Hello F 16,

1. Just got back from 3 weeks in sweden, Finland and russia,........now on to the fun stuff,.....I will never complain about the prices in St. Croix again....ha!

2. The St. Croix International Regatta is this weekend,...there were Olympic tornados ( 2) that cancelled so now there will be only non-spin cat..

3. This is open racing, look at the line up (texel);
I-20 (100)
P-19MX (102)
P-19 (103)
N-5.8 (103)
FX-1 (111)
I-17 (115)
H-16 (117)

All boats rigged to go, no casual sailors, The P-19 and P-19 MX won the last 2 years, the MX had all bullets, the P-19 had all bullets except one race ( I took that one).

SO, F-16 help is welcome and expected!!!

Harper and the FX is as ready as he can be,...boat is dialed in,...he found out that Hobie sent him 2 different d-boards,..the tops are different,...??????

The I-17 is ready ( thanks to this Forum),..I bent rudder pintles in the surf, am waiting for new ones now ( should be here Wed)..

Harper saile well upwind,...does the 90 degree downeind..

The I-17 is sokin' upwind,...I follow the 170 degree downwind.

The I-20,P-19MX, P-19, N5.8 all go max wild ASAP downwind,...

the h-16 can destroy any boat with the rating,..

so,....comments,...tips,...will update you.

Bruce
I-17Euro
Love Never Fails
St. Criux, US Virgin Islands

Bruce-
Just some general comments and suggestions from my experiences racing "open". Point is to get around the track as fast as possible so you have to get out of "fleet mode thinking"- ie covering, tactics, etc. to a large degree. You need to sail fast and smart - do NOT get into "duels" with any other boat, do not dsq, foul or OCS, do not "bang the corners", keep clear air, stay out of "crowds" (if possible), get good starts (use your boats strengths- ie if able to outpoint the other boats then use this to your advantage), go for the pressure (watch the boats ahead of you to help determine best way for you to go- this is one advantage of being on a "slower" boat).

Hope this helps!

Good luck professor!

Kirt

Why is the I20 not running a spinnaker? And why don't you guys race Portsmouth?

Kirt (and others)

...you are sooo right about that crowd thing,..this uni-rig, does not like crowds,...the boat just sits there,...so, at starts, if I cannot get free and clear fast,..I tack out and go on my merry way,.....

..this uni needs free, undisturbed air to perform..


...funny thing on the downwind,..in latter races at BVI Regatta, I followed the P-19MX angle,..he goes about 80 degrees downwind ( he-wild max all the time, me, just as fast as I can go -mild),....when I did, he could not put distance on me,...that was before I started doing the 170 downwind,...so we will see in race #1 what happens,...

...we want to run 4 to 5 races a day on Saturday and Sunday,..2 on monday,...will give you a www. so you can follow..

..a I-20 non spin with a rating of 100 is one powerful machine,.....anyone can win this race,....gonna be fun..

..thanks to Kirt and all!

Bruce

Funny thing about Spin cats in the Caribbean...

...the get burned out after 2 to 3 years and drop down in performance..??

...two St. Thomas I-20's walked away from their boats,...the P-19MX went back to non spin and the Tornados have been on the Olympic trials and are out of the area,...there was not enough to make the 3 boat minimum for class....

...good question on the Portsm rating,....I really do not know why,...maybe because our race circuit goes from USA to UK to Dutch to PR islands and this is the only rating everyone agreed upon,......who knows,..could change..!


Bruce

hey is that bruce mercet on the mx?
how bout the other teams names?
good luck on your racing!!!

OK,

Here is the line up (..you never know what happens at sign up day)

I-20 - St. Croix - Tom Ainger/Scott McChain
P-19MX - St. Thomas - Bruce Merced/Alice
P-19 - St. T. - Mark Chong /Gunter
N5.8 - St. C - Doug DeRue ( SCYC manager)/Willie
n5.8 - St. C - Chris Scrieber/crew
FX-1 - St. C - Harper Jones
I-17- St. C - Bruce Andryc (me!)
H-16 - St. C - Ben Victor/crew
H-16 -PR - a container of 6-8 ...will see


weather - Has been a steady 20 mph out of the east all week,...forecast to hold thru race.

..more later

Bruce

Like the subject line says.

Wouter

Hey 16HP'ers


Here is the St. Croix Y C site,...hopefully results will be posted that day

www.stcroixyc.org


here is a 'real time' weather conditions report page,..yes the temperature varies 5 degrees f. from summer to winter
Bruce

www.islands.vi/~windmanstx/

Hello,

It is 6am and the National Weather Bureau has posted a small craft advisory,

...here is their forecast
Today. Partly cloudy in the morning then becoming mostly sunny. Breezy.
Scattered showers in the morning. Highs 88 lower elevations ranging to 83
higher elevations. East winds 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 40 percent.

...all in all,.. PERFECT BEACH CAT RACE DAY

..to the race course!!

Bruce

Bruce-
Good luck! Hope the weather holds, you have some good races and lots of FUN!!

Awaiting word-
Kirt

OK Web 16HP ****** Day one update*****



-Even though the forcat was 15-25, ..it was 20+ all day. This Trade wind pattern had been blowing for a week now,..the sea were UP in the channel,...so you know where I am going,..it was a SURVIVAL DAY,...at the finish line end of the course, it was truely HUGE,..4 at least,..with some bigger ones mixed in ,...I would have 1 hull up to clear the front of the boat,...only to have the wave GRAB the rear crossbeam and send me forward.....to slow the boat up meant to get both hulls in the water and the motion was like a Warning Blender,...waves kept trying to knock my feet off all day,..I would be hanging on by my front foot staps,...they are worth a $1,000,000.00 usd!

Off the wind,..170 degrees downwind with following rollers was golden,..the other boat could not put much time on me.
Upwind, after this forum tuned my sail/boat,..I changed nothing,..I never pinched,..footed the entire day,...the N 5.8 would out point me but I would out speed them,.at top mark,...5 boatleangths apart,...so I would win that leg all day.

Race 1
P-19MX broke mast in two-retired
P-19 broke diamond wire-retired
N 5.8 turtled and the rollers wouldn't let them up-retired
n 5.8 blew jib halyard-finished race
H-16 crew fell off at start -retired
Fx-1 -flipped, decided to call it a day ,smart move
I-20- jib sheet damaged-finished race
I-17 - finished 1st.

Race 2

I-20 - 1
N 5.8 - 2
I-17 - 3
N. 5.8 - 4
H-16 - 5
(..I believe this is wrong,..I should have had 2nd,..will check scorer tomorrow)

Race 3
I-17 - 1
n 5.8 - 2
n 5.8 - 3
h-16 - 4
(...this is another scorer mistake,..for the I-20 beat us all,....but the scorer left out their time

So,...the 1st day I should be 1-2-2

I am sore and hitting the sack,...more tomorrow

Thanks for the advice and encouragement !!


Bruce
St. Croix

Day Two Update

change title to...'...the Human body will be tested..'

weather...- worse than yesterday

Hello all!

Well, it was a first for me,....the good news is that I did not flip, break anything on the boat,..or myself.
I finished all races ( 3)
Retained my 2nd place ( by 1 point)

Race 1


Started race, on 1st upwind leg, squall line came,...the I-17 will take wind,....it will take waves,....it will NOT take the combo Waves+ Waves,...not a good thing!
...finished,..all other boats flipped

Race 2
...this was the hard one, or I thought,..the squall came in the 1st leg again,...the local weather page shows a gust of 52 mph at 12:11pm ( 18 more mph and we have a Hurricane!),...well, now we know that the boat can take it,....I am not sure about me..
I finished

Race 3
This time the RC waited until the squall passed,..only to get hit by the biggest abd longest one of the day,.....
I finished

Bottom Line; This was not sailing. It was no fun at all. It was survival conditions all the way.
The I-17 would start to shutter upwind and get irratic in the gusts and shifts,..I would have to jump to the tramp and stay there,....trav out max,...mainsheet in max,...jam rudders 100% to try to keep noses to wind,.....the little rudders are no match for the sail area...
If I tried to go forward,..the acceleration was immediate and the bows would stuff in a wall of water ( waves ),....If I considered a fast jibe, ..forget it,...I would be in Puerto Rico writing this not...ha!
So, you sit there and ride it out,...you all have been there.

Here is a good site with a brief story line about the race, go to

www.caribbeanracing.com

Bruce

Day Three Update

Final Regatta Results

1st - Inter 20 - Ainger/McChain

2nd - N 5.8 - DeRue / Wille

3rd - Inter 17 - Bruce


After checking the boat,..checking my body parts ( mind condition too) and the math of the standings,.....I decided NOT to race today.

Even by getting two DNS, which would be a set of 9th finishes, ...the worse I would get would be a third place in the regatta,....so I took it and put the trophy on the bookshelf and closed the history book in this race weekend.

Lesson Learned

1. Solo sailing is a little more critical in heavy weather than team sailing,.......boy, do you have to make the right decision 110% of the time in respect to safety (...I did not make some correct calls on this point,...and paid for it

2.. The upper limit to the I-17 is very definable.

3. This limit, my opinion, is wave conditions, more than wind.

4. It proves nothing to break a boat, again my opinion, it is far better to call it a day and come back to try it again.


On the last day, of the fleet of 8 beach cats, three made it to the start line and raced. Enough said.

Thanks for the help and encouragement!

regards,

Bruce
I-17
St. Croix
USVI

heres a shot from the regatta,,,,,,worst conditions I've seen

Bruce-
Well, as far as I'm concerned, I'm proud of you! I have also found on my Taipan (solo at least) that the waves are a bigger "limiting factor" than the wind (and there's even an indication that the giant trimaran Geronimo has the same "issues"- especially on a reach with the waves coming abeam), particularly when trying to go certain directions relative to the waves. If I can sort of quarter over them or gradually overtake them it's fine but if trying to go straight into them (and I'm talking tall, steep waves here, not nice rolling swells) or straight over them (especially at speed) it's hard going (or hard swimming!).
Where's that thread on reefing??

Kirt

Congrats to Brobu and what makes wave so bad exacty ?

Can you give me a describtion of how the waves were limiting you ?

Of course Chapeau to all sailors there. I say onward to the next dual between Vicatman and you brobu.

Wouter

Wouter-
In Michigan at the Cat Fight I attended there had been a lot of wind which had the whole "great lake" to build across and then steepen of course as they got to the other shore which is where the races were being held. They were more like the wakes from large powerboats than wind driven waves (IMO). At one point the wind actually got fairly light even though the waves were still high (to me- 3-4 foot but steep and short troughs) and this made it tough going upwind since it was hard to get the boat driving between waves and I wasn't able to fly a hull (figured out in Tampa I had way too much prebend and spreader rake so was running a really flat sail). Lots of pitching and tough to tack. Reaching was tough because the waves were such that one hull was at a crest while the other was in the trough then the wave sort of climbed between the hulls with the crest burying the tramp and beams (very slow trying to drag all that through the water). Downwind in the lighter air was fine but when the wind had been heavy it was crazy- bear up, get some speed start rocketing down the short wave surfing and then the lee bow would enter the wave ahead as the upwind stern "planted itself" in the wave behind and the hulls would try to suddenly slow down but the sails were still trying to go faster than the wave- Sort of would "submarine" through the wave ahead, as started to get clear would accelerate and surf into the back of the next one. The BIM 16 had the same "issues" in the conditions and chose not to fly the spinnaker since this only seemed to give our "twin hulled submarines" the "DIVE, DIVE!!" command. Except of course if one doesn't blow the ballast tanks (ie if the boat doesn't fill with water but stays full of air) the "periscope" with attached sailcloth quickly passes the rest of the "submarine" and the crew has to abandon ship.
It occurred to me once or twice that if one were to really "heat it up" and go wild basically trying to go very fast at a fairly high angle (for downwind- or even upwind for that matter) one might come out ahead of the "submariners" but maintaining the boat "wild" under these conditions while constantly steering over the waves was more than I was ready for at that time. (Heck, were "lucky" to get 2' waves on my local lake if the fetch is the entire lake!)

Kirt

Harper and all,

Nice pic!

This is the winner from last year, Chong and Ullie on a P-19,....the had 8 bullets out of 9 races last year..

...this year they broke a diamond wire on day one,....raced day 2 ( and regreted it),....decided not to go out day 3, packed up and went home to St. Thomas early..


Bruce

Kirt, Wouter and all,


1. Kirt,...sounds like you have been there. YOur desciption of sea state is pretty accurate. In this case, wave direction was on the nose upwind.
The frequency of crests, ( afeet between wave tops) were about 4 feet longer than the I-17,...so as the back end of the cat cleared a crest,..bam,...in a wink of an eye,..your trying to climb another,...sometimes you made it,...sometimes you did not..
....the boat took a tremendous amout of force at every aspect,..everything was new,..rigging,..line,..pins,...split rings,..chain plates,..diamonds..which may be a good reason why she stayed together while cats were having gear failure all around...
....downwind,...I would ride off the backs of these HUGE waves,....it was fun,...the I17 just flew donwind at a 170 degree angle,....the problem was that it only took about 4-5 minutes to reach the bottom mark,.....then one had to face getting blasted to smithereens again going upwind....

....makes my wonder about the new Worrell boat going offshore in big stuff,.....the general design of hull is similar to the I-17,.....a wave piercer, that is,....comment??


Bruce