First Reggata of the season

[Noah]

I'm leaving tomorrow at 4 am to head down to Annapolis for our first Melges 24 race of the season. I'm not sure how it is going to go seeing that the boat is brand new, never been sailed before and none of us have set foot on a boat since November.

At the same time maybe this is just the ticket to having a great time and kicking some butt! (Stranger things could happen) I hope there is plenty of wind and we can get in some good rides. There is nothing like planning down wind in a 24ft keel boat going 16 knots.

http://www.melges.com/24melges_2001new2.jpg

[John Bell]

Sounds like a blast! I've always wanted to sail on one of those in some wind and surfable waves. Here's hoping you get both.

:D

[mmd]

I'm envious. :( Good luck, have fun, kick butt!

[Noah]

Thanks guys, it should be fun.

The Melges 24 is a great boat. Tons of room in the cockpit to hang out, it goes like hell both upwind and down, regularly beating much larger racing boats, and it is simple to sail. Despite all that sail area there are no winches to grind and no ropes that you can't pull in with your own two hands. (Though sometimes that asymm spinnaker seems pretty big...) I have to say Carbon fiber as amazing stuff. The spinnaker pole weights next to nothing, and is strong enough to lift a 2500lb boat and 800lbs of rail meat out of the water and down wind really quickly.

If you ever show up in Burlington I'm sure we could go for a ride. (Though it might be more fun to go out on a wood boat...)

Noah

[Noah]

Well I'm back in one piece...

It was a fun weekend, but man am I tired. The drive took around 11 hours each way, and we sailed in between. Lots of wind on Sat (18-30 knots) which was a bit much for our first day on the water in 6 months.

We didn't do very well racing, but our tactics were good, and our sail handling was Ok.

The most interesting thing about competitive one design racing is how similar the boats are, and how this allows you to look at things like how a sail performs in different wind.

Sailing alone the performance of a Melges 24 is amazing, so we didn't know that our current race sail sucks. Our race sails are probably better than most sails out there, with only about 3 races on a very high tech high quality sail. The catch is that they were designed 3 years ago.

The current batch of sails are board-flat on the bottom half, then open up into a nice curved section up top. I would say that the America’s Cup boats have directly influenced these sails. The trickle down is that we now benefit from the technology. These newer designed sails allowed the other boats to point 5 degrees higher than us, and go faster while doing it. We were still very fast downwind, but this type of racing is won going upwind.

So what did we learn? The current thinking that trickled down from the America's Cup boats on sails really has created something that is much better than even the designs of 3 years ago. One Design racing in interesting because these subtle differences bring out large advantages in performance. This also means that you need cash to compete! A completely new suit of sails is around $7000. To be competitive you probably need to spend this every year. This isn't a poor man's sport.

But we had a good time, and hopefully through out the season we will do better. I'm not sure if and when the boat owner will be springing for new sails.

Noah

[ 04-14-2003, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: Noah ]

[John B]

thanks Noah. sounds like fun and those are interesting comments about the sails.

[Wild Wassa]

Originally posted by Noah:
"There is nothing like planning down wind in a 24ft keel boat going 16 knots."

How about 20+kts in a 12 footer, ... the Gwen 12.

Post every race Noah, and get the team superfit. The fitter you are the faster the boat. Don't go blaming the sails, :D .

Warren.

ps, I scored a 505 which I donated to the Sea Scouts earlier this year. The previous owner had bags of sails. Every year he bought a new set (it looked like). You either spend or lose, ... that's just at the little dinghy level, :rolleyes: .

[ 04-14-2003, 07:49 PM: Message edited by: Wild Wassa ]