It is always a pleasure to sail on a boat that the crew are on top of everything, there is no talking and it just happens. On saturday I was set to go out for brunch and go for a hike when at 8am I got a phone call asking me to sail on the J120 Chance for Stone Cup. It turned out to be a typical San Francisco city front day blowing 25 with gusts to 31, a large fog bank basically rounding marks using GPS and then sailing out of the fog and into sunshine. Everyone was really cold and wet by the end of the day meanwhile in Belvedere (just across the bay) it was 80F and 15 kntos of wind. I was relatively warm as I was in the back trimming – short taking the city front always keeps you warm. We got two seconds, I didn’t sail on Sunday as I was not needed end result was a second in the regatta.

Saturday night Barry (owner of Chance) took us out to a restuarant down near the ball park. It was a great crew dinner with 20 of us, it was kind of Barry to include me. Antipasto for starters and a delicous dessert plate 🙂

The weather in the last week has been crazy – last thursday it as 100F and I didn’t go outside as it wasn’t neccesary. Friday cooled down a little and we had a fun Friday night race (with the usual brother sister bickering). This week it is cold outside in the mid 50F and it is trousers and jacket weather even in Marin.

This week we are getting the Quest 33 ready for Spinnaker Cup – race to Monterey which starts on Friday. Looks like we might have a quick ride down there. The forecast is for 25 to 30 behind us. I have made Taco Chilli for dinner and brownies for dessert. Now I have to finish the rigging!

We had a fun regatta with one good result and the rest below average. However, what counts is everyone enjoyed themselves and we got to sail with the new rig in the boat. This rig is different to the old one in terms of stiffness so we have a little learning to do.

 Yesterday Rene and I put the boat in the water early and seeing as their was no wind put the motor on the back to motor to StFYC. My very kind brother had put all the race sails on the boat including putting the main on the boom all ready for me. We started the motor pushed off the dock and lots of noise but no forward motion. So doing something that is not advisable I put my hand down to check the prop is turning it is so my assumption is the shear pin is fine. So thinking it might not be kicking into gear I take the cover off to see if anything is caught. At this point my bro shows up with the dog and my newphew and we tie up to the dock. He is organised and has another shear pin in the boat. The dog who hasn’t seen me in a week is excited and is running around the boat and my nephew is in the cockpit clutching a gas tank like it is a new toy. I pull off the propellor and the shear pin was broken however, the new one was too long so with use of a leatherman it was made to fit. The dog, newphew and brother were kicked off the boat and Rene and I took off. We put the sails up to help as the gas tank holds enough gas to get you from SFYC dock to StFYC breakwater and not further. I had made an adjustment to the engine bracket to hold a bracket to help me get the mast up however, this made it pretty useless as an engine bracket. It was too narrow to tighten the engine fully onto it so when a gust came and heeled the boat over the engine decided to go for a swim toppling off the bracket. Luckily I looked back and saw it about to fully disconnect so I dove off the helm after the engine. We have a line that you clip onto the backstay but the engine would have been water skiing if it had been dragging by that. That was enough excitement for me in the morning.

This morning there were white caps as we crossed the bridge and the forcast was for 25 knots so I had the guys take the number one off the boat. On saturday the forecast was pretty dead on but not today! Bad idea – we actually joked as we took it off that we would probably need it. There were some issues with the mark set boats and that combined with not a lot of wind led to a very long postponement. We spotted Lyon’s Imaging photo boat and went to sail after him to ask a favour however, there was a large ebb and I didn’t want to get so far away from the start area. The crew said they doubted I would get him to do us a favor like that as they were working. Nothing ventured nothing gained I always say. There wasn’t much action going on with so little wind but how to call him hmm…. So I call my brother who is ashore and looks up Lyon Imaging on google and gives me the number – I am hoping it will be a cell phone. Bingo – Peter answers!

 ‘Hello I am Ashley Perrin and I am on Moore 116 the blue one in the start area. Can I ask a favor….. we left our number one in the car…. I will pay you to take one of my crew to get it….’

 ”No problem you don’t need to pay me.’ I will be right there.’

‘I can’t believe you pulled that off” one of my crew…

”There are some advantages to being a women in distress’ says me…

Peter zooms over and Micheal our main man jumps on the boat and takes off towards the club coming back with a number one and Peter took off with two beers. Thanks to him we were able to sail as the wind was around 5-10knots all afternoon. So go to his website at http://www.lyonsimaging.com/ and if you see a photo of your boat buy it! He is a great guy.

 I am off on Tuesday on holiday. Have a good March.

This video was not taken from our boat but it shows the fun that was had by all at the mark rounding in light air!

This last weekend I raced on Astra in the CYC midwinters doing bow. There was a large ebb both days with less than 10 knots of wind for the start on saturday. Within .5 mile of the start we were anchored of Point Stewart. Half the fleet decided to leave Angel to port the next mark was Southampton Shoals. Boats that didn’t anchor vainly tried to overcome the growing ebb with less and less wind and it was time to get the fenders out to protect the boat from unwelcome visitors! Finally a wind line worked it’s way down Racoon Straits and we pulled up the anchor which had a fishing net complete with starfish and seaweed attached to the flukes. Guess that’s why it wasn’t holding that well! Off we went working the Marin shoreline tacking back and forth staying in shallow water to get out of the river of tide we looked like heros out in front of the fleet. Then the anchor went down again as we popped out of Raccoon straits and were getting pushed to Treasure.

 

The fleet converged at the red number 10 bouy and there was lots of yelling, mayhem and fiberglass crunching. Astra got through unscathed as the boats behind cleared away to either side allowing the wind to fill the spinnaker while everyone else was blanketing each others spinnakers.

We reentered Racoon heading for the finish with almost 10 knots of breeze unfortunately in one of those last tacks one of the crew badly lacerated his head. While crossing under the boom by the vang his foot caught on the halyard and he head butted the turnbuckle on the new weather side creating two cuts one triangular shaped 1 1/2″ on each side and another straight laceration of 2″ long. There was a large amount of blood and pressure was applied with numerous guaze pads. We put his hat back on so that we could tape the pads to his head without sticking to his hair. He really did put on a brave face. Mary the owner and the crew member spent 3 hours in Marin Emergency room and 7 stitches later he was sent home with some pain killers.

 

Due to some dredging near the enterance to SFYC there is an issue getting the boat into the harbour at the moment. The silting in didn’t even allow us to get to the guest dock on Friday. So we ended up boom riding to heel the boat over as much as possible both Saturday and Sunday to get into the dock after racing.

Sunday was a lot less exciting – just a standard day of racing ! The race was only an hour long as the wind was consistent.

From Sailing Anarchy forum….

 

 

 

These are the posts I made about the race on Sailing Anarchy.

I am sitting in the warm and dry at home after retiring on Yeoman XXXII. Last night was hard work for sure. Sea conditions were unpleasent and wind was in the high 30’s.

We were alongside Snow Lion having caught up with them in the Solent when we retired. We changed from the number 4 jib to the storm job and had 2 reefs in the main. The change from 4 to storm jib was unpleasant on the bow, I was happy I was wearing my drysuit. I was being fully thrown in the air on the foredeck while trying to do an inline peel the storm jib went up and then stripped out of the tuff luff. So dropped both jibs in the process of dropping the number four I was lifted off the deck over the lifelines and into the water. The jib was in the water as well so I fell in the belly of it and then got tossed back onboard by the next wave. A little bit of night time excitement. Tying the storm jib to the tuff luff was a large effort as the pulpit is so narrow you have to wedge yourself in place to get far enough foward to tie the reef knots creating a feeling of being captured – not nice. A 1/2 hour after hoisting the storm jib we decided to go for the trysail so called all hands for the manuouver. We dropped the sail to deck and used a line to lash the boom in between the two wheels while we got the main under control a large effort seeing as the main has a luff rope we got the main to weather and everyone sat on it and then rolled it towards the boom. We took a mooring line and used it to tightly tie the main to the boom. We took the main halyard off the head of the main and I held it there was so much windage that it was being pulled out of my hands. We got that onto the rig and attached the clew to the outhaul on the boom as we wanted the boom in the air rather than lashing it to the deck as I feel this is dangerous if it breaks free in a large seaway. we retired after hearing splittering carbon as the trysail pulled out of the track on the back of the rig.

Have to go to sleep now very sore.

Ashley

Note – both my brothers have criticized this post for being badly written and unstructured stream of consciousness – I do agree however, my excuse is tiredness and that it wasn’t meant to front page reading!! ‘

 ———————————–

Gear Failure leading to retirement

The mainsail had pulled out of the bottom of the track about a foot when we went to change to the trysail. I believe this was due to the strop holding the tack forward not being tight enough altering the tack set back. Remember this is only the second offshore race this boat has done. The last was the race to key west where we saw wind in the mid 30’s but we were going downwind. The luff tape on the trysail was very slightly larger (maybe less than a mm) and I believe that might have put pressure on the track. Also our track is only reinforced where the head of the sail sits in the track when we are reefed or when the trysail is up. We put the trysail in the track two days before the start and we didn’t think to wonder whether the area where the tack fitted needed to be reinforced as well. There is a strop on the tack which lifts it above the main as it would be near impossible to get the tack attached at the actual fitting with the main on the boom. This meant the tack was bearing in a non reinforced area of the track.

I used the trysail twice this year on delivery but it was only 25 knots of wind at the most and it had worked fine so I believe it was a mixture of a lot of factors which caused the failure. The wind was in the mid 30’s gusting to the high 30’s when we went for the change. One of the crew mentioned that hoisting the trysail wooled would mean you could get luff tension before putting any pulling force on the track. We might alter our trysail with some cringles to allow the sail to be wooled. This would mean using the reef line as a sheet on the end of the boom to ‘launch’ the sail.

The next morning we found that our number 2 reef line was about to explode due to chafing on the sheave a tie down might have given us some more time to deal with this if that had occured but the conditions were such that it was a little dangerous to go hanging on the end of the boom tying the clew down. Also we were not tying the belly of the sail up for the same reasons. If we had tied the belly up we would have gone through the cringles and around the sail not the boom so that in the case of the clew failing we would have not been in danger of ripping the sail as the load would have transferred to the cringles. I much prefer a system of tie downs that has a sacraficial patch on the sail with webbing loops so that pulls off the sail instead of cringles which rip the sail. We will be sending the main back to make these adjustments.

This would have been my fifth Fastnet and 6th time around the rock I am looking at the tracking information thinking about how fun the ride would have been on Yeoman coming home. We would have been roaring home at a high rate of speed. Oh well. I guess we weren’t the only ones!!

 —————–

QUOTE(amperrin @ Aug 14 2007, 11:32 PM)

I was being fully thrown in the air on the foredeck while trying to do an inline peel the storm jib went up and then stripped out of the tuff luff. So dropped both jibs in the process of dropping the number four I was lifted off the deck over the lifelines and into the water.

That is hysterical.

There are times you know that you can do embarrassing things like a bare headed change. The boats that weren’t to proud to drop the headsail, get It below, and then get the storm sails out will be rounding the rock about now.

Peeling to the storm jib. That’s great

In response to the above post:

It was really great fun mate even got fresh calamari in the mouth!!! You should have seen the jibs below horrible mess no bags on etc… just get the jibs below at that point. The inline was working fine as we had a jib cunningham on and the bottom part of the 4 was unhooked. Should be fine doing an inline in the low 30’s if you don’t have a sail that strips out of the tuff luff but obviously when the helmsman had the head of the storm jib flapping around his ears it was time to drop both and start again!!! I am not to proud to do a bare headed when conditions warrant but it wasn’t really necessary at that point as we were changing early down to the storm sail. We weren’t putting the storm sails up for survival conditions we were putting them up for speed and angle of boat issues. Also leaving a sail up give you the benefit of keeping crew members aboard when the waves are washing them down the deck.

See the regarding our NYYC Regatta win.

Kiwi Will (bow), Steph (trim) and Wolfie (grinder) at the NYYC.

By Neil ’Jaffa’ Harrison

 

Avia Willment director of Universal Marina (Hamble, UK) along with Paul Smith and David Gaskin, chartered The
Rogers 46 Yeoman XXXII from David Aisher for Stanford Antigua Race week. Tactician for the week was Neil ‘Jaffa’ Harrison who runs The Metre Shed at Universal Marina and is Director of Jaffa Racing. Leading the trimming was Richard Burlingham, also an employee of Avia Willment.

The week consisted of various races from Round the Island Coastal style to short course windward leeward all held in
15 – 20 knots of breeze, scorching Sunshine and a moderate sea. ‘Universal Marina’ sailed consistently well in all
the races posting 5 race wins a 3rd and a 4th to win Racing Class Two by 6 points, and 5th overall in division behind 4 Class One yachts.

Avia came up with the plan of competing in Antigua late in 2006, and gave Richard and Jaffa the task of finding a
boat that would win in Antigua. They selected the Rogers 46 as the boat they felt capable of winning class in Antigua, she was light, fast and would revel in the expected conditions in the Caribbean. They were not disappointed. In training they hit 20.68 knots in 20 knots of breeze, while racing they were often over 18.

The crew for the week consisted of: Avia Willment (Skipper), David Gaskin (Float), Paul Smith (Main), Thomas Lindquist (Helm), Jaffa (Tactics and Nav), Richard Burlingham (Trim 1), Neil Fullerton (Trim 2), Douglas Watson (Grinder), Gordon Dundas (Mast), Ashley Perrin (Pit 1), Elizabeth Dobson (Pit 2), Natalie Gray (Mid bow) & Nick Bishop (Bow).

“The guys all worked really well as a team coming together quickly after only one days training. We spent a day prior to the charter getting everything in order, Richard did a great Job on setting the rig up, which is a major factor in the boats performance, if this is not perfect the boat just wont find that extra gear you need to pull away from the Fleet”, commented Jaffa on reflection of the weeks outstanding performance.

A great week and a great result.

 Press Release at http://www.rogersyachtdesign.co.uk/news_press.php?RECORD_KEY%28hotnews%29=news_code&news_code(hotnews)=37

It is 1:30am on Sunday morning I came on watch at midnight and am still a little groggy from my 3 hours of fitful sleep. I attempt to wake myself up with a large injection of sugar in the form of a piece of decadent chocolate cake. The relative cool of the night is blissful. 13 hours earlier I had been sitting on the deck in the unrepentant harsh Caribbean noon sun sweating profusely the bottle of water I had brought up with me was now luke warm almost warm enough for a proper English cup of tea! When I went down at 9pm Saba Island was just off our port quarter the island is very mountainous and the lights of civilization look as though they are hanging in the sky. Three hours later Saba is well behind and the moon is reflecting across the water bathing the boat in a warm glow. The light of the moon hides any light pollution that might have been visible. I am on my own on watch there is no autopilot on the boat so it is lifejacket on, clip in and as there is less then 10 knots of wind from dead behind the engine is purring away propelling us towards St Thomas where the boat will be loaded on Dockwise for the east coast racing in June. In my mind a pretty good delivery J no pounding upwind and worrying about the boat. The only sign of civilization is another boat coming my way going ‘down island’. I enjoy these rare moments when it is dark and I can attempt to switch off my brain. I reflect on the Caribbean season of racing that I have been privileged to take part in with Yeoman XXXII. We left Florida on with a delivery crew of five – three of the delivery crew under 23, myself at 29 and the owner’s brother Tim. (Poor Tim had to put up with push up competitions on deck between the 20 year old boys). Mac and cheese and Top Ramen were popular snacks. The delivery was uneventful with the exception of a fast ride through the Bahamas regularly hitting 20 knots with spray blinding the helmsman. The 120 gallons of diesel on the stern helped to keep the bow from burying with a small jib from a 38 footer and 2 reefs in the delivery main Yeoman XXXII was reveling in the conditions, despite being in ‘RV” mode (full of spares and sails). The two young relatively inexperienced crew members aboard were wide eyed.