Along with a few other team sites, Bonnie will be doing her usual reporting and updating from the beam for Team Seacats this year. Don't miss the "love-bug" report up now.

www.teamseacats.com

Make it part of your rotation. Jen and I will be posting updates on www.velocitysailing.com as well.

I love Bonnie's writing style!

Tad, I have to second that! Bonnie is a terrific writer! I'll look forward to your reports too! My thanks to you all. As a mostly armchair sailor, I love this event and really rely on the wonderful reports from you folks!

Jake, Sorry! I forgot to wish you luck! I don't know how you can do this so soon after the Alter Cup! Be as safe as you can out there! Wishing all a safe race! Good luck Seacats!

I look forward to the reports and wish everyone fair winds and a safe event.

DITTO

That raises a question in my mind: If the race were guaranteed of having fair winds and being safe, would more people do it or would fewer people do it?

I know Tad said only Jen and him were allowed to post, but Alan, Allison, and I just put up a report for today. More to come......

Derek, Alan, and Jen, Thanks! That was a fun post work read to come home to! Tad, Very cool to have chartered your boat to Meesha. This should make things even more exciting...

Its not my boat anymore... at least, its not the same one that I sent down to Hollywood.

Apparently Mischa and co. took it down to its bare rivets. Fixed some leaks, re-seated beams, all kinds of stuff. I feel like I should be paying HIM.

Apparently Mischa does that to any charter boat he gets. He was sawing off and re-riviting the rudder arms last night. (one was nearly broken in two inside the casting!).

Yeah,

How I was supposed to know that was there, I have no idea.



Shoot, let Mischa know if he wants to post on our website I'll let him. His mast still has our URL on it right? :P

Just for future reference, Derek, Allie, Jen, Ryan, Ray, and any relatives thereof of TVS may make updates to the website. I've spoken to the lawyers, and they said its fine, even though I had to give them the goat for payment.

Don't they have some kind of x-ray or ultrasound machines that can detect metal defects or breaks? If not, somebody should invent it. It would be nice to know in advance when a bolt is weakening or a stay is about to break, without taking the whole boat apart and putting it back together. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to run your boat through a big MRI machine at the beginning of each season to find out all the potential problems and weak points?

Sorry, just a rhetorical question. I'm not trying to put the thread on a tangent. Can't help myself when I think of something, even when it's probably silly.

The boats are off to round Fowley Light. Updates on both seacats and velocity.

Also check out the photo gallery on Velocity's site. I just uploaded some pictures and we will continue to do so as they come in.

I'll bet that there was a little more play in the rudder around the casting, which tipped them off to bigger issues.

Before any race of that magnitude, I'd probably do the same thing. I mean, who wants to break down in the middle of a 500 mile race because of something really stupid (like a rudder arm breaking) that could have been prevented?

Team Fully Involved had a pretty good idea, too. They put a clevis pin(?) instead of rivets on the rudder arms. This allowed the rudders to be interchangeable in case the one they needed was damaged. They'd just switch with the other one, flip the rudder arm upside down (so the elbow curved the correct direction), and reattach the crossbar & tiller extension (so the damaged rudder was on the windward side).

And those beams weren't seated in epoxy before? Your boat will be a bit faster now that its dry and stiff....

Post deleted by MauganN20

Have they figured out where the water is coming from yet?

The Ocean :-)......Sorry, I could not resist.

Somewhere around the daggerboards.

The last three regattas I've sailed the boat at, its taken on a half a cup of water in each hull if that. This level of water ingress is definitely NOT something that was present when I sailed the boat the last couple times.

Since I've had the boat, I haven't grounded it or hit anything with it, so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Mischa did tell me that there was a leak inside the bolt rope slot for the tramp.

As for the tiller arm being cracked - there was play in the arm, but they all have a little play if they aren't epoxy seated, and to be honest, I'm not about gluing those things into the castings. There was nothing visible on the outside to indicate that the arm was cracked.