[Public-List] Spinnaker pole topping lift location

[Gordon Laco]

Well I had a bit of humility dealt to me last night racing....  The race
began in flat water in light airs.   I carefully avoided wiggles and tacks
in the pre-start jousting in order to keep SURPRISE moving and crossed the
line in the midst of the pack and going well.

By the time we got up to the weather mark the wind had dropped to almost
nothing, and we fell behind the lightweight, beamy, broach-prone yachts I
disparaged in the message below.  Saints be praised, while struggling along
in near last place under spinnaker, a bit of air filled in and we carried it
up to the fleet, our superior momentum allowing us to pass yacht after yacht
once we got into the thick of the pack and the waft of breeze died again.

I whispered to my crew 'oh, oh dear, could I bear the excitement if we ended
up winning this?'  My crew responded with the usual 'shut up and drive- a
lot can happen yet'.  It did.  Someone switched off the fan again and the
whole mob stopped about 30 yards from the finish.

Then the air filled in again.  Because we were in the pack we all got it at
the same time.  Away glided those light horrible boats while poor SURPRISE
majestically made up her mind to gather way.  The air filled in from ahead
and while we were getting going we made a ton of leeway and actually
couldn't lay the leeward end of the line.  We had to do two roll tacks to
muscle her up and around... That last 30 yards made good took nearly twenty
minutes.... No glory last night.

G




On 16/06/11 9:06 AM, "George Dinwiddie" <gdinwiddie at alberg30.org> wrote:

> I was interested until you got to the "spilling beer" part. Why, that's
> alcohol abuse!
> 
> On 6/16/11 8:05 AM, Gordon Laco wrote:
>> Broaching in moderate conditions was once considered a dead end behaviour
>> characteristic in yacht design, now such things are normal.  Funny that. I
>> like to tell people that if sailors today knew how well 'traditional' yachts
>> perform compared to what they're used to, they wouldn't be satisfied with
>> what they are sold.
>> 
>> Now picture me pounding the table in a pub spilling everybody's beer while I
>> say this....



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