Hi All,
Tomorrow (4/17/04) I will be sailing onboard Bill Gibb's Afterburner (52 ft Bladerunner cat) to deliver her to Newport Beach in preparation for the Ensenada Mexico race the following week. I will bringing my Ham-based tracking system on board tomorrow. If you would like to follow our progress to Newport during the day, here is the URL to use:
We intend to leave the Ventura harbor slip around 7 am (PST). Forecast is light winds and chance of rain.
DISCLAIMER:
Please remember that Ham radio is considered experimental and that this system should not be used as an emergency locator since many things need to go right for the position reports to get out to the internet. If you see us "standing still" for long periods of time (even hours) don't call in the Coast Guard...it's very likely the transmitter has shut down or we are out of range of the receiver towers.
Cheers!
Mike Dobbs
Newport to Ensenada Race starts Friday. We may not make the race due to a rudder being sheared off and the other damaged during the transit to Newport on Saturday. We are awaiting news of the arrival of a replacement set from New Zealand.
If we get them, tracker will again be used. Here are some additional links to it:
Last position on an aerial photo of region
Expect to see signals starting Friday around ~11:00 AM PST. Race start should be around 11:20 AM. We expect to finish ~10 hours later if winds are good. We plan to start our return sail home to Ventura either early or late on Sunday, depending if we decide to hang around for the awards ceremony. We expect two days to make the trip up the coast to home.
DISCLAIMER:
Please remember that Ham radio is considered experimental and that this system should not be used as an emergency locator since many things need to go right for the position reports to get out to the internet. Also there are bound to be places where the signals we send out can't reach a receiver tower, especially in Mexico (are there any receivers there?). So, if you see us "standing still" for long periods of time (even hours or days) don't call in the Coast Guard...it's very likely the transmitter has shut down or we are out of range of the receiver towers.
Cheers!
Mike.
how did the rudder get sheared off?
We're pretty sure it didn't hit anything. We inspected the remaining section and you could see dark patches in the end grain of the forward wooden spar section. We suspect previous water intrusion lead to weaking of the wood. The conditions during the transit to Newport was about the highest loading we'd placed on the blades in many months. it was also the first high loads since increasing blade rake to 5 degrees forward. The consensus aboard was that we lost the leeward blade while reaching when owner/helmsman reported a strange, sudden noise. We inspected both rudder trunks, hinge ponts and tiller assemblies as much as possible above the water line and could not see and problems. We carried on with no reported change in rudder feel. There was more tendency to ventilate the windward blade, but at the time we put this down to the additional rake, making it easier to reach the ventilation point of the blades. After about 3 hours more sailing, helmsman reported he could not see a blade below the waterline on the leeward side...we were only ~30 min from Newport so we soldiered on in. Windward blade showed a compression crack along the inboard side where it lexited the rudder trunk...we think due to the additional loads it was carrying after the leeward blade departed.
We had replacement blades in time for the race (4 business days later delivered from New Zealand). We swept the event...winning all categories we were eligible for (6 trophies in all!).
Mike.