So ok Vee Jay is paired up with a Santa Cruz 37 and a Tartan 4100 for a 100 mile mid distance off shore race in the Gulf last weekend. ANOTHER one of those dumb "all spin boats" divisions in a PHRF regatta.

1. Corrected times:
4100 ... 515.83 Phrf 108 [elasped @ 677.83]
J30 ... 576.58 Phrf 147 cruising roller furling [elapsed @ 797.08]
Santa Cruz ... 595.42 Phrf 30 [elapsed @ 640.42]

Consider this: J30 GPS average speed up and back in this overnight race was 6.9 kts. with wind over 20 kts and a tight to beam reach most of the way. no spin legs

Can anyone attempt to explain how a J30 has to go over hull speed for over 13 straight hours and can lose to a a Tartan 4100?

Vee Jay gps specs.
start 4.05, finish 5.22 13 hr 17 min, 103 miles
average speed ~6.9kt.
2200 track points.

4100 went over hull speed the whole way too?

considering the Santa Cruz with 7 on board corrected more in line and that's a light boat ... i think it would be hard for a 4100 to break hull speed very much. The Santa Cruz needless to say were disappointed by a J30 beating them on corrected time ... like we should have our phrf reviewed. You don't want to think about what a Santa Cruz costs. we could do a fleet of J30s for that.

this was a straight follow the GPS race. No real tactics ... but from the gps track and course you can see we did go a touch rich were we could above the line. senior crew running the boat were 72, 70, 68, 66 with three younsters over 50. (one of the youngsters is our crew doc with 15 years in an emergency room)

http://captainvic.com/BocaTrack09.pdf
wind NE to Eish for 13 hrs. 20+
course goes counter clock

11 Feet on the waterline is a great asset in a drag race. Particularly when the breeze is on and there is chop.

Also on distance races it puts the premium on how well you drive, not so much on boat handling. If they can drive a few degrees better than you, that translates into pretty large distances at the finish.

Once you get past one-design and windward leewards, it's time to think beyond class sail inventory. I have an A -sail perfect for the wind conditions you discribed (code three I think) the crew appropriately nicknamed it Code Blue! It will typically deliver 1/2 to 1 knot faster than the head sail in 60 to 90 degrees apparant.

follow up notes:
1. Tartan 4100 sustained winch in water broach near Boca Grande ... probably because of driver fatique. Vee Jay was changing drivers quite often during night. Conditions like that are harder on tiller boats but I think we can correct faster than wheel boats if we are fresh. We noted that boat's lights going seriously off course while recovering and wondered what happened.
2. Santa Cruz 37 ... high tech carbon boat ... apparently suffers "our" kind of wave bashing drops in speed. While they were able to fly spin for about 30 min hitting 13 kts on short west leg close to Sanibel shore {flat seas}, the angle was just a bit too tight for sym spin.
... they suffered badly off shore as Vee Jay did bashing into waves ... and Vee Jay was able to correct ahead of them even with their half hour at ~12.

Vee Jay has rare episodes of being competitive with A sail boats ... now including Santa Cruz 37, J105, and Melges 24s. It's these stupid WL athelete required crew races that kill us.