All Packed up and ready to go

This is what Karma looks like when she is in travel mode. The hull covers are there to prevent the hull from getting damaged during the trip. They are a new addition to the program and will hopefully end up saving us time when traveling because we won't need to spend 2 hours cleaning the hull before every regatta. Geoff Davis is towing her north Thursday morning, so if you see him on I-5 headed north honk and wave, but please be careful when passing!

Adam Storey is going to bring his helmet camera to Elite Keel, and if the forecasts are right is should be blowing so hopefully we will get some cool video to post next week.

CRA Opening Day Regatta

On May 10, we sailed the CRA Opening Day Regatta. This was to serve as our last tune-up with our new main and jib. While our results don't show it, we had the best crew work out there. We passed boats with quicker gybe sets, better douses, and overall better boat handling. All of this still was not enough for us to make up our rating of 60 on a windward/leeward course. Crew for this race was:

Geoff Davis - jib trim
Bruce Harris - main trim
Christine Pai - bow
George Roland - helm
Adam Storey - spin trim

Our roll tacks and roll gybes were great, things are getting very smooth, now we just need to head up to SF next weekend and compete against some other Melges. Race 1 was pretty clean, and and the new sails did allow us to perform very well upwind, but we still had no chance in the 8-10 knots of breeze in holding off our competition. Race 2 we suffered on the second beat because we got bounced between two shifts and did about 4 extra tacks. Pics of the rest of the racing can be found here.

CRA Winter Regatta 08

CRA Winter Regatta 08

On February 9th, we participated in the CRA Winter Regatta. We had an okay showing for us, with a third in the first race, and a fourth in the second race. This placed us fourth overall. The picture above will link to a gallery of photos that Da-Woody took of our boat. Crew for the race was Adam Storey, Geoff Davis, and Ricardo Papa. We were about 100lbs light on crew weight which actually helped us the first race because it was extremely light air for the first half. While we had a horrible start and quickly got rolled by the fleet (my fault), we quickly made huge gains by setting the reaching spin allowing us to catch up downwind. Unfortunately the wind started to fill in and we have zero chance of holding our rating in the 5-10 knot range. The important thing was that we got around the course very cleanly and had a good time practicing our roll tacks and roll gybes.

The second race allowed us to make up for our first start, and we got away clean from the boat end, but could not hold off the bigger boats to the first windward mark. We gybed early to stay in the pressure while most boats went for the lighter pressure near the shore with less current. Unfortunately we could not hold off the two FT10s and they were able to pass us downwind and hold their rating. French Bread won convincingly by over a leg on the rest of the fleet.

Sunday was a practice day so Adam, Theresa, Ricardo and I took Karma out to do some drills. The day did not start off promising with the bay looking like a mirror, but the wind actually filled in and we were able to get the boat on a plane while working offshore a bit. We saw French Bread out practicing also, as well as Stealth Chicken doing some testing. Another great day was had by all aside from a slight sunburn to my back.

CRA Year End Regatta

On December 8th we raced the Cortez Racing Association Year End Regatta. We were greeted by cool weather and brisk breeze. With puffs into the 15 knot range we were able to get Karma on a plane a few times on the downwind. The first course was a 10 mile bay tour with the majority of the course a close reach. With it being too tight for the spin we were hurting for this race, but we did manage to pass a few boats once we got the kite up.

The second race was almost a direct windward/leeward type course, twice around, which was great for us. With a few tweaks to the rig, great downwind speed and some awesome crew work we were able to get a second in class. Unfortunately, there was a collision at the start of this race, so the results are still pending, which isn't that big of a deal, but the trophy was a bottle of champagne, which is something Theresa and I can always use. More photos here.

Hot Rum #1

On Sunday we raced San Diego Yacht Club's Hot Rum Race. This was the first of a three race series that consists of an 11.3 mile course out San Diego Bay, down the coast, and then back. This is a pursuit start with boats starting according to their ratings, so the finish order is your position.
We ended up 13th out of 33 in our class, and 58th out of 131 overall. We had a great downwind run but not quite enough wind to get on a plane which would have helped us greatly. Christine, Theresa, Adam, and Ricardo all did a great job getting the boat around the course. The next race is in two weeks and Karma is in the yard getting some blisters repaired on the keel bulb.
Good take-aways from this race -
1) We beat did very well in relation to all the other sport boats racing with us.
2) The new speedo helped our a lot during the race.
3) Crew work was excellent, now if only the helmsman could keep up...

Other pics here.

Races to be sailed in San Francisco

Although the dates are not yet posted, these are the races we are going to try to do in SF:
Spring Keel - StFYC
Resin Regatta- SFYC
Delta Ditch Run - Stockton YC

These are the 3 big ones right now, I will continue to update as information becomes available.

Proposed Schedule

The 2008 one-design season is approaching, so here is our tentative schedule:

2007:
October 27th-28th - Practice Weekend
November 4th - Hot Rum #1 (fun race)
November 18th - Hot Rum #2 (fun race)
December 2nd - Hot Rum #3 (fun race)

2008:
January 12th-13th - Practice Weekend
February 9th-10th - Practice Weekend
March - June - Boat in SF for one-design races (schedule is not posted yet)
June 27th-29th - Long Beach Race Week
October 20th-26th - North American's (Annapolis)