Bulb

Need crew

In April, we had planned to participate to the mixed double regata. The weather was not with us, so the regata was cancelled and re-scheduled. I am now single, familly gone in vacation, and desparately looking for a crew. If you are interested, leave me a message here.

https://www.regattanetwork.com/clubmgmt/regatta_uploads/5139/2012MixedDoublesRevisedNOR.pdf

PHRF-GB

So we did the first race with 245 "estimated" rating. Now the official rating has arrived: 150!

Now, we need to look for sailing excellence to beat the competition!

Boom

This side of the boom, with the new cuningham, with cleat on the cannopy...!

The other side of the boom, with the fine tack...

Side note: The manufacturer of the motor does not offer yet the option to charge back the battery, with the properler free wheeling while under way with the sails. But, they are apparently looking at that option. This would be really great.

Barber hauler

Added this week-end the barber hauler... Works perfectly!

At the dock



So, last Friday, we went with the familly for a little tour. Passing by the race boat slips, someone asks me if I am the one who requested a PHRFGB rating for LadyC. Yes, I am the proud owner. OK, the rating offered is 150... far from the 245 that was originally given to me... It will be much more challenging now and we will have to play with the big boys, instead of being the one driving the show! To bad, next weekend is the duo mixt race, the advertising also call that race the divorce race, I won't be able to participate, since we are going diving to Flower Garden in the middle of the Gulf.



Outriggers

Near the Seabrook Marina, almost under Seabrook-Kemah bridge, there is a place that I need to check out one day. It is right on the water, on the pass from Clearlake to the bay. There is a boardwalk around and customers either comes from the shore, usually with large pick-up trucks or gorgeous Harleys, or from the water side. There is noise from the above bridge, good music and probably great cold beers for afternoon after sail. Usually, there are several huge offshore motor boat moored in front, the one that flourish around here with super loud twin V8 or so. When these guys maneuver in front of the bar to dock, you probably have to plug your ears. All in all, I like that place, looks like plenty of fun! With LadyC we do not play in the same backyard, but I am sure we could have a god time there one of these days...

Inside

Here is how things are made inside Lady C, the spin pole and the centerboard winch...

Main sail - Less efforts

Today installed the fine tack differently. The previsou installation did not have anough course on the fine portion of it.

Electric Motor

 I have tried the gas engine, but honestly, the e-motor convinced me more... For smaller power need, the Travel is definitely an option.

Fine tunning

Following the race last week-end, today was a good day to implement the lesson learned.
1- The main sail tackle has got only four strands, so in strong was not providing enough demultiplication. I also needed a stronger version for the car with travel adjusting pulleys. The original car I purchased did not have adjusting pulley and was only rated 850 lbs. The top shakle got bent...! So I installed the 1250 lbs car with a fine tackle going to sheaves installed on either side of the main car.

I am not sure yet if I will have enough travel for the fine tackle, once the boom is in place on the main. We shall see! I hope it will be OK, because I am very satified with this setup. It is very clean and will not affect the sail position like the ones in the cockpit. If it does not work, I can repalce the fidle pulleys with standard blocks to gain height..

2- I pulled the fore stay 10 turns on the turn buckle and released both sides sides two turns. The mast looks much straighter now and slightly more forward than it was.

3- Pulley and cleat for the spin pole tack point are in place.

4- For the jib "barber hauler", I still need to put some thoughts around this. I would like to install the jib tracks on the deck, but is will be too wide... Still some thought needed here!

Icicle Race

So we got to our first race with Lady C on saturday March 10th 2012: the last of the 2012 Icicle series...
I was given a first PHRF estimate rating of 245.
With that rating, we finished 6th (4th in our spin category: http://www.gbca.org/Resources/Documents/2012%20Icicle%20Series%20Results.pdf), with much larger race boats behind us... We should have won, but I must have the halyards mixed inside the mast and we could not launch the spin like we wanted and lost quite some time. We where first at all the marks except the finish line. Wind was about 20 knots and we had all sails up, going up wind at 6 knots and surfing down wind at more than 8 knots... My two partners were excellent (much better than I am in this kind of wind) and I have to practice more with them to learn how to handle this great small boat better in stronger winds. Also, I was not very comfortable, knowing what happened to me last time we tried the spin...

I have a few things to improve on the boat:
1- I need a sheave and a line on the spin pole to launch the spin from the cokpit.
2- I need some sort of side hauler for the jib, as it was not optimized with only the jib tracks installed originally.
3- I need a fine tune set of blocks for the main sheet, as I have the 4 lines from origin and it is not enough in strong wind to work the main properly when sailing up wind.
4- And I need to address the halyards issue in the mast...
We could not make much better than 95 deg from tack to tack when going up wind. Lady C is the centerboard version for the SB18. I have prepared the fin for the keel version, I still need the bulb. Once I got that it will probably do a greater job!
All in all, we had great fun. This small boat is so pleasant to sail and so fast for the size, a real pleasure to sail...

Yves

Back to shipyard

So, I have the Lady C back in the garage. I had to work on few things. First, while on the road with the centerboard up, it ripped out the strap winch from it's support. So I reinforced the support with 3 layers of fiber glass an re-installed the winch. Then, the canopy continues to deformed itself. I originally covered the outside wood strips with one layer of fiber glass and painted the inside. Obviously, the internal side of the wood strip continue to see humidity level changes and this make it move. So decided to sand inside as well an laid one layer of fiber glass inside. The port side mid ship cleat had a airline crack, caused by the tow boat when pulling on it to turn around the Lady C. So I repaired that as well. I noticed when sailing up wind, that I had water coming on deck and some of it always flowed along the canopy/deck seam and on to the bench where wetted our buts. So installed a deflector to keep bench dry. I sent the motor for repair and got it back. It had water ingress through one plug and they replaced the complete motor, as warranty. The main sail was repaired. I had the rope removed and replaced with slides. The jib is intact and the spin is trashed. The new mast is on it's way to Houston... The insurance reimbursed everything, towing, sails, new mast... I just need to repair the few things above and put things back together.