Steve, congrats to you and the Blue Meanie crew. How about a report on what it takes to win. Anything new this year, sails, technique, strategy? Or was it the culmination of sailing ten plus NA's with many of the same crew?
I'm sure Steve will have a lot to add when he comes back to earth (and comes back from internet-free-Maine), but I can shed some light on what was different this year.
What we had: Teamwork, prep, good tactics, and luck.
Sails: The main and chute were new at the beginning of this year, but had plenty of use from 10+ Wednesday nights, the Cedar Point one-design, various weekend races, and our Red Grant regatta. The #1, I think, was delivered at last year's NA's. The #3 is 4-5 years old, shedding mylar in patches, but still holds a pretty decent shape. It's ratty enough that the top batten separated the leech from 2 panels of the chute on the first hoist of Race 4. Luck: It held through that run, and as we were coming in at the end of the day a sailmaker (Pyramid Sails?) happens to come up alongside...and had the repair done by 9 am Saturday.
Prep: We replaced every halyard this year (had to - broke 'em all at Cedar Point). We sorted out mainsheet, vang, outhaul, and foreguy issues, all of which were fairly minor but allowed for somewhat quicker responses and better weight distribution. Oh and we templated the keel, using the templates previously used on Bayou Bleu and Fuzzy Wuzzy. Much better performance, both upwind and down.
Teamwork: As you say, we've been sailing together a long time, and a lot. We race every Wednesday night and many weekends. We still screw up, but also recover very well. We party well together, too. (PLUG: The ragatta sponsor Biba was instrumental in our recovery each morning. It mixes well with tequila. Thank you BYC for having a noon start!)
Tactics: Steve Lopez last did the NA's with us in Bristol, our previous-high finish. He picked out virtually every shift (except that last big one on Sunday - go figure) and had us endlessly tweaking settings to get that last ooch of speed/point. He also kept Buzbee concentrating on steering instead of everything else.
We obsessed over rig tune and weight distribution. With the changing conditions we missed the perfect rig tune settings quite a bit, but constatly adjusted what we could to optimize speed.
Junk out of the trunk. I think transferring the gin and vodka to plastic travel bottles was the big gainer.
