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By now, Bruce Schwab's Open 60 is on it's way to Puerto Vallarta. Here is a shot of OP starting the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta race. As you know, Bruce and company will send us daily updates, and this is their first from after Saturday's start: Off and Running. very light air start. we came in to the line late with speed and tacked around the committee boat to head out for breeze. we were obviously faster in the light air upwind than everyone else. passed magnitude, merlin, almost all of the tp52's right away but lost a lot of ground with a mast rotator line snafu and subsequent bad tack. Then as soon as we got going again we broke a temporary' lashing under the furler drum (who forgot to replace that.) and had to change to our smaller working jib. no biggee as we still had to work upwind. we went outside the coronado island, while most of the fleet went below or between them. in the upwind conditions the old 83' maxi boat sorcery was fast and got in front of us. then wind went aft, we got the big doyle genniker going and we completely dusted them. don't know where mag and merlin are, they went below the islands and we lost sight of them. can't waittill tomorrow's check in to what's happening. it's good to be racing. Bruce and Ocean Planet
I had the chance to go down the day before their start and meet Bruce and the boys (and girl), and take a look at the boat. They were super busy getting last-minute stuff together and the boat was a bit of a mess, so I didn't want to delay their progress by nosing around too much. Suffice it to say that the thing is amazing: Easily the smallest 60' you are likely to see, being very narrow and designed for shorthanded sailing. The rig is so very different than anything you are used to: a carbon, rotating, unstayed, no spreader mast with a very unusual boom/boom vang arrangement. It is both simple and complicated at the same time. Take a look at the pictures and you'll see what I mean. Below, it is really set up for one man. The nav station greets you right away, and it is really all there is, outside of four pipe berths, water ballast tanks (up to 5,000 pounds per side) and a carbon fiber toilet and safety bar (to keep you from launching off the thing). Built of Spruce by Schooner Creek, the boat has something like three sealable bulkheads in the event of a crash. Note the cool Sparco racing seat. Bruce is gonna be spending a lot of time there, he might as well be comfortably strapped in like a race car driver!
I think that they'll beat everyone to PV as well. Stay tuned for their daily reports.
02/24/2002
We received OP's second report late Sunday afternoon. I guess you can't expect a new and different boat to be without it's share of problems, and they are apparently no exception. Funny how a boat that is built for singlehanding can end up more difficult than a 'normal' boat. When you go outside of the box, who knows what awaits! Let's hope they can get back in touch with the leaders and get in some breeze. I think we all want to know what she'll do. of salsa and dolphins
see
ya,
Gettin
betta
Sorry
to be so late with an update today, but the priority has been on getting
back into this race. After lousy first night where we wound up far behind,
I drove much of last night and today and put ressure on our crew to
trim more aggressively. This morning we had held even with Merlin and
lost just a bit more to Magnitude. There were several Transpac 52's
on the horizon ahead of us who we have ground down over the day and
are passing just now. One more is two miles ahead and then just Merlin
and Magnitude. Our rating which has us owing time to the two bigger
boats seems a bit optimistic on the part of the handicappers, but I
have no right to complain after spotting them so much of a lead on the
first night. Actually there are many boats up ahead that started a day
or more before us, but we don't care about them, just the big boats
that started with us. Everyone took my more serious attitude in stride
today. Now they are sleeping on the high side only, moving our gear
on jibes, etc. Having boats in sight and grinding them down is good
motivation. The best thing about finally racing some fast boats is the
chance for
learnin'
to keep'er burnin'
Welcome
sailors, to Open 60 sailing. Where intiution may not be your best guide
to fast sailing... For instance, in light air running, when you'd think
that you should throw all weight overboard, we are faster tanked up
with water ballast and sheeted in hard. The trick is to go as fast and
high as possible on the apparent wind. Takes some getting used to for
our crew (I can't drive all the time...). With more wind you can ease
the sheets and even dump ballast as you square up. Last night was beautiful,
with a full moon and warm, moderate air. At one point we flew by a boat
from the fleets that had started in the days before us like they were
standing still. What fun, they must have wondered: "Who in the
heck is that!?"
Mer.
and Mag. are turbosleds optimized for light-moderate offwind running
and have much more sail area than Ocean Planet. But we are lighter and
have the water ballast at our disposal. In the heavy running that OP
is designed for she will come alive, and of course you couldn't even
race Mer or Mag singlehanded in those conditions. And this race is far
from over, especially given the light easterlys that are predicted for
tomorrow. In very light air upwind OP is lethal, which we demonstrated
on the starting line saturday where we easily pulled away from all.
So our goal is to get positioned for the wind change and look forward
to the chance to strike back!
The Good, The Bad, and The Smelly What
a night (and day). Besides trying to sail fast, I was going nuts last
night about a strange crackling noise coming from somewhere around the
batteries near the keel. I spent hours (or at least the time between
the sail changes) checking the cabling, feel the batteries for heat,
and in general worrying that we were going to catch fire and sink.
No
answers, and no fire, so I quit fussing with that and went to our other
headache, trying to have the right sail up. Our big masthead kite doesn't
fly right on the genniker halyard, but still works ok if there is enough
wind. In the light spots, our "Borland" genniker (Borland
Software bought us this sail with a giant "Borland" on it)
works better and is much easier to deal with. So when the wind drops
down to 5-6knots, time to snuff the kite and go for a bald headed change
since the two sails now share the same halyard. Say
the wind is up to 10 knots after the change. In this much wind our best
VMG with the big kite is when sailing hot with some water in the ballast
tank. The wind soon picks up to 15+kts (hurray!) and you can ease the
sheets, dump the ballast water, and start to zoom along like a giant
skateboard. This lasts 15 minutes, the wind drops, in goes the water
ballast and grind in the sheets. Down to 5 knots a little later, out
goes the water, down comes the big kite which is now trying drag in
the water on the (too) low halyard, and switch back to the Borland genniker.
Oh, we got lifted, better gybe again too.... Repeat over and over until
dawn. This will be more fun singlehanded. Did I mention it's boiling
hot?
Relief
on several fronts this morning when we dangle a jibsheet from the bow
and I jump in to pull off the kelp that has these little mussel clams
hanging onto it that are making the clattering noise on the keel. The
threat of burning to the waterline is over, I'm cooler and smell better,
and we aren't giving kelp and mussels a free ride to PV. Beautiful
Frustration spectacular sunset, beautiful full moon, and warm light winds last night. as in really light winds. after we passed the tp 52's we set up just to the left (shoreward) side of them. hoping for a port jibe nightime header, we instead were lifted and lightened. a school of playful dolphins hung out and played with with us as we were slowly sucked into a vortex of sweltering still air. the dolphins seemed to think our misfortune was enormously entertaining and put on a great show jumping and splashing around us for hours. it took what seemed like an eternity to escape, but we did. in the dark we slowly sailed past several boats like they were anchored but we have no idea who they were. the sun has come up and there are at least 10 boats on the horizons. some are the earlier starts, some are the tp 52's, but we can't really see and will have to wait for the position reports. op at 6:45am pst: 21d 23n, 106d 53w. wind 1.1-1.4 knts, speed 1.1-1.7knts i plan on several bucket baths today.... bruce
Day
Six Overheated Headsails it is hot here, with variable or no wind. on top of that we are charging the batteries and i am sitting in the nav chair which is directly on top of the engine and alternator....nice and toasty warm....oops, gotta go. i'm back. wind came up some, so we have tacked and gotten rolling towards pv. eighty miles to go. boats are dropping out like flies. just behind us it looks like the sc 70 grand ilusion motoring with the main up. hopefully this bit of breeze won't quit, so we can make some tracks. the great thing about this boat is that we don't need much wind to cover a lot of miles, just something steady. turns out that while we did better than a lot of big boats last night, we sat for too long in our own private hot tub area hanging out with the dolphins. two of the tp 52's went way west and ditched us, and merlin and magnitude got away. this morning was a drift fest with the zephyrs constantly changing direction. the wind bestowed upon us now is from the south (so much for the spinnaker work), but allows us to sail prettty close to our desired course. hope it lasts, we could all use some margaritas. this is great sailing here when there is wind. time for a bucket bath. later, Day
Six here we sit.... flop.....flop....slat...rattle... just a few miles to go and no wind. we had a beautiful light afternoon breeze but didn't make it in time avoid the nighttime wind shutdown. oh well. the crew is settling in for what is effectively a night at anchor. i'm fried and am going to take a nap. wace wap up later.
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