I posted this on Twitter several weeks ago, for those that don’t follow that stuff check this out.

My boat hangs on a lift over  the water most of the time as many others do. I am near the end of the pier system so I seem to pick up more boat dings from fishing boats and new sailors than others.  One day I got a huge ding, gouge and I was… livid, as anyone else would be if they had paid good money for a great fairing  job or spent time doing it themselves.  So I went on a mission to find something to protect my rudder’s trailing edge.  Barbed wire and small mines were overruled by the JYC harbor committee as they believe this would be too aggressive.

So I went to Walmart and purchased a toy pool noodle for $2.  I also bought some small line to attach it.  The key here is to buy the noodle with a hole through the center of it.  Use a sharp knife or razor and slice straight down one side of the noodle to the center hole to split the noodle open.  Don’t worry if you aren’t exactly straight with your cut, it will work anyway.   Now punch a couple of holes between the back edge of the center hole and the new aft edge of the Rumper to thread the line through. You’ll need 2 pieces of line about 18-24″ long for this.  Punch one through up high above the waterline on the rudder near the head, and one down low to hold the bottom part of the Rumper.

To attach, first slide the Rumper onto the top of the trailing edge of the rudder. Tie the first line (at the bottom of the Rumper) around the rudder blade loosely so it can slide down.  Now get your tiller extension.  As you push the Rumper down the trailing edge it will try to slide off, use the grip end of the tiller extension to lightly tap the Rumper back in place and keep sliding it down until you reach the bottom of the rudder.  (This is really easier than it sounds.)  Tie off the top of the Rumper to the rudder head and you’re done.

Tips:

1. Make sure the rudder is out of the water when installing and removing.  The Rumper is really buoyant.
2. After you have positioned the line in the Rumper, tie small stopper knots on either side of the Rumper to make it difficult for “boat guests” to pull out the line or you’ll have to re-thread.
3. When removing, untie the top line first. Then just push the whole Rumper off  the bottom of the rudder. Use the tiller extension to help push down the line at the bottom as it will try to bind. No need to have crew hold you by your feet while you untie it.
4. If the boat feels sluggish on the first beat, make sure you have removed the Rumper.

It’s that time for the GCC at PCYC! July 25-26. Those that made it over for the Birthday Regatta got a nice little warm up weekend. The rest of us will have to learn as we go. Swift currents are in store I am sure.
From JYC we will have Supper Club, Fresh Aire and Dynamo Humm returning to defend her championship from last year. Looks like we are expecting around 17 boats. See you all there.

The first weekend of SOC is underway at PCYC. Looking for an update from the crew over there. After Day One, Wild Tchop was in the lead, Zak Fanberg driving. As I understand LeBlanc and Wientjes not to far back either.

Pictures from Saturday

Looking for results…

So continuing the saga of last Sunday’s race and Robert “Solid Gold” Muller and Jim “007″ O’Daniel’s tactical genius at being in the right place at the right time. Even though the race was essentially a bust from the first gun, the RC tried to do a course change on the third leg which created a lot of controversy at the J/22 race apre’ table.  I welcome comments on this, but let’s keep the trash talk to a minimum.  I hate having to turn off comments on this blog. “I’ve got a DELETE key and I’m not afraid to use it!”

So here’s the scenario, the actual headings are simplified for illustration.

The course is intended to be a four leg W-L-W-L, all marks left to port. Weather mark is at 90 degrees .65 miles away. Winds are very shifty, there is a chance for thunderstorms in the forecast. Just after the start the wind shifts to about 50 degrees true, all boats are laying the weather mark. The wind is continuing to back as we are approaching the first “weather” mark.  As we round the wind continues to back even more and build to about 10-12kts. Carrying a chute to the “leeward” mark is impossible, the heading to L is 270. We all are close-reaching under jib and main only.   As we are approaching the leeward mark, the RC makes a course change signal and scrambles off to drop the new weather mark. The new mark lays roughly at 320 degrees.   The lead boat, Muller/O’Daniel leave the mark to port and make a hairpin turn, loop, around the leeward mark then head off on a beat to the next weather mark.  All competitors execute the same maneuver.  Amazingly there was no fiberglass exchanged. It looked like the Jackson State Sonic Boom (marching band) executing one of their intricate marching exhibitions. See if you can envision, boats bow to stern turn around a mark performing a 270 degree turn most within the “zone” and then off to the new weather mark. The first boat that “misses” the hole creates a massive I-55 pile up.

Here’s the question: Were these boats required to do this hairpin turn around the mark or could they have just gone direct to the new weather mark, making sure they left the leeward mark to port?   Comments please!

If any of you think that you have a shot at taking the Spring Series away from the double-hand team of Muller-O’Daniel then you are too late.  This crew has managed to sneak by everyone winning 7 of 7 races this season.  Seven out of Seven! 7:7! They only needed 6 to qualify.  So as I said, this one is done. Now they are on the march to win the year, they have a huge leg up.  There is no doubt double-handing has its advantages and will continue to work for them through the summer doldrums.

This past Sunday’s race I was prepared to stop this streak when the wind shifted 90 degrees and started fading during the sequence and left Muller-O’Daniel sitting on the pin end in the perfect position for the start. How do they do that!?!  Then the wind shifts back about 100 yards after the start so they can lay the weather mark as everyon can now but they are bow out and getting the first puffs.  More on this in a follow on article.  (See “What’s the rule?”)

Looks like it is going to blow on Saturday, not so much on Sunday. Bring your pads, get in, sit down, and hang on!
Last year’s Scot racing had lots of broken gear. I hope we can avoid that this year. Dale Currie is PRO so we know he’ll be watching out for us.
No J/22 racing this weekend.

March 28-29 JYC Annual Spring Fling Regatta. PHRF and One-Design Sailing. Judging by the forecast there will be brisk breeze (15-17mph) with gusts over 21. Temps in the low 60’s, slight chance of rain early.  This weekend I will try something new for the regatta.  I will attempt some short tweets using this cool Twitter tool available from WordPress.  It might work or it might not. Watch the side bar “Current Tweets” for one handed updates.
NOR

This weekend is the last Winter Series race. I think Team White Boat has it all locked up. Lots of bullets and second place finishes. So the battle is for second between Blew Bayou2 and Fresh Aire. Every race counts when it gets near the end of the series because of the way JYC scores the series.
We only count the best six races of an 11 or 12 race series. So if you race a lot, you have the opportunity to throw out a bad race. If you have 6 races in the bag and one of them is a 5th or 6th then a bullet or a second place finish makes a huge difference. Of course you have to score well is the others too. But my point is, near the end of the series everyone is jockeying for an improved score.
Stay tuned for the results from Sunday. I’ll add this link for the results, but it may not work for everyone.

Winter Series Scores

Races were postponed this morning with winds around 30 knots. Left the dock about 3:00PM and got one race off with winds around 10-12. Ended up to be a beautiful day.

We were DFL at the start in dirty air. Tacked out early and stayed in the middle. Killed some boats on the first run and rounded about mid fleet. Missed taking a boats rudder off by about 6 inches at the leeward mark rounding. Sat in dirt behind Bolyard again then tacked away (mistake #1). The rig was tuned perfect and our boat speed was better than most. Missed the shift on the left on the next run and lost a few boats (better rounding though). Came into the finish on starboard and forced some port boats to take our stern. Shot the finish line and won against the other two. Never had so much fun moving at 5 knots. Still in 21^st and lighter winds coming tomorrow (we hope).

We noticed our jib was puckering a little at the tack/foot but pro/sail maker/world champion Greg Fisher said it was just right. We are feeling great and having much more fun with manageable wind speeds. I felt so good I picked up a free J/22 shirt for Johnny V. Bish is counting his bruises on foredeck and Jim is calm, cool and collected and trying to get me in the first row of a start.

Results

Wind was 15-25 mph. Big chop and big wind. All our good starts were general recalls. During the second race we death rolled and the spinnaker went under the boat. However, we recovered and still beat six (6) boats in that race. Not a big deal because team Dave Bolyard went over in the same shift and barley escaped the same fate.  We are 21st of 30 boats right now. So far we have not hit any marks or boats. They are calling for more of the same for tomorrow.

Results