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The course set turned out to be about 5 boat lengths too long for the dying breeze. Mousetrap needed about 1 minute but instead we ended up hanging out until 3 on Sunday. The sea breeze never filled enough to get anything off. It might have been all that praying from White Boat.

Looks like Sat was a hoot. SA has a nice front page shot of Whiteboat.
http://www.sailinganarchy.com

The photos look like a ton of breeze.

DB

[This message has been edited by dbows (edited 10-01-2007).]

The racing was terrific. Everything from 25+ down to 5 and less, perfect weather, lots of challenging tactical calls. Nobody seemed to have a perfect read on the conditions-thus the seesaw standings. I can't remember another NA regatta where the two top finishers never scored a bullet.

The abandoned race (which had a fair and competitive upwind) would have probably significantly changed the results.

Hats off to White Boat, thanks to AYC for a very well run regatta, thanks to the weather gods for the great sailing conditions.

Without a dominant boat (like Zephyr had been)... it looked more like a college regatta where onsistency pays off.

Who won the amateur trophy?

Who better to take home the amateur trophy than Better Mousetrap, tied in points with White Boat.

We're not hearing much from the winners so here's what I know. I don't get to look around as much as I used to now that I have the stick, so I didn't see all of what happened. Some of this strictly second or third hand. Six different boats each won a race and none finished in the top three.

Friday Race 1 was two hot dogs NW 8-10 building to 14 with some gusts probably to 18 on the final run. As the pack of starboard tackers are charging down the line, Cannonball appears to stuff it at the pin, tacking to port. That ball on the side of their hull makes a good target, but somehow Valhalla misses. Don't know if they did turns or just restarted but later took a penalty. We were ping-ponged that race so I have no idea how Circus or others got or kept the lead.

Friday Race 2, NW 14-17 with gusts over 20. Same course, mark moved 15 left, so locals bang the left corner while the breeze goes right twenty degrees. Out-of-towners Smiles and Blue Meanie in the early lead.

Friday Race 3 NW 15-22, 5-legs, #3 weather, though it lightened enough to carry the #1 on the second beat. Many also carried on the third beat in 22-24 with gusts higher. During the countdown Smiles on port nails Fat City (on loaner Dreamboat) near the RC launching one of Smiles crew overboard in the middle of five or six boats. Fuzzy Wuzzy scoops him up and sails the race with him below--that's Rule #1 and fine sportsmanship. Fuzzy finishes the day in the lead at 4-4-4, Better Mousetrap second with 3-5-5.

More tomorrow if I can remember what happened on Saturday. It's a bit of blur right now.

Just to add a couple of other comments:

Race 1: Cannonball not only fouled Valhalla but also fouled Fat City (P/S) at the start, forcing Fat City to duck to avoid a collision and tap the pin while ducking. The worst part about the whole sequence was at the protest arbitration, a person from Cannonball said to the Fat City rep "We knew we f&#@ed you but we f&#@ed them worse!"... so they KNEW they fouled but did not do a 720 in either incident! Not what I'm used to against J/30 sailors...They took the 40% penalty for both incidents.

Race 3: 5 legs. Most boats started with a #3, the wind dipped a bit and many changed to a #1 on the second leg, wind back up and some changed back to a #3 and some stayed with #1. Fat City stayed with the #3 and went from about 15th to 6th. Part of it was a shift to the right but we were trailing a boat with a one and you could see them going sideways...

The collision between Fat City and Smiles was very scary. The boats hit bow to bow and I'm amazed the rigs stayed up. The bowman on Smiles got launched into the air and landed in the water just on Fat City's stbd side. I was on the stbd rail and tried to reach down to grab him as he went by. Unfortunately, I did not notice that Smiles had spun around because of the collision and was about to bump port side to FC stdb side. By a stroke of luck, the MOB was just far enough aft to not get caught between the colliding boats but it was terrifyingly close! I also took Smiles' boom to the head as it jibed around. A bit stunned and dazed for a few minutes but no injury... I'm not sure the boom was so lucky

More on the close encounter between Smiles & Fat City...

I put together a few pictures that show the damage, repairs, and sailing the next day. Here is a link to the file: http://members.cox.net/kneller/Smiles-J30-Voyage-Repairs.pdf

Russell Dunleavy was on the bow and ended up getting catapulted about 4 feet in the air, fortunately coming down in the water clear of hitting anything. He saw the traffic around Fat City & Smiles and had the good sense to dive below the boats preventing being potentially squeezed between them. It turns out he got a nasty gash on the back of his leg that should really have been stitched. He just treated it with alcohol.... administered orally once he got back. The bow pulpit creased where he was sitting and we suspect the sharp edge there is what cut the back of his leg.

I was on the port side of Smiles and when the impact occurred, ended up on by back, head aft with left leg and arm and body in the water. My right foot was curled on the teak rail, and I was trying to pull myself up with the lower lifeline...which was now slack due to the bent pulpit. I managed to pull myself onboard before I saw the stbd side of another boat real close - it's all a blur but I think it was Fat City as Smiles & Fat City almost met again beam to beam.

Once back on the boat I went to the bow so we could drop the sails. It wasn't until the jib was on its way down that we noticed that the head stay had been sheered off in the center of the turnbuckle. Fortunately we were heading off the wind so the main was pushing the mast forward. We took the spare jib halyard, fastened it to the bow and winched it tight to put tension on the rig, preventing it from coming down.

The J/30 community is great in helping to come up with parts and assistance to get back on the water. John was able to get a loaner bow pulpit (it too was already bent and needed repairs). This was bolted with aluminum plates on both sides of the deck to provide support where the deck was destroyed (old hardware pulled through the core). A new headstay made and and delivered by 8:30pm, but we waited until it was light the next morning before sending John's brother Chris up the mast to attach it.

The lifelines were too long with with replacement bow pulpit, so John picked up some of the finest Chinese hose clamps he could find. We used these to stretch and fasten the lifelines to the aft rail. The finish work was completed using a roll of red duct tape. This was used to seal the hole and exposed glass on the port bow, and protect the sharp edges on the hose clamps.

This incident aside, the NAs were a real blast. Thanks go to the Naptown organizers and to John McArthur for letting me ride with the Smiles crew - a great group to sail with. If you have to pick somebody to have a collision with, I can't think of a better person than Carl Sherter! We met at Fat City's "Safe House" the next day after sailing, before heading out to the AYC dinner. The liquid refreshment made the story told from everyone's vantage point much clearer (not).

It was great to put some faces to the names of people I've corresponded with on this forum. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the 2008 North Americans on Narragansett Bay to be hosted by Bristol Yacht Club 19-21 September. See you in RI next year!

Bill

"I managed to pull myself onboard before I saw the stbd side of another boat real close - it's all a blur but I think it was Fat City as Smiles & Fat City almost met again beam to beam."

Bill, take out the word almost... no doubt that they met beam to beam... with a sickening hollow crunching noise...

As posted elsewhere...
Cannonball pulls together their NA winning crew and sailmaker from way back in 1993. New genoa, but old main and older chute. Without the DSQ, their line of 14+7 (40%), 2, 2 (DSQ), 12, 1, 3 is a winner. Seventh race they are second at the weather mark before it was abandoned. Race 3, they're second across the line but get tossed, I don't know what for. Then they're back in the room Saturday night. I saw Avita and Kahuna do turns, bet there were others. Doesn't seem so hard to me.