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)

Long Beach Race Week

 

So we went up to Long Beach and sailed Long Beach Race Week. Needless to say it was a little humbling. Our first true one-design in light air, and it showed. We learned a lot and were a lot quicker towards the end of the regatta, but we have realized that to truly compete against the others (most have pros onboard) we are going to need to step up our program. We are going to start to do more two boat testing and are also going to be hiring a coach to get us up to speed. We did have one moment of glory, we won the start and were able to keep in contact with Ullman for two legs of the race. There were positives, and I don't intend to sound negative. We are still having a lot of fun, we have just realized that as a new team we are going to need to step up our game a little more to progress in the standings more quickly. Thanks again to Mike, Adam and Geoff for crewing this regatta. Pictures can be found here.

Video of the 2007 Worlds

Adam compiled this video with a helmet cam we had on board during worlds. Good times, and it does a good job of letting you see what doing 20 knots downwind on a 24 foot feels like.

More Worlds Photos

Dave has posted his photos of worlds on Picasa. A link can be found here. Thanks for the photos Dave.

CRA Beer Can #3

We missed Beer Can #2 because that thing called "work" got in the way and I had to go flying. We did get to race this last Wednesday though. We did okay. Moderate breeze, but not enough to plane is bad for us in our class. A great start and great driving by Adam though helped us to come away with a good finish and to also do very well over the other Melges. Results. Pictures courtesy of Da-Woody. A great time was had, and the Karma crew definitely represented at the after party. Tomorrow is another race, and then Saturday we are prepping the boat to go to Long Beach to go do some one-design action against some of the best guys in the class.