Now that the Alter Cup is completed and a new champion crowned (congratulations John Casey / John Williams! - shown here with Gordie Isco - builder of this trophy) and with the Tybee 500 is quickly approaching and we’re getting ready to start a flurry of activity in getting the gear and boat ready to go. We’ve got some trailer storage solutions being implemented, some minor rigging modifications, and some new gear to get ready….stay tuned.

Photo Credit: Roy Laughlin
www.floridamultihullsailor.com

The practice day of the US Sailing Multihull Championship for the Alter Cup launched today on the Blade F16 without incident. Kevin Rejda (Beach Captain) and I moved all 10 boats to the launching area first thing in the morning to get them ready for final rigging before launching for the practice racing. Today’s practice was to give both the competitors and the race management an opportunity to work out the bugs and get things ironed out for the real competition to start tomorrow. After a short concern this morning about not having enough breeze, the sea breeze kicked in quickly and by 11:30am we had 10 to 14 knots waiting for the competitors to get to the course. Several races were had and we swapped out fleets once. Nobody actually finished the practice races (winning a practice race is considered bad luck). Kevin and I retuned the boats this evening in preparation for tomorrow…lots going on in a loooong day.

The news will keep coming but I’m going to switch over to the US Sailing site HERE for most of the detailed information including results.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Day 2 of the setup and everything is going extremely well! We’ve still not had to drill a hole or set a rivet. Another team of dedicated volunteers and a few competitors came out to help setup the boats. Show here is “TBack” (Terry Back) showing us how the spinnaker halyard block is tied at the top of the mast.

The boats are setup now, all the masts standing and all the rigging done. With luck tomorrow, we should be ready to wheel the boats to the launching area, apply the US Sailing / Rolex graphics, and go out for the practice race. Stay tuned!

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

I’m now in Melbourne, FL helping to get setup for the US Sailing Multihull Championship. We spent the entire day setting up the 10 Vectorworks Marine Blade F16s - and things went very well. We’ve not had to drill one hole, set one rivet, or go to a marine supply store yet once! Matt and his gang put in a terrific effort in not only preparing the boats, but the sextuple stack and it’s trailer and supporting structure was an engineering feat to behold! (click the image to go to more photos). Shown here is Matt as he disassembled some of the mast supports. Tomorrow is more of the same. We expect to get the masts stepped by noon and start checking out sails. Tuesday is a practice day and the racing starts on Wednesday…stay tuned!

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Wow…the pva…25 coats!?  This guys is crazy with the PVA (I use 1 light fog coat and 2 thicker coats…it’s plenty), but here’s a good, somewhat high speed, show of making a fiberglass hood scoop.

Two races were had this morning as we launched into the lake in sub 40 degree temperatures. Fortunately, the weather had subsided a little and the breeze was a fresh 4 to 12 knots as big wind lines would travel down the lake - usually with a slight shift. We got a commanding start in the first race and Karl and I shot up the course with an early lead. We targeted the finish line while Velocity Sailing fought hard and gambled at the end and nearly lost second place. That left us two points out of first and we were hoping for two more races - if not, we needed to get as many boats between us and them as possible for the last one. The F18 fleet started their next race and we watched them get pounded with a huge left shift leaving them unable to hit the start line on starboard tack. We got ready to start working toward the pin end as the wind died and shifted slightly back to the right. By the time we had 1 minute to go, Karl and I knew we were in trouble. We were deep away from the line and the wind shifted even harder to the left. Once I thought we could lay the committee boat, I tacked onto port but had an F17 on starboard tack on my shoulder. We got a short lift and I thought I might be able to cross him but it evaporated and I had to tack close. I lost my cool for a minute but Karl reminded me that there was still two laps to go. With no other choice but to continue out to the left, we headed for the pin end of the start line well after the start gun had gone off and the fleet had crossed the line. We got to the pin end of the line and found David Strickland and Chris Zander smokin’ on port in a new fresh wind line (that was only on the left). WHEW. We tacked over and followed them up to A mark and passed the rest of the fleet. We managed to get inside Chris and David going down to C and took the lead. The next two laps saw a drag race as the wind continued blowing from the left. We finished first, David and Chris took second, and Trey and Alan (Velocity Sailing) took a third. To our disappointment racing was concluded for the day and even after winning the last two races we were stranded one point behind Velocity after the drops were applied in the scoring.

Although it was a bit cold, this was a great regatta and I enjoyed myself tremendously. Thanks to Karl and Kelly for making the drive up from Tampa to participate! Team Velocity is really starting to come on - we’ll see great things from them in the future. They’re investing the time and resources in the right place and earned their win for the weekend in some pretty tough conditions.

Some more photos will be coming soon. Jeremy King, photographer, was on the course and said he had some neat stuff (including several sequenced shots of our unfortunate break down on Saturday!). I’ll post them as soon as I get them.

Rough day yesterday (i’m running late so the blog will be quick). 1st race we were battling for the lead when we had the downhaul line do a little knitting in the spinnaker block while trying to sheet the spinnaker - got a 4th. 2nd race, had a good one and won it after taking the lead on the first beat. 3rd race, we were both getting really cold and having a hard time staying balanced while the wind continued to build - some gusts probably over 20 knots. Getting in and off the wire was becoming difficult and the fight was frozen out of us (we could still see our breath in the middle of the afternoon with the sun shining). Got a 4th in the 3rd race and the race committee called off racing for the day.

Today, since Wick joined the fleet, we’re now in 3rd overall. Wick’s average score gets applied to Friday’s racing in the system they use here for people that can’t make it all three days. We’re out of 2nd by one point and out of 1st (I think) by three points. It’s going to be cold again today but the wind will be light - we need some good ones!

Although the air temperature is on a steady decline, the racing action was great yesterday and promises to get even better today! We had a good day battling with the Nacra 20 fleet in what eventually became 18knot winds. The day started light and shifty and we split from the fleet to go left in the first race which put us a good bit behind Trey Brown (Team Velocity) but rounding A mark in second. We worked to stretch on the fleet a little and were trying everything to run down Trey and Alan. On the last downwind leg, we finally got hooked into a good line of breeze and closed up on Trey’s heels. They still held on to the lead for the finish in the first race.

The second race we again split from the fleet to go left. This time it paid off gangbusters and we were halfway back down to C by the time Trey and the rest of the fleet were rounding A mark. A big windline had come down the lake and we rode it catching the F18 fleet that started ten minutes before us and the C mark rounding was nuts. One boat was capsized just after the mark and as we’re getting setup to round, I see an F18 barreling on the edge of control coming in on starboard. Recognizing they were going to potentially be a hazard, Karl and I shot low to leave us an exit strategy. The F18 ended up capsizing on top of the mark and I watched as their mast swung down right at us but landed safely in the water one foot behind our rudders! On the next downwind leg, Trey managed to hook into a good gust and ate up our lead. With the F18 still tangled in the A mark and pulling it away, the race committee put a mark boat in place with a “mark missing” flag (which means you round that boat instead of the mark). We were lucky that Karl saw this and alerted me to it and we correctly rounded the boat. Trey wasn’t so lucky and didn’t realize what was going on until he was some distance away. We covered Trey and safely sailed to a 1st in that race.

The 3rd and final race for the day, the wind was ON. We nearly missed the start but got in line and underway in decent shape. It was to be a short Course 5 (one lap) and the Nacra 20 fleet was galloping and huffing in the 18knots of breeze. We slipped back in the back but tacked in a big shift that put us smack on the layline and left the rest of the fleet way overstood. We rounded A in 1st and started downwind while we could see a big fleet equalizing wind line coming down the lake. The rest of the fleet ran us down in that wind line and we started jockying for position to get inside as the fleet all reached C mark at about the same time. Trey had gone to the right side and caught an advantage getting to C first and us second. We spent the next upwind leg trying to find a leg up to climb over Trey but we weren’t able to and finished 2nd.

So right now, Velocity is in 1st with 4 points and we’re in second with 5. Wick Smith and his ‘grandson’ Wick are joining us today (Wick had school stuff yesterday) and they have a lot of talent - it will be an interesting day.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

There’s a new product on the market callend Homekol Seal and Glide. If you can work through the Swedish instructions, you’ll find that this is a super slickery coating for spinnakers. It’s a two part, and apparently catalysing, concoction of some weird stuff. With any luck, it will make our spinnakers much easier to extract from the spinnaker snuffer systems we use on our cats. Before racing begins tomorrow we pooled our resources and coated four spinnakers with several portions the great stuff. We’ll see how it works tomorrow - the beginning of the Spring Fever Regatta. Note: David Strickland says “duhhh-huh”.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

It’s time for a little Spring Fever. Friday kicks off racing on Lake Hartwell in Georgia of one of the premier catamaran regattas in the country. The blue Team Seacats Nacra 20 is coming out to play. Although we’ve had t-shirt and shorts weather for the last two weeks, a cold front is going to come through dropping high temps into the 60’s. While it won’t be the most comfortable ever, the cold fronts usually bring breeze. Stay tuned, the RV is packed and the camera is onboard.

I appologize for not have much going on with the one meter - I’ve spent the last couple of evenings getting the RV ready for the season and packing up things for this event.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

It’s time to really start thinking about some of the big races we have coming up.  Last week, I took the cover off and spent an evening inspecting the blue Team Seacats Nacra 20.  Everything looks good except that I found one of the shroud tangs (a stainless steel plate that holds up the mast!) was loose in the hull.  I could wiggle it back and forth and side to side and lift it up and down almost 3/16″.  Not good.  I put in a call to Performance Catamarans and after a conversation with Jack, I had a better understanding of how this plate is configured.  The plate is t-shaped and has some holes through which some heavy fiberglass tow is run and resined to the hull.  Then a cover of some heavy knit fiberglass goes overtop of this to make it watertight. Because the plate is t-shaped, it really shouldn’t be much of a failure concern.  However, the fact that it wiggles around means that it can continue to wear to the point that it may be a concern.  For repair, my hope was that it was watertight and that I would be able to drill a couple of small holes in the side of the hull through which to apply vacuum and draw in epoxy resin…but I wasn’t quite so lucky.

The recess in the edge of the hull from which the plate protrudes forms a great spot to seal off for vacuum….but I had a problem…the plate was not sealed inside the hull.  I took my camera and extended my arm up to my shoulder to get some pictures to see what was happening (thank goodness we added the forward ports last year!). I also trickled some water from the top to see if I could figure out where the leak was.

In the left-most picture you can see a trickle of water coming out from under the bunji tube (this is where the trapeze retention bunji goes through the hull).  The leak is not the buji tube but is coming through the tang (this would explain why this hull was taking on a little water while under sail).  Above this area, you can see a glassed in plate where one of the spinnaker blocks screws to the deck and the vertical structure to the right in the left picture is the front of the daggerboard trunk.  After running some denatured alcohol through the tang to dry up the water, I mixed up some thickened epoxy and smeared it over this leak with a gloved hand.

 

After that setup, I was disappointed that I still hadn’t found all the leaks, so I resorted to plan “B”.  Instead of drawing a vacuum, I would pressurize a cup of epoxy and force it into the hull.  I think this will hold as a repair - at the very least, it should seal up the leaks so I can pull a vacuum on it next.  I put a piece of tubing inside a piece of plastic spiral wrap - the spiral wrap will keep the sealing clay from clogging up the exit of the tube and the narrow entry into the hull.  I then pressed in clay filling up the entire recess and sealing in the tube.  I then rigged up a cup with some more clay and a top plate, mixed up some epoxy, and lightly pressurized the cup forcing about 4 oz of epoxy resin cleanly into the hull.

I did eventually find the other opening in the fiberglass backing - it is definitely sealed now (it was at the top where it mates with the mounting plate for the spinnaker sheet block) and the tang is VERY firm in the hull.  I’ll be sailing this boat at Spring Fever next weekend so hopefully we’ll give it a good test.