.

I do think that if the sail is still attached to the boom by strap or hook, you may be able to re-attach one or the other by capsizing the boat. A strong guy may even be able to attach both. If it doesn't work, you can always right the boat again if you want to.
 
i thought of capsizing the boat but with all the traffic in the area and 2 ft waves it would have ben a chore, plus puget sound is about 45 degrees F all year round and i wasn't really looking forward to that. if it had been a little less windy thats the route i would have tried. from now on the clew will be tied down with a extra piece of line in heavy air.live and learn.....terry turns out that the finns i saw were probably pilot whales, they look like small mini versions of killer whales
 
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