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Thread: Interested in a boat for 2018 TransPac

  1. #591
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    Jan 2015
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    San Francisco Bay
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    OK thanks. Got it. What's what I'm thinking of called? And is it useful?

  2. #592
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    Sep 2007
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    I imagine that a net that doesn't attach to the headstay would still be effective, if it's right next to the furled jib and well tensioned. But to be sure, loops around the jib (dyneema, to slide up and down easily) as Bob described sound like a good idea.

  3. #593
    Join Date
    May 2015
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    Ok, damage report for Round The Rocks ...

    First I am thankful for Sam's help to put Double Espresso in the water AND take it out. It made the day so much easier. Thank you!

    It was my third race, with one DNF in there. I think there was some improvement as I did not go of course this time. I did make a couple poor decisions though. On the first leg to Alcatraz I saw a multi-hull ahead of me that seemed to stall and I thought it might have been because of stronger currents so I tacked. As can be seen in the track below it was a significant waste of time. The other mistake was to go too far West after rounding The Brothers and recovering after that; again the track below will show that.

    What else happened? I'm glad there wasn't too much wind as hoisting the spinnaker was a good source of excitement for me and entertainment for Joe. Once again having long arms proved useful. Three things went wrong:

    1. First the halyard was passed under the topping lift. The hoist stopped half away and I had to bring the sail down, somehow control it under my legs, swap the halyard under the topping lift t the tip if my fingers and rehoist.
    2. The clew was twisted. I disconnected the sheet, untwisted the clew and reconnected.
    3. The spinnaker managed to sneak stuck behind a jib batten. I dropped the jib and that was that.

    Joe B was right next to me, enjoying a sandwich and free entertainment. To my wife I described this sequence as me being a spider trying to corral the spinnaker with my long arms and legs. There was a wrap too but it came off on its own accord.

    There was the usual entanglement of jib sheets around the pole after the spinnaker went down and the jib went back up.

    I did have a few close encounters, not all of my making.

    There was an interesting episode with WARPATH (another O30) on the downwind leg to The Brothers. They were heating up their spinnaker while I was sailing deep. They were passing me fast but in the end we stayed even. I wonder if that had to do with them being more sideways to the current as my understanding was that their approach should have been faster.

    I felt slow during the all race. Sometimes the boat would liven up but it was short lived. The auto-pilot steered 95% of the time.

    Now ... D-70

    I should probably get myself a spinnaker net based on this race. I should also be mindful that I'm unlikely to do much steering to HI; I tend to rely on the autopilot heavily. I have been forcing myself to do more steering lately when I go sailing but it's not sticking yet.

    I did a bit of shopping for spare parts on eBay (D shackles and soft shackles). I've become a bottom feeder and keep looking for deals ...

    What's next? More sailing, more planning. I need to hoist, jibe and douse that spinnaker.

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    Last edited by jamottep; 04-14-2018 at 10:28 PM.

  4. #594
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    May 2015
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    907

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    D-66

    Yesterday was a day for twin jibs, broaches and scrubbing.

    While preparing the boat for a day sail the wind was shifting all over the place. I chose to leave under sail and that worked out fine, until I got to the exit of the protected waters of the marina in very light wind. I saw that a strong flood would be pushing me on the South wall and I was already sculling to make way. I carried on with my bail out plan being to turn around if I wasn't making through. All was well in the end and it was a slow upwind slog in shifty and gusty winds to get out of the channel. Once out the wind was from the North or so, which was unusual for me. I sailed down Raccoon and to the GG, where the wind was in the 3-5 kts range.

    I turned downwind and I deployed the #3 on leeward and the #2 on windward for a twin jib setup. DDW I was sailing at 2 kts with 4-5 kts of wind, if the onboard instruments can be trusted. Since that wasn't very helpful and the wind was to build up later on. I made my way back to the GG and went for another run. Almost DDW I was getting 6.5 kts of speed in 11.5 kts of wind. I thought that wasn't very good but after looking at the boat's polar it is actually quite good. That said, read on ...

    I shared my jib sheets between each sail and that made dousing the twin jib rig a bit of a problem. Next time I rig this in anything about 10 kts of wind I'll make sure to rig a pair of sheets to windward jib as otherwise when easing the pole the sail wants to fly forward and the only way to get it back is by hand. With the leeward sheet I can pull it in then douse.

    Double Espresso came with a twin foil and I haven't changed that. I discovered that I must use the guide or risk having the luff tape bunch up in the grove, which makes dousing a little difficult. I also did not take the main sail down as I wasn't about to deal with hoisting it again (or dealing with lashing it to the boom while the bolt rope came off the mast track).

    After two twin jib runs I went back up to practice a little more with the spinny. Following my RTR adventure I wanted more experience gybing. The wind continued to build up but never went above 16 kts that I could see. Brian B was sailing in the vicinity and he saw big puffs up to 24 kts. I don't think those came as far as where I was.

    I did a first downwind run with the spinny, jibing in 5-10 kts of wind. I haven't figured this out yet. I was able to jibe just fine but there were a few wraps in the making, which came out undone on their own accord. I went back up to the GG for a fourth run. I packed the spinny while sailing upwind and sitting on top of the cabin so I could maintain a lookout, which worked just fine.

    After the second spinny hoist and settling down on a 125 AWA course I went forward to get the spinny bag off the rail and the boat broached, right when Brian B sailed by (once again I find myself in the position of purveyor of fine entertainment). I went back to the tiller, eased the vang, eased the mainsheet, let the boat flatten and was able to bring it back down. I am very happy at how quickly I was able to recover and the learning this provided: keep my (any) weight aft, that or go deeper if I need to go forward. I usually have my engine on the stern but today it was inside forward. I found that to keep the boat more stable I had to twitch the tiller constantly (not pumping, or you could say small pump movements).

    After that I settled down. At 14 kts of 150 AWA wind the knotmeter was showing 9 kts, which is almost 2 full kts more than the polars. Something is amiss. I'll have to check the SOG on the GPS next time. I didn't jibe in these conditions. I'll need more practice to figure it out before jibing in 15 kts.

    I sailed home. I had 4 sails to bag up, three of them were (and probably still are) wet. After all that was done I hoisted Double Espresso out and did a bit of scrubbing. There were 6 spots with black marks right where the boat rests on the trailer stanchions. With such a nice smooth bottom they are quite the eye sore and I proceeded to scrub them away with a scrub pad I found on the parking lot. I feel like I've built a personal relationship with the boat now that I've spent the better part of 2 hours scrubbing top sides and bottom. Since singlehanded sailors tend to have personal relationships with inanimate objects when tired at sea I hope that DE and I are now in good terms.

    I was home at 10PM. A long day ...

    Tomorrow is boat show day for me!

    A few YouTube videos:

    Twin jibs in light wind: https://youtu.be/JnQ9K4Szzdg

    Twin jibs in 10 kt of breeze: https://youtu.be/Y-W_m886A_s

    Spinny work: https://youtu.be/bpGcBmTyn8s

    One of these days I'll get a shot of me working things out. I just have lost the mount for the GoPro and need to replace that.

  5. #595
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
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    San Francisco Bay
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    I was with Brian yesterday. You were looking good taking Jim Quanci's advice to run the spinnaker in the slot. Unfortunately, my long lens was below and I missed the shot.

  6. #596
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    May 2015
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Smokester View Post
    I was with Brian yesterday. You were looking good taking Jim Quanci's advice to run the spinnaker in the slot.
    Thanks for the kind words ...

    D-61

    I visited BYC today for a few small projects. I really didn't do much. I tried to organize a jibe preventer system. I put a pair of D shackles at the bow and each will have a block. I setup a short line to act as a fuse on the boom. I'll attach a line to that, which I'll run forward to the bow block and back to a cabin top cam cleat. It seemed to work fine on the trailer.

    I installed a large snap shackle on the whisker pole so that I can fly it with the jaws down. This way I may be able to release the poled out jib without easing out the pole and struggling to bring the sail back in. We'll see how that goes in practice.

    I brought back the auto-pilot remote and the two clocks (local and UTC) to purchase replacement batteries.

    I put my cc down for a life raft rental at Sal's. I've toyed with the idea to buy one but I really can't afford this right now.

    This weekend I bought a few dehydrated food pouches to test for taste. Pouches with meat are really high on sodium. So far Alpine Air wins with their vegetable meals but I've only tasted a couple.

    I ordered a spare safety tether, just in case I loose the main one again. It is heavy and geared towards industrial climber (electrician, arborists, etc).

    I met with Shad too and he showed me his boat (another Olson 30). Oh boy! That's a well prepared boat. Everything looks strong and well thought out. In particular I'm jealous of his auto-pilot setup. Everything is below deck, can be easily engaged and controlled remotely. According to him his B&G is faster and has a larger range of motion than mine. He's planning for his qualifying cruise end of week but first he plans to install a new rudder and solar panels.

    Still nobody out there with a small generator taking dust?

  7. #597
    Join Date
    May 2015
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    907

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    D-58

    As the start date gets closer and I see/read about other folks' boats I'm starting to feel the pressure, especially with 4 other Olson 30s. Certainly these O30 owners know their boat inside out and are most likely spending the right money to get their boat prepped up for a fast ride to Hanalei. In fact having seen Shad's boat up close I've had dreams of not being ready: it's June 23rd 9:30 AM and I wake up home, thinking "how am I going to get to the start in time?".

    Besides getting up all in knots in my head and stomach not much sailing has come by. I've brought the main to Leading Edge to get chafe patches installed (we'll stick with sticky back). The light chafe I saw on the sail probably predates the rod rigging but I don't want to take a risk. I've received my new tiller wand and I'm considering moving it an inch or two back. A small 4 stroke generator is on its way and I'm now looking at an AC charger to marry it with.

    I've continued playing with SailGrib, making sure I understand how to use the SW to gather weather charts and GRIB files with the Iridium GO. Speaking of the GO I've helped Ray of Jibeset to incorporate it as a possible tracking device and I think he's close to a solution there. The next step would be to figure out what to do with the race position report file. Most routing SW have an import feature to display racers and their track on the charts. It's now a matter of file format conversion.

    After watching videos, reading a little more about routing and being humbled by the enormity of the task of acquiring weather knowledge I picked up another rule of thumb: don't go past 1020. I have the barometer on the tablet and bought a wrist watch barometer as well (for backup/comparison). I have to say that I have been on a bit of buying spree and, although these were small items, the budget is red lining solidly.

    I continue tasting dehydrated food and so far I really don't like the high sodium meals, which often are the meals with meat. I may end up going vegan on this one.

    Reading through Skip's plan in the resources I've come to realize that I have pretty much not practiced sailing on the most likely angle for the windy reach, circa 75 AWA. I had read about jib tops or reaching sails but only know understand the benefit. I guess I'll stick with the #2 or #3 and the toe rail. I did reach out to one of the used sails company to see if I could get a discount on a used Dacron jib that would be about the size of #2 (117%) as I'm not sure I want to take the risk to damage the #2 I have.

    All the brouhaha around racing has sent me for a spin. I think I've been very ambivalent with myself about how I want to sail the SHTP. I'm not sure where I stand and since it's only going to be me out there I think I should have clear goals, realistic or not. Originally this event was for me to acquire more offshore singlehanded sailing experience. If I put my spirit into the race then I have to deal with all the competition mental overload. That's emotionally draining, for me at least.

    All these 030s ...

  8. #598
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    235

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    Go to the "Dollar Tree and invest a dollar in a roll of black vinyl tape. Then train yourself to ALWAYS tape the spinnaker halyard snap shackle so it can't open until you want it to.
    If you don't, "one of these days" the shackle will open all by itself with the chute in full bloom! Lesson learned on my 1st SHTP. Didn't happen until abeam of Kilauea light, so little effect on the race result. That spin still has bottom paint on it!

  9. #599
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    May 2015
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    907

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    Quote Originally Posted by Harrier View Post
    If you don't, "one of these days" the shackle will open all by itself with the chute in full bloom!
    Picture!

    D-52

    I saw the whales too, well, at least one. After helping Shad roll his sails I went out for an instrument calibration stint and a little bit of practice. The knotmeter appears to be reasonably accurate, at least when the boat is flat. I also used Ramarine's calibration feature to calibrate wind readings.

    The wind was strong so I was down to #4 and 2 reefs. When getting close to exiting Raccoon I ended up in a wind hole. The wind went from 15-20 kts to 0 kts. That's one mistake not to do on 6/23! I put the engine back down and moved out. It had been a while since I'd been drenched when sailing, pretty much ever since I moved out of Santa Cruz, but yesterday I took a few showers. It wasn't anything like what Shad saw on his return trip but for me it was a friendly reminder of how things get out there. I sailed under the bridge then turned around, pinned the main center and proceeded to get ready to go wing on wing with the #2. It took a little while to get organized but we were slow so I got everything up with room to go after that.

    After the wing on wing rig went down I wanted to practice 70 AWA but didn't get to do that much. I tried with the #2 but the wind was too strong and the boat was heeling too much so I took it down. When all was said and done I didn't come back with any actionable information. I must say that I wasn't mentally present, being very much distracted by Shad's preparation. His boat is the beast. I need to get back to focus on my stuff; there's no point in lamenting now ... I'll just think of myself as David.

    Let's see, what else is happening? I signed up for the Farallon Islands race, had the sailmaker inspect my main sail (he put an extra patch around the second reef tack), went to pick up my generator (only to find that there was oil everywhere in the box; I'll need to call the manufacturer tomorrow), ordered a set of spare jib sheets (so I can rig the outboard lead more easily and can fly two jibs without having to switch between sheets), brought back the #1 to have it checked, filled up the outboard tank ... small things really.

    Good night ...

  10. #600
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    Discovery Bay, CA
    Posts
    496

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    PJ, did you decide to use QtVLM? I have been playing with it on android and on my boats laptop. It's pretty robust. Were you aware it will read NOAA ENCs? I downloaded the relevant regions decompressed and put them in the kap folder and things are working fivers.

    I also have a Yacht Devices wireless gateway installed on mt Ray STNG network. QtVLM interfaces with the gateway and provides a full suite of instruments on the PC and Android. Reads AIS messages, the whole ten yards. Very cool.

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