Guadalupe Island Race Starts this Weekend

[Mark K]

The PSSA Guadalupe Island race starts this Friday (3/26) afternoon. We have 10 boats (5 SH and 5 DH) ready to start. Pakele (Gary Gould) plans to use the race as a qualifier for the SHTP. Several of the doublehanders are using it as a warm-up for the Pac Cup. The fleet will be checking-in via satphone at 6am and 6pm PST daily. I'll be posting position updates and any other interesting information on the PSSA website (http://pssala.com) regularly. It looks like the fleet may have a bit of weather to contend with as they approach the finish at Catalina next Tue/Wed.

Here are the 2010 Guadalupe Island Race entries:

1. Can2 (Jeanneau 37SF) - Jaime Cantu (SH)
2. Pakele (Islander 36) - Gary Gould (SH)
3. Prankster (Olson 30) - Frank Ross & Brian Radamaker (DH)
4. Ragtime (Spencer 62) - Chris Welsh & Mark Ivey (DH)
5. Rubicon III (Contessa 33) - Rod Percival & Chris Laubach (DH)
6. Runaway (S&T 36) - Eric & Robin Lambert (DH)
7. Slacker (Tartan 10) - Whitall Stokes (SH)
8. Solace (Pacific Seacraft 31) - Todd Thibodo (SH)
9. Tenacity (J133) - Gil Maguire (SH)
10. Thriller (Tartan 10) - Brian Hobin & Tracee Cummings (DH)

- Mark

[gagould]

The Guadalupe Island race was the ideal way to full fill the qualifying cruise requirements for the transpacific race. I will testify for the need of this requirement to be done 24 mouths before the transpacific race.

On my sail from Oxnard to Marina del Rey for the Guadalupe Island race I had a hard time rolling out my head sail. Once the sail was set, I went to the bow to inspect the foil. I founded two sections of the extrusions had come apart. There is a clip pin that holds them together, and my guess is it broke. I rolled up the head sail and set the gennaker for the rest of the sail.

I arrive in MDR Wednesday night which gave me Thursday for a possible fix. A rigger, also a PSSA member, looked at it and concluded the only way to fix the problem was to remove the roller furling from the boat and take it apart to replace the clip pin.

To repair the roller furling in one day, even if the parts were readily available would be wish full thinking, consequently I had to drop out of the race.

I am back in Oxnard repairing the roller furling. It took myself and some friends two days just to remove the roller furling and take it apart. Other problems were uncovered, and I am having to order some parts. I hope to have it back together by the end of this week.

The roller furling (a Furlex) was installed 12 years ago and went around the world with only one problem. You guessed it, it was a broken clip pin. I had it repaired in New Zealand.

I have replaced all the standing rigging and all the chain plates (except the aft lowers) since completing the circumnavigation. I will confess I did not inspect the roller furling as I did the rest of the rigging.

I have plans on completing the Transpacific race qualifying cruise at the end of April.

Cheers, Gary