Charleston Race Week !!

Viper Racing at Charleston Race Week.

I still can’t get this smile off my face. What a complete and unadulterated blast.

If you’re a west coast sailor, you owe it to yourself to take in a few of the major east coast regattas. Great participation and the Atlantic is a fun ocean.

Landed in Charleston late Thursday, just in time to catch the last of the skippers meeting. The skipper of the boat, Dan Taylor suggested that we go sailing. Kurt, the bowguy, a local college sailor was stoked, so off we went.

My first sail in Charleston harbor was greeted with a pod of Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins off our portside. What a delight !!

We went through a series of tacks and jibes, worked on sets and douses and hustled back to the party on the beach at CRW central. Some huge sponsors for this event adds up to some great parties. With 37 Vipers registered for the event, the largest fleet in the regatta, there were many, many opportunities to meet the other sailing teams. Paul Young, the owner of Rondar, the English company that builds the boat, flew in from England to hang out with the fleet, lend his support and do some on-water coaching. He was joined by Rondar USA manager and Viper designer, Brian Bennett. These guys went out of their way to help every single Viper owner to sail faster, better and safer. They recently introduced the Viper tuning guide. I’ve been sailing a loooong time and I can’t remember such dedication from a class association or builder since the good old Hobie fleet 16 days.

The event was hosted by Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina and they couldn’t have found a better spot. Great beach, awesome parties, pool, facilities, you name it. Oh yeah, and the perfect marina location for racing from.

Here’s some GREAT Video of the Friday Racing.

Three days of racing on the uber-fun Viper is JUST what I needed. This boat is immensely fun and easy to go fast on. We sailed hard, crashed hard, partied hard and what can I say…lived large. Check out all the info from Charleston Race Week and more on the Viper Class site.

The West Coast Demo Viper, #104 “BoomSlang” will soon arrive. We’ll be posting up a series of demo sails around the West Coast on the Sailing Anarchy Sportboat Forum.

Life’s short…..Sail Fast !!

I've Been SnakeBitten. The Viper 640 is coming to Cal.

(photos and video from the recent Texas Viper Demo)

I just got back from Arizona racing hull #72 at the Leukemia Cup. It was the first time my crew had raced the Viper, though, as a team, we have about a dozen regattas under our belt. The conditions varied widely from zero to nearly 20 knots, so we got a sampling of most the conditions you're likely to see.

I have to tell you, I'm thoroughly impressed with the range of the boat. It performs much better than any of the other 20' sportboats. I've sailed the Melges 20, the Laser SB3, the Open 5.70 and I own an Ultimate 20.

The Viper flat out FLIES in lighter air. In 5 knots TWS, we sailed with 4-4.5 knots boatspeed. The reason? The Viper has a remarkably narrow beam waterline but a long waterline length. This adds greatly to the light air capability. Even in ghoster breezes we could get the boat moving very well...typically 2+ knots, something you're simply not going to acheive in a boat with a wider beam waterline.

In the middle range, 10-12, the boat quickly jumps onto a light plane. Every thing about it is easy. My crew consists of myself, a 150 lb man and a 130 lb woman. My lady crew has no problem performing every task on the boat. She ended up being the jib/spinny trimmer in all conditions, even 20 knots.

The last day of racing found the fleet in 18-20, puffs perhaps to 22. This was obviously the fun day. The Viper has the right controls to depower the rig. Bendy carbon mast, big purchase on the Gnav, strong cunningham and fine-tune jib halyard tensioner. We had no problem sailing the boat flat, even reaching up a bit with the kite. We typically saw speeds in the 12-14 knot range and hit our top (according to the Velocitek) at 16.8. That particular reach was the topic of conversation at the post race celebration. :-) We crashed the boat once and it was very forgiving. One big ease on the spinsheet, a hard pull on the rudder and whooosh, out she squirted onto a plane, fully in control.

The fleet was a wonderful group of sailors. There was at least one woman on every boat and one boat was crewed by the owners kids. We were immediately made to feel warm and welcome within a group that has sailed together for years. Quite unusual in fleet one-design sailing.

The boat has it all. Speed, quality, affordability, grass-roots and manufacturer support, strong but friendly fleet competition and steady growth across the country.

Having tried them all, I chose the Viper am very pleased I did.

Try one soon. If there's anything I can do to assist you in that endeavor, please do let me know.

Here's some video taken at the latest demo in Texas.

Still photos of the same event.

Here's a short video from YouTube.

Stella Gets her First Bullet (Win)

3 races out of the barn and we got our first win. Of course it was heavy air...something we sail well in. We sailed the Berkeley mid-winters two day series in December. The first day we were still trying to get the boat on her numbers. Lumpy seas and light air left us middle of the pack trying to find speed. Sunday was a different story. Learning much from the lessons the fleet taught us on Saturday, we found great speed from the starting line to the first mark, fell back to second for a brief period but regained the lead and never looked back. After the nearly 1.5 hour race we ended up overtaking most of the fleet that started 10 minutes ahead of us and finished over 3 minutes ahead of the 2nd place U20. Garett and Mahalynn had flawless sail/boat handling....quick sets, perfect douses and great trim in breezes from 12-20 knots.

We're back out on the race course this weekend for another couple days of racing. Garett's out of town so Mahalynn and I are going to race doublehanded in preparation for the upcoming 3 Bridge Fiasco...a popular single/double handed mid-winter race with nearly 100 boats on the line.

This is FUN!!!

Team Stella - Racing At Last!

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

Well we managed to find a used U20 locally. After scouring the entire country one showed up in Santa Cruz! The market is so hot for these we pounced on the boat.

Stella is hull #156. I raced against her when I was crewing on Trent’s U20, #27 UFO at the Ultimate 20 North Americans at Lake Huntington. Actually, Stella was on charter to the class president and he HIT us. We were on starboard tack and he just got a bit overpowered and couldn’t duck us. He did his penalty turns and all was good, except on of UFO’s lifelines got broken. Easy fix.

First thing I looked at when I was buying the boat was the bow, where they hit us LOL, no marks.

Stella came well equipped with an older set of Boston/Doyle sails, galvanized trailer, and all the class-required gear except for a motor. We bought a Torqeedo electric and it powers the boat around great.

We thought long and hard about putting a bottom on the boat immediately so that we could leave her in the water at South Beach. We opted, instead, to put the boat over at Treasure Island Sailing Center where we’ll drysail her throughout the winter.

Only had one race on her so far, the Leukemia Cup. Had a great showing, leading the fleet for a bit…ended up 7th. LOTS of fun.

The U20 has gone through a few production companies. It started out in the Ron Moore boat shop in Santa Cruz, and then Santa Cruz Yachts (builder of the Sc-27’s and Yukon Jack) took a stab at building them. US Yachts built the majority of them under the USI logo. Production moved to Abbot boatbuilding in Canada but a fire gutted the plant destroying all but one boat. Luckily the molds were spared.

Recently the production moved to
/index.php">Columbia Yachts in Santa Ana, CA. Yes, this is the rebirth of the original Columbia Yachts founded by Dick Valdes in the late 50’s. His son, Vince has reformed the company and is building the U20 alongside his own Sportboat, the Columbia 30 and the awesome Antrim Class 40. Vince uses state of the art infusion and I have to say, these boats are looking perfect. The weight is dead on class minimum, they are strong, light and gorgeous. Columbia has worked hard to bring the production into the new millennium with infusion. Now that this learning curve is behind them, look for some ramped up production, given a somewhat more robust economy

We’ve sailed all the sportboats in production and have to say, the U20 is the perfect blend of speed, comfort (has a cabin that’ll sleep 2 comfortably) durability and price. The owners group is fanatical about this boat. The resale is ridiculously high with used boats generally selling for more than they were bought. Construction on these boats is historically at the top of their class and Columbia has improved on that already lofty performance. Get this, in the 08 U20 North Americans, an amateur team on hull #6, yes hull 6, beat out a pro team skippered by none other than Brad Boston himself (6 time North America Champion). A testament to a well built boat. You’ll not see this in virtually any other class in sailing. It really is the “Ultimate 20 Footer.”

If you want to sail one, let us know. We’re ALWAYS looking for a reason to get out there.

WOW, it’s been a busy summer. Dropped offline for a bit doing way too many things. Uber-multitasking.

I (Spinnaker) bought an Ultimate 24 in May, hull number 2 that was made in 2003 by Elkhorn Composites, the maker of the molds. It’s an awesome boat! We hauled her out at Berkeley Marine Center and put a new bottom on her. We’re trying a new approach, Seahawk Sharkskin bottom paint with carbon fiber shavings mixed in so that the paint will burnish hard and fast. So far it’s worked great.

Garett, Spinnaker’s operations manager, and I sailed the boat back from Berkeley. What a delight. Since then we’ve been racing the boat at the South Beach Yacht Club Friday night beercans. Still sorting out some boat issues. We’ve borrowed a kite from Pete’s U24 as well as his hold headsail. Another U24 owner, Nick Roosevelt, gave us his old main, thanks Nick.

The boat has a new full battened North Main and Jib, both cut small and made of heavy cloth for charters. Also there’s a new North ‘shy’ kite (smaller for high winds). These sails are perfect for sailing in the slot on those 20-25 knot days.

Just last week we took down the mast and removed the boom and bowsprit. These are all carbon and were finished in a clear coat, showing the beauty of the carbon fiber, but the finish had broken down and was flaking off in sheets. We’re painting all the carbon white with Awlgrip epoxy. This will keep these parts in good shape for many years to come.

There’s been quite a lot of conversation of turning the Ultimate 24 into the Antrim 25. The changes would simply be the addition of the Antrim articulating bowsprit and adding 50 lbs to the keel bulb, bringing the ballast to 800 total lbs.

The articulating bowsprit is a great idea, taken from the Antrim 27. It allows you to rotate the kite to windward up to 27° making for much better VMG letting you drive deeper with speed.

The 50 lbs additional ballast is to give the boat full offshore status under the new rules. Garett and I are trying to figure out a way to do the Doublehanded Transpac on our 24. FUN!!

While the additional ballast is easy to do, the necessary modifications to the deck molds to incorporate the rotating sprit is tough. Lots of work and of course, it changes the boat so the one-design status is under jeopardy.

I'm proposing to the class that the A25's race with the U24's in one design but they have to keep their sprits centered and the U24's get to sail with 100 lbs more in crew weight to offset the 50 lbs in the A25 keelbulb. These are similar concessions when the Antrim 27 went from an aluminum mast to all carbon.

We hope to have additional U24’s and A25's coming into the fleet by early 2009. Keep your eyes out for these speedsters.

Oh yeah, the charter requirements for these are:

BCC (ASA 103) certification
5 charters on the 22-27’s
Intro to Sportboat Certification

After you get 5 charters on the 24’s, you can take the Assymetrical Kite Class which allows you to sail the Bay with the Kite.

Fast really is FUN!

Racing on the Ultimate 24 (soon to be Antrim 25)

Pete, the owner was short on crew for the YRA series, this race being sailed out of Golden Gate Yacht Club so he asked Garett and I to join in. Pete’s the guy who loaned us his U24 for the Pacific Sail Expo.

I have to say I was excited at the prospect. The Ultimate 24 (U24) was the Sailing World “Boat of the Year” in 2004 for good reason. It’s a nearly perfect blend of speed and utility. Very lightweight at 2040 lbs (with 750 in the keel bulb) and still it offers a full (for 24 footer standards) interior...amazing. There’s even a porta potti in case you have lady crew :-)

Garett and I met the boat with Pete and his regular crew, Kelly, aboard. Winds promised to be heavy and I was nervous with anticipation. The yacht club was all abuzz with pre-race preparations from a dozen boats nearby. Lots of people doing lots of last minute things. We rigged up the new sails Pete just had Santa Cruz sails design and build for the boat. Nice stuff...push away from the dock and we’re gone.

My first sensation is just how stable this ultra-ultra light boat is. The U24 is a cored fiberglass boat with carbon fiber reinforcements throughout, a carbon fiber mast, boom and bowsprit. It feels light, in a substantial way...hard to explain.

Pre-race maneuvers go well. Pete’s a good helm guy and Kelly knows the boat well so Garett and I just sort of blend in like we belong. We nail a solid start for the beat to weather heading up to Blackhauler buoy at Crissy Field. It’s uneventful except for the building wind. There’s some discussion as to setting the asymmetrical spinnaker and if we have indeed rigged it right for hoisting. We round the windward mark, still a little unsure if we’re setup properly but what the hell, hoist away....WRONG! We’ve hoisted the kite (spinnaker) upside down, that is to say, the clew is flying at the head of the sail. I hate it when they don’t mark those corners with the word “clew” LOL. We actually tried to sail it that way, just to see if we could. Bad Idea, very slow and not too photogenic. A quick douse and reset has us clipping along at 15-16 knots sailing toward the leeward mark, #1 which lies ENE of Alcatraz about half a mile. A pretty uneventful leg of the race except I now realize we’re racing against not only another U24 in our class, but a Flying Tiger too and not just a Flying Tiger but the boat that has been beating all the other Tigers (including the one I occasionally race on!)

The spinnaker douse at the mark goes smoothly, we turn the mark and start our beat to weather. The tide still has some flood left in it so we head off to sail close to the City Front to stay out of the incoming current. The wind has built to a steady 20 knots but the U24 handles this with ease. The other U24 reefs, which turns out to be slower and while they rounded the mark well in front of us (our little fiasco with the first spinnaker set slowed us considerably) we more than make up for it gaining perhaps 30 boat lengths and rounding the windward mark well ahead of them.

The wind has built to a solid 26-28 knots now with 30+knot gusts. We decide to set the kite cautiously and are we glad we did. It’s a WILD ride back down to #1. The boat is skipping along the wave tops. We’re all yelling a screaming like kids on a roller coaster. Pete calmly mentions that we just broke his boats previous 17 knot speed record by hitting 18.4 knots. Certainly something to celebrate. The Other U24 has sailed a great downwind leg and is right beside us. The Flying Tiger is off to port and having a world of trouble...they’ve crashed (broached) the boat hard and can’t seem to get things under control. We urge Pete to just look at the waves, the boat, the kite and get us to the mark. A good douse and mark rounding have us pounding, and I mean POUNDING our way back to the Cityfront and the finish line. The chop built to a steep 3-4 feet and the wind was gusting 35 knots plus. The other U24 was right next to us. We traded tacks all the way back to the Golden Gate Yacht Club and they managed to beat us by a couple of boat lengths. The final beat was filled with exhilaration and carnage. We saw several boats lose their masts, many spinnaker crashes (broaches) and general mayhem among the fleet.

Yup, these are tough little ocean racers, fast and fun. I’m so looking forward to adding these well made sportboats to our fleet....soon!