Team Stella has competed a couple of times since my last entry. Stella's first race out of the barn was the Great Pumpkin Regatta hosted by Richmond Yacht Club. We managed 9 boats so earned a one design start.Crewed by myself, Garett and Mahalynn, we had a great time. We're the rookies of the group and finished middle of the pack, but saw some good speed in a couple of the races. We have a pervasive problem with the rudder and keel humming badly anything faster than 7 knots so we are working on that issue to get the boat up to her true potential.
Day one was a three race, windward/leeward buoy series. Day two was a reverse pursuit around both Angel Island and Alcatraz, either way. The predominant path was to round clockwise. We opted for a counter-clockwise approach, which probably would have worked VERY well, had we not sailed into a huge hole behind Angel Island. As it turns out, the top finishing boats on the water all went the same way we did, albeit further North to skirt Angel
Island's wind shadow....lesson learned.We put Stella through her paces on that race. We got to Alcatraz late and were welcomed by a huge ebb tide and puffs to 25. We pounded around the corner of Alcatraz, took a couple of hard broaches but ended up having a ball and really learned just how hard you can beat up a Ultimate 20 :-)
This is CERTAINLY the funnest group of people I've ever been graced to share the water with. These guys know how to sail fast and party hard!
U20 East Coast Championships
Our next adventure was to race the East Coast Championships on Lake Norman, NC. We hoped for 30 Ultimate 20's on the start but a few boats just couldn't make the trip. We ended up with 24!! Don Corey, a legend within the U20 class, was kind enough to loan us his #1 boat (thanks Don) and we couldn't have been more pleased. This boat was perfectly well setup with a NEW set of Doyle Boston sails...simply awesome.
We had a great practice day on Friday, sailed 3 races on Saturday (yup, middle of the pack again :-( and 2 VERY light air (read; nada for breeze) races on Sunday. One thing we learned is that San Francisco sailors are spoiled with all of our breeze. We need to sail in light air more often as that's what the rest of the world predominantly sails in.
As a result, we're entering the St. Pete NOODS in February on another loaned boat "Running with Scissors" (great name eh?....thanks to Steve Rose, another 2 boat Ultimate 20 owner). We're campaigning Stella down to the San Diego NOODS in March.
We're working hard to get ready for the April Pac Sail Expo show and hope to have some exciting news about the Ultimate 20 and YES, the Antrim 25....keep your ears open.
Finally, I leave you with this great shot of Team Stella in tight quarters at the mark rounding, ECC's
