First day,
Still was working on getting the boat rigged somewhat quickly, wasn't quick at all, missed most of my practice time because I was trying to hurry and missed some things that just made it longer, lesson learned, practice makes things a lot speedier, most of the times that I rigged prior to that I had a decent amount of help, as helpful as that is, nothing beats learning the hard way sometimes.
Conditions were about 15 knots constant and super shifty and gusty. I'm sailing solo on this day. Sweet!
I finally get out to the course knowing that the horn had gone off at least once or twice (and we had two starts one for f-18 and one for portsmouth), while on the water checking my boat for everything and feeling out the wind I made a big mistake, I cleated my mainsheet, next thing I knew I got a big blow then I was in the drink.
Couldn't get her righted solo so a buddy stopped and had his crew help me. Great start dummy.
Not knowing what the race status was I went by the committee boat to check in, when I said, where are we at in the race, I got looked at like I was speaking a crazy ass language, ok, so I looked around and figured it out, I had a couple minutes until the first race started.
Here we go,
first race, sailing pretty conservatively down in the bottom three of the fleet but upright, headed to c mark i decide to gybe, made the same mistake, cleated mainsheet plus I didn't really have enough speed = back in the drink, had to get help DNF on the first race. For the record I was the only boat that capsized on the first race don't worry it gets better for real not sarcasm.
I did learn that there was a small leak in my mast which is now fixed and I made some changes to my righting line, mainly adding some knots so that I can hold onto to it better, good grip is key when trying to right a boat solo, so I learned. That and pointing the boat to get help from the wind lifting it.
We raced 3 more races 4 total, ended up in a tie for third out of 6 in the novice fleet, managed to stay upright in the last three races and do ok, learned a lot from the first two. The thing that I'm happy with, in the last three races 7 more boats capsized, while I was able to keep it upright and be in some kind of proximity to the crowd. Main thing, DIDN'T cleat the main sheet anymore, saved my ass a few times.
Second day,
Short story, got out the to start line, no wind abandoned races, paddle to shore, or as I call it, SUCP'ing stand up catamaran paddling.
Still got a lot to learn but it was a blast, looking forward to a lot more and being much more competitive in the near future, been learning a lot from the helpful veterans on Austin lake. They are definitely inspiring.
Also a big thanks to a lot of the info that i picked up on here
Here are just a few pics:
Edited by cezo823 on Jun 29, 2012 - 10:31 PM.
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Cesar (Cez) S.
Hobie 16 (had a few)
Nacra 5.2 "Hull Yeah"
Vectorworks XJ - A class (not named yet)
West Michigan (Grand Rapids/Holland Area)
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