At the Clear Lake Wed Night races yesterday I was reminded of how beautiful spinnakers can be flying in the wind.
It would be great to see some photos or even videos of Waves with these Hooters actually in action

We had our local fleet races last night around the standard Wave triangle with a windward leeward course.

I tried to stay out of the way of the rest of the boats, not passing to windward or contesting mark roundings.

Wind was 6-12 and shifty.

Upwind the boat clearly makes better VMG with the sail furled. The added windage makes it slightly slower than a "clean" Wave.

On reaches it is clearly faster, the windier it gets, the more the speed advantage.

Dead down wind you cannot make enough VMG to catch a Wave running free.

Any advantage I gained on the reaches was lost at mark roundings because there is so much extra to do.

In my opinion, these sails are great for showing off and reaching back and forth with a lot of excitement. On a distance race with mostly reaching, it will outsail its handicap.

Rick claims his "hooter" will sail as fast and point as high (which isn't very high BTW) as a Hobie 16.

I don't believe it, but we will do some one on one testing, perhaps next week.

Rick and I at Put-In-Bay yesterday ready to go "mono on mono".

However, Rick is still in the developing stages of his new rig and had trouble getting enough luff tension on the hooter.

He needs to lower the pole and I think it will be fine.

Mine has a shorter luff so I can get it pretty tight. That is needed to get it to furl properly.

Someone asked if you can sail with it partly unfurled and the answer is NO...absolutely not. It is either all in or all out. That is because the top tends to roll out more material than the bottom which is restrained but the furler drum. Trust me, it doesn't work well partly unfurled.

After Rick came back in to reconsider his design, I went out in 8-12 knots and sailed for several hours.

It is really amazing the speed that develops on a beam to broad reach. The boat literally leaps out of the water and skips over the waves. Note that this is in the famous Lake Erie chop.

There is no hope to gain an advantage upwind compared to a uni-rig Wave, opinion.

Thanks Jack,
Very interesting summation.....I bet it is Fun to Play with on reaches....How did you do on the Mug Race with it on handicap???

I havent' done much sailing, other than the Wed. night wave racing....We had some bad luck...We went Paddleboarding on Lake Austin, and my wife Tammy decided to Swing off a rope swing, but forgot to lift her legs and Hit the lower set of Rocks, Breaking her leg...she could feel the lake water going in her leg...she also broke her wrist and had to have a 8 hour surgery on it to rebuild it.....so we are sort of shut down for 8 weeks at least....Full titanium rod from Knee to ankle.....She ain't a happy camper.

Mark Milam
Lafayette, La.
Wave # 113

Any news from the Put in Bay races ?

Got stormed out the last day, but still got in 9 races. Doug Seib and I tied for first, broke in his favor. Jim Glanden was 3rd, followed by John Sherry, Ray Matuszak, Jack Woehrle, Betty Bliss, Mark Scarpelli, Steve Abbey, Michelle Marman, Mike Powers, Peter Murray, Dick Bliss and Matt Wirth

Parties were awesome as usual.

Thanks!

Any updates on Rick vs. Jack? I'm close to pulling the trigger on a Wave and need info.

TIA

Neither ofus working on it. However, my original Hooter System worked far better than either Jack's or my Super Hooter. Took 2nd overall in Conch Cup with around 55 boats and passed most of the H16 fleet.
Won the Around the Bay Race (60 boats) by 15 minutes on corrected time.

With the Super Hooter a few years ago I was passing a H20 when it exploded.., or imploded -- bow sprit was not beefy enough for all that load.