Awaken the Beast!!
by Jake on Oct.11, 2006, under Miscellaneous
A business trip was cancelled for this weekend which freed me up to attend the Loose on the Neuse (river) regatta this weekend. We’re doing a smash up of the fleet from last weekend and instead of F18s, we’re going to race Nacra 20s (Frank’s blue Nacra 20 is our current Team Seacats ocean racer). It looks like we’ll have at least 4 Nacra 20s this weekend three of which the teams were sailing F18s at last weekend’s Alter Cup Qualifier and David Lennard and I will be sailing together again.
Wick Smith and Wick “bear” jr. sailed an F18 for the first time last weekend and he really got competitive as the wind picked up – Wick has a trophy wall that will put a lot of people to shame. They normally sail a Nacra 20 so they’re are going to be tough. Nigel is sailing a 20 with Trey (Team Velocity) and not only is Nigel always tough (and probably has an extra storage facility for trophies), Trey has been really coming on strong and learning a lot. It will be interesting to see where things shake up.
The 20 needed a little work – the trailer had a bent cross bar that needed to be replaced (we made a quick fix with a 4X4 leaving Tybee earlier this year) so I fabbed up the replacement this evening and should have it ready to bolt in place tomorrow. The trailer lights need some attention too – none of the side markers are functional. I’ll pick up replacements tomorrow at lunch. There are some nick-nack rigging items (a couple of shackles) and a new pair of sailing gloves ordered from Layline this morning and they got them in the mail within an hour of my call! That stuff should be here in the morning. When I was making all the double stack braces for the F18s, I made an extra pair of beam mounts to make a substantial rear mast support for the 20 – I finished that up tonight too (we had been using a big piece of foam).
A good deal was accomplished tonight – but I still have some work to do tomorrow. I plan to grease the bearings on the trailer and go through the rigging to make sure everything is in place. The carpet in the daggerboard wells needs to be replaced too. It will be great to get back on the 20 again and I’m looking forward to it.
Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.
