Slip to Ship Results

Tom Shannon, sailing his F16 single handed, manages to beat the F18's on elapsed time on 2 of the 3 races that made up the 2006 Slip to Ship regatta. Tom even pulled in a bullet on the first race after handicap corrections.
Congratulations Tom. How about some war stories?

He is also using the Sloop rating.

Congrats TOM, yeah how about some stories. If there are any photos it would be even better! CONGRATS!!!

Well, I'm not Tom (obviously!) but I just got back from S2S myself. I was sailing with a buddy on a Hobie 18 (Hey- you gotta get on these old boats every so often just to remind yourself of how lucky we are to have F16's!! AND IT WORKED!!) so we weren't close to Tom for very long. Finally got to see the Blade in person- beautiful design Phill and nice boat Matt!! Also got to meet Tom- great guy, he's only had the boat since April too! Tom did have a problem raising the main (rope halyard) but I finally deduced the problem- Ullman used a very large grommet at the head of the sail rather than a headboard- This keeps the ring too far away from the "hook" to catch- finally crammed some foam insulation (guess hurricanes are good for something <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />) into the grommet and under the ring and got it to work but it needs to be modified ala the Taipan <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />. Wind was relatively light but puffy in race out to island (mostly to weather), then in race two back to the "club" (nothing but beach now <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> ) wind came up for the downwind run home in quite lumpy and confused waves- Tom told me he had trouble gybing without going swimming so his results are even more impressive! Yesterday was race around the island, short run down the channel, to weather around the channel markers then shallow reach on back side of the island to the channel which was downwind again. He finished very well in that one! He was on the trailer ready to drop the mast when we made the beach (and we got second in our class). Really impressed a lot of people (including the guy who beat him and took first- he was talking to me about getting a used Taipan!). Ullman has built a quite large square top sail- there appears to be NO luff round! Hopefully Tom will post his rendition of the account. I'll try to post some pics once I get them downloaded. Sorry I didn't take the old Tai! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Kirt <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Check out Tom's sail (and boat) on the beach yesterday morning- Note the absence of luff round (especially relative to the NACRA 18 square in the background!).

Kirt

You mean the absense of the leech round.

Great result Tom, way to go !

Wouter

If anybody is looking to solve this problem then they can consider having the eye removed and have a headboard fitted. The right dimensions for proper hooking and unhooking are given in the following post. This includes a picture.

http://www.catsailor.com/forums/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=48621&page=

The hooking issue has been solved 10 years ago or more. I always fail to understand why new sailmakers to these boat insist to do the trail-n'error path all over again. The info needed is public knowlegde and if a sailmaker would contact me he would have all the data within a day.

Good luck everybody. My headboard setup is doing fine just fine, I used the data given in the post myself.

Wouter

Heads are getting bigger........

Check out F18 #17


Or OMRA Tris

http://www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?S=4959869&nav=6DJI

Click on the camera in the upper left corner of the article. And at about 59 second into the clip, you'll see a Blade F16 with Tom guiding it to the finishline under spinnaker.

Then later on at 1.53 sec into the clip you can see Tom an another guy park the boat on the beach by holding the rearbeam.

The clips otherwise shows the 3 I-20's and Nacra 6.0 that finished ahead

I say to Tom :"A race well done, you've put us F16 sailors on the map in Missisipi !"

Wouter

Steve: Those are some pretty impressive fat-heads. I suppose they work well also, otherwise the ORMA60s would probably not use them. Makes you wonder how a true fat-head wold be on a Tornado.

About twist: Interesting that the ORMAs seem to sail with almost no twist, and that the one in the back has the least twist.. (at least it looks that way to me)

Are Orma's allowed to change their suit of sails to the conditions ?

Will they be flying these very rectangular sails also in rought conditions ?

Wouter

For the record - I sailed Uni, but on the F16 rating, NOT the F16U Uni rating (65.2 versus 67.?) - per my requst to the RC. The F16U uni rating must be based on very limited data and would be unfair to use. Just my two cents.

It was indeed a good weekend. Lots of time on the water and a real eye opener to the destruction of Hurricane Katrina (9/2005). Ocean Springs Yacht Club, MS used to be a thriving sailing and social club with plenty of beach for cats, a clubhouse/restaurant, swimming pool and wet slips for keel boats. It was truly a center of boating in the area. Katrina pretty much wiped out the entire Ocean Springs area. The club is completely gone – just a few pilings left – and is struggling to recover. A lot of their revenue came from “social” members who used the pool and restaurant. Alas, those amenities are not there and the club has to explore any and all methods for rebuilding. All three of the races took us through Casino Row where large casinos/hotels once anchored the tourist trade. The casinos/hotels look like bombed out skeletons now with no real plan to rebuild. The OSYC people venture on despite all of this.

The regatta was really three distance races with certain channel markers used as rounding buoys. The first race was to East Ship Island (sand barrier island with no inhabitants, great place for a picnic). Light air at the start, we beat up the bay, through Casino Row (again, unbelievable) and out the channel on the other side. The island was still 8 or 9 miles away almost directly upwind. Some boats tacked out immediately out of the channel (heading went from South to East). Other boats (and me) held the port tack way out into the bay hoping for the sea breeze to kick in. Guess what, the wind freshened as we got further south, tacked to starboard tack and rode that tack for an hour or longer. I really got it in the groove on this tack and made up tons of ground (trapped out and driving the boat off to get through the chop). Not overpowered, but the windward hull was lapping the tops of the waves. It is important to focus on your own boat speed and not worry about how high everyone is going. You’ve got to trust your setup and drive it hard. I was third across the line in fleet (two I-20s in front while one I-20 and two F18’s were behind). The boats finishing behind me went east out of the channel and got killed. Going east usually pays off, but not this year.

The second race was the same course, except in reverse. The wind had built to a steady 9 or 10 with some gusts. The sea state was very lumpy relative to wind strength. Down wind start on starboard, got through the fleet and popped the spin (not man enough to navigate the fleet with spin up, yet). Gybed just high of an I-20 and held that tack for a while. Tried to gybe and dumped it (again). Righted the boat fairly quickly, popped the chute again and made some good ground. Couple of gybes, all going well. I dumped it again at the last gybe to line up the channel (arrrrgh, that’s twice in one race). Righted again quickly (I am becoming quite good at this). The channel back through Casino Row is protected water (absolutely flat water) with a good breeze funneling through. Screaming close reach that I am pretty sure max hull speed was achieved. Out of the channel, bear off to the finish, raise spin and fly to the finish – well behind all boats in fleet. I am pretty sure I would have been last across the line even if I had not turned over twice. The F18s doublehanded were absolutely flying downwind and I am not yet comfortable in those conditions. One non-spin boat beat me to the beach (6.0na).

The third race was Sunday. Again light breeze at the start, beat out and through Casino Row. Spin run through the row this time, although I had trouble sailing high enough had to douse, get back to the high side of the channel and raised spin again (I-20 guys said my spin luff was too tight to go high enough - all other spin boats carried spins through the channel). Tack to starboard after clearing the last channel marker and a LONG beat to the last mark rounding. I was battling with a N5.8 and two N5.5SLs all the way. Hobie Tiger was maybe 200 yards ahead. Rounded the last mark behind all the above, but close The Tiger gybed out and stayed far from the shore. I held my course until I got to the shore line, then gybed over – thinking the breeze would be 90 degrees to the shore the closer you get to the beach. Turns out I was right and only had a few sort gybes to get to the finish line, while the Tiger sailed much more distance. The spin run was 30 to 45 minutes and great fun – no mishaps. Well ahead of Tiger and non-spin boats from the last mark rounding.

All in all, good fun. Learned a few more things and looking forward to more.

BTW, Kirt was extremely helpful and offered a lot of insight. He is exactly right about the Ullman sails and the head grommet being:

1: way too big, easily a US half dollar could go through it
2: the grommet is set too far back from the luff rope

I like the sails a lot, but these two factors make some mods necessary. The halyard ring has to much "wiggle" room and tends to bounce of the hook. To remedy, put somehting in the grommet that pushes the hook forward in the grommet - this seemed to remedy the situation for me. It is frustrating when raising the sail is such a hassle.

There is hardly and leech roach at all (as you can see in the pics). It looks pretty much like the modern A-cat sails.

A friend of mine snapped a bunch of pics at the beach. I'll see if I can get them.

One last thing on Slip to Ship. Overall handicap results were announced at the closing ceremonies, but were not in the results page.

N6.0 NA - Edderer
I-20 - Wilson
I-20 - Smith
H16 - Vaughn (I think)
F16 - Shannon

5th out of 29 boats (I think). Not a bad start, but I have to figure out spin sailing......

Saweet! Congrats TOM.

Tom,

As far as I know I've got the exact same sails as you and I'm not having any real grief getting it up and down. I'll try to take some photos of the top of my sail, and how I've got the halyard tied on.

Paul

Excellent. I'd like to compare. Can you get some pics of:

1. head of the sail with ruler for reference
2. Masthead
3. Knot on halyard on ring.