New Boat 4 Sled

[Howard Spruit]

This is the spruce and Koa inlay that Sled spoke of.

[Philpott]

That's beautiful, Howard.

Now, about those bugs: Aren't there special kazoo-type sound-making doohickeys for those kinds of bugs ... er, forgive me .... crickets? Maybe an audiotape of their calls could be provided? This is a knowledgable crowd: surely we can come up with a solution for the CBC Fleet Surgeon?

[BobJ]

I venture to say his HOLOMOKU mini-skeeter will be the only dirt boat with a deck of aircraft grade spruce inlaid with koa.

I'll pass on the bugs but Howard, your spruce and koa work looks wonderful!

My dad, who would have been 102 a few days ago, was a pilot with aspirations to build a small, experimental racing biplane called a Knight Twister. He had the aircraft-grade spruce carefully stored away for the project along with other bits and parts. Then our whole family got into sailing and the Knight Twister was never built.

Before long I was whining about wanting an El Toro and my dad agreed to contribute some of his prized spruce for its spars. We routed out the sail slot in each half of the mast, glued it up and then carefully tapered and shaped it. Same with the boom. This was in about 1969. The spars were the only part of the boat we completed and as it turned out, they would not be used for 30 years.

In 2000, I bought a new El Toro from Ron Moore. I asked Ron to fit the original spruce spars to the boat, which he ably did. The kids sailed little Jester for several years and it now hangs in my garage (yes, along with many other boat parts!) awaiting the next generation.

I'd gained a few pounds in the intervening years. One day when sailing Jester on a lake, a puff hit and my extra weight "added sufficient righting moment" to crack the spruce mast. It still hangs in the rafters but has been replaced by a carbon fiber mast. Here's our oldest daughter Jessie sailing Jester when it was new:

(Oh that's right - I'll have to send it to Philpott for posting since apparently I'm no longer worthy.)

[Philpott]

(Oh that's right - I'll have to send it to Philpott for posting since apparently I'm no longer worthy.)

I love it. Here's that lovely photograph. I'm a sucker for cute kid pictures. Who isn't?



Finally I can do something you can't: You're a better sailor, you add and subtract better ... But now I have power. hehe

[BobJ]

Speaking of adding and subtracting, I just realized that Jessie is the same age in that photo as I was when we built the spars. Circle of life...

Regarding having the power, was that ever in doubt?

[sleddog]

Here's another cool Aurora, aka Northern Lights, in mid-March, over Iceland. No, the vorterx did not suck up the rent-a-car. PS: I have been queried if I know what happened to the 3 Bridge Fiasco Overall Trophy in the locked trophy case at RYC. I do not know, but if you do, let us in on where it went.

[sleddog]

Howard's mini-skeeter dirt boat HOLOMOKU is 75% complete and entering the final painting phase. There were 18 skeeters racing at the recent Ivanpah Championships near Las Vegas. All dirtboats are raced singlehanded, even the Manta Twins, where the solo skipper shifts seats on tacks. Question for racing sailors, why does a Manta Twin skipper sit in the leeward seat on a run? Or do they? One would think weight to windward to hold the boat down would be an advantage.

Here's Howard's mini-skeeter before she was turned over in his shop. Howard could turn over the boat by himself. I'm not sure what HOLOMOKU weighs, sans axle and rig.

]

[sleddog]

Don't ask how I got involved with the Inverness Yacht Club International 110 Fleet. Not sure myself. I was on the hunt for Francis Drake at Pt. Reyes when I saw a boatyard and clubhouse just landward of a large mudflat on Tomales (Tamale?) Bay in W. Marin and turned into it's small, dirt, parking lot. It was there I first encountered the largest 110 fleet in the world, possibly 20 boats or more, all resting on their trailers, most seeming to be at some stage of restoration or repair.

IYC is also home to one Milly Biller, Port Captain, and "Admiral" of the local 110's. It was not long after an introduction to Milly that I found myself in possession of a loaner 110 with a strong, young, Laser sailor crew to match..Even though I hadn't seriously raced dinghies in 50 years, nor had I ever sailed on Tamale Bay, the 24 foot, 110 offer seemed doable, thanks to Milly's contagious enthusiasm and a certain amount of my personal naivete.

After 3 Saturdays of racing I learned sailing 110's at IYC is both a serious giggle, endlessly humbling, and features complex boat handling and maneuvers including tacking a genoa in breeze without your crew on the trapeze falling in and capsizing and filling. (All the 110's will float, having air-bags and water tight compartments.) In addition was a totally new sail handling drill of remotely dousing the spinnaker down a launcher chute at the bow, then remembering to close the fabric hatch cover so you don't fill the boat. More on this later.

All the 110's are very pretty, something Philpott would appreciate. But racing these antiques is seriously competitive, once the boats are off their trailers and launched single file by a creaking chain hoist from the end of a narrow, antiquated, much repaired, 150 foot, pier over 100 years old. You can only race every other weekend due to tide over mud making launching possible only at half-tide and flooding.

On the first weekend of racing we managed to run aground only twice. The mud is soft, and Milly suggested we just step off the boat into the 3 foot deep water and push. "Hey Milly, " I said, "how do you climb back aboard?" Milly just grinned her mischievous, knowing all grin. It was soon apparent Milly knew all things about 110's, as she'd conned her father out of his at age 13 by getting him to sign a bill of sale thinking it was a note of absence for her school teacher. No worries, he just bought another 110 so he could compete against his enterprising daughter.

It was the second weekend of racing I thought this might be easy pickings..only to see our 100 yard lead dissolve as the entire fleet sailed around us in a well-known, local knowledge, wind shift and puff coming down a lovely wooded valley. For a moment I thought we had run aground again, but revised that when 6 boats sailed over the top, between us and shore.

Last Saturday came the humbling. The yellow, bumble-bee boat, #7, and built in 1940, led off the line and up the first leg. The beautiful blue boat, GUNSMOKE, with its champion Mercury skipper and sail maker crew seemed to be sailing away. And as the wind built to 18 knots, here came Milly and Anna-Pia on PINK who sailed through our lee and then outpointed us to the weather mark which they laid and we missed by half-a boat length. This despite Sean and my combined crew weight outweighing the ladies on PINK by over 100 pounds. Hmmm.

Just behind PINK at the first leeward mark, the belly button retrieval line on our spinnaker sucked into the mainsheet block, leaving us with a half-hoisted spinnaker at the beginning of the penultimate weather leg. Milly describes these moments as "festive."

Now it got really humbling. The leading bumble-bee boat had caught us from behind after rescuing his crew overboard....And, and the red boat, IMHO at the moment the fastest 110 in the world,. with the best skipper/crew combo of BM and EM, caught us after our five minute headstart, their being over early at the start.

I don't yet fully know Bren and Erik's secret sauce, but watching LADY BUG power away upwind going 5 degrees higher and .25 knots faster than any other 110 was sobering. Another minute and they would have won the race after almost catching GUNSMOKE.

After the days racing we all gathered at the picnic tables in the lee of the 110 year old clubhouse and enjoyed cheese, dips, locally baked bread, beer, and war stories provided by 110 Fleet 56, soon to be host of the 110 National Championships the first week in August.

Racing 110's at Tomales Bay. A challenging and hilarious exercise hosted by a self-proclaimed bunch of weirdos. We'll do better with the spinnaker drop next time.

Fact: 110's are 24 feet long, with plumb ends, narrow beam, hard chine, and flat bottom, designed by C Raymond Hunt in 1938. They are the original sport boat, and feature a spade rudder, 300 pound keel, and will readily plane in 15 knots of wind if given a chance. 110's on the E.Coast can race PHRF, but not in California, where the requirement of a 400 pound keel leaves them 100 pounds short.

[skatzman]

why does a Manta Twin skipper sit in the leeward seat on a run? Or do they? One would think weight to windward to hold the boat down would be an advantage.

This Manta Twin pilot sits to windward in an effort to keep the boat on its wheels on all points of sail. I was at Ivanpah in March and it rocked. At least the first 3 days of racing did.

Ask Renee. She is reigning Manta Twin winner.

SDK

[sleddog]

why does a Manta Twin skipper sit in the leeward seat on a run? Or do they? One would think weight to windward to hold the boat down would be an advantage. ..This Manta Twin pilot sits to windward in an effort to keep the boat on its wheels on all points of sail. I was at Ivanpah in March and it rocked. At least the first 3 days of racing did. SDK

Would ask consideration of the possibility of sitting in the middle or to leeward on the Manta Twin when running thereby unloading the windward wheel. With attention, the windward wheel can be kept just flying and as a puff hits and the windward wheel begins to rise further, the skipper can bear off, riding the header down towards the leeward mark. The SOG is no faster than sitting to windward and power reaching to the corner jibe point. But the sailed distance to the leeward mark may be shortened significantly. My 2 Cents. ~s