Star Crewing 101

In between running the summer series for the Flying Scots and the Classic Moth Nationals, I got the call to fill in as a Wednesday crew for John Jenkins on his Star boat. I hadn't been in a Star for 30 or so years but Wednesday nights are usually light air drifters .... so how hard could it be? Well when we arrived at the St. Michaels YC, the wind was a consistent fifteen and the tutorial on the sail out to the starting line was short and sweet; here are the cleats for the running backs, don't thread the whisker pole through the mainsheet on the way in or out, and here is a nifty fine tune adjust on the jibsheet. From my perspective, there looked to be plenty of lines, that, if pulled wrong, could pose big problems, not just in racing around the buoys but in keeping the mast up .... those thoughts I put out of my mind.

John got the best start at the weather end and we were ahead comfortably 2/3 the way up the first beat. Unfortunately his closest rival got out to the right and rode a nice starboard tack lift to lead us into the mark. Off we went downwind. John was intent on running down his rival; not only was the leeward running back off, he let off some 8 inches of the weather one and we pulled on a jib thing-a-majingy to bag the jib out. I got the pole out after a delay, my feet effectively cleating the sheets for a while until I figured out what the problem was. I hadn't screwed up too bad until we attempted what would turn out, for a neophyte Star crew, to be the equivalent of a an inward three-and-a-half somersault in tuck position ..... we did a gybe into a leeward mark rounding.

Well, lets say I did get the whisker pole back into the boat properly before we rounded the leeward mark but .......... the weather running back was not fully on, the jib sheets were in a huge ball right at the turning block, and I had pulled the jib thing-a-majingy on instead of out and the jib was a good three feet up the forestay. I did get the weather runner on before the mast went anywhere bad, I was able to miraculously free the jib sheet ball in about 20 seconds and we eventually got the jib down to the deck. By that time our rival was well gone. We were able to hang onto second for another windward/leeward but another boat ground us down just before the finish (I just don't have anywhere near the beef of a true Star crew).

All in all, I was pleased with a third. It could have been worse though we didn't do John's series lead any favors. Lesson, if you are going to be a pickup crew in a Star, definitely do it in under 10 knots when things happen a little slower.

Music for Friday; Bernadette Peters - I Wanna Be Bad

Music for Fridays has been somewhat intermittent lately.

From the movie "Pennies From Heaven"

Oops! Bernadette went into the YouTube black hole. Here is the original Helen Kane song from 1929

Classic Moth Nationals; Two starts on Sunday

Video from Amy Parker

2009 Classic Moth Nationals; Y2K Bug Mods

John Z, who finished 2nd overall, had his Moth, Y2K Bug, modified overnight Saturday. Port and Starboard winches, bow and stern lights made this Classic Moth a proper yacht now.

2009 Classic Moth Nationals - Elizabeth City NC

This past weekend was the Classic Moth Nationals at Elizabeth City NC. Twenty Seven Mothboaters showed up, an excellent turnout. I'll have more posts later but the Elizabeth City paper, Daily Advance, has a report here . Also the slideshow by staff photographers, Brett A. Clark and Justin Falls is well worth a look.

It's great seeing all the Mothboaters, some returning after a couple year hiatus. A National Championship like this seems to be more of a reunion with a competition tacked on.

Winner Mike Parsons was waxing magnanimous in his interview with the Daily Advance, the winds were actually on the light side and very shifty from the North.

Phone Call on Sunday Morning (Sept 13)

Sunday morning and I was just about to put my head around which project of many I wanted to tackle when my good friend George called. Turns out that my old club, West River Sailing Club, was running the Laser Districts. This had sucked up all of the RC folks, leaving a scheduled Sunday Fall Series for Flying Scots without anyone to run their races. I owe, I owe (Big George for previous work on a shed) so it wasn't hard to say yes, particularly since, according to George, I was the last one on the list. Sunday Series start at 1 pm. so this left some time to do some wet sanding on the Classic Moth, Tweezer, before moseying on down to Galesville.

It was a gorgeous day, the sky peppered with low lying cumulus, lazily making their way to the south. The engine for the one remaining whaler at the club started right up, never a sure thing for club boats this late in the season. I gathered up two hippity hops with anchor rodes, a spare Ollie was found and a start flag attached to a PVC pipe. There wasn't much gas so I made a detour upriver for Hartges Yacht Yard where I found they had closed the gas dock (argh! things change when you haven't been on the river for the summer). I backtracked to Pirates Cove gas dock, filled the tank, putt-putted another 1/4 mile (6 mph restriction) and then opened it up for another 1/4 mile to get to the race course. I had ten minutes to spare for the 1 pm start time.

The Race Course for the WRSC Sunday Series is little over 1/2 mile from the club, tucked into a little bay butting up against the Smithsonian Rhode River Research Site on the North Shore with the entrance to Rhode River marking the Eastern limit to the course area.

A light, shifty Northerly was going to give some trying conditions. I got the weather hippity hop down in what looked like a good upwind spot (though in tracking the shifts over the afternoon, maybe 50 feet to the left would have centered the mark more). I was able to plonk the start line outside the direct line freeway into Galesville (never guaranteed in this area; many times the wind forces the course to include dodgem of high speed stinkpotters and clueless sail cruisers).

I got three races off (WL, WL, finish downwind), lounged around on the bow of the whaler for the afternoon (when RC duties didn't call) and soaked the day in.

After the racing, on the way back in, I spotted what looked like a Dragon sailing back into the harbor. Had to take a detour to look at such a Classic but as I drew closer I saw it was a Luders 16, another very pretty Classic. Had a conversation with the skipper; built in 1954 and restored recently in Virginia and from what I could see it was a great job that was done on her. A wave goodby and putt-putt back to the club to put the Whaler and all the race committee accoutrements away.

Back on shore and some socializing. Flying Scot sailor, Gabor, told me he had bought a beater 505 for singlehanding and he was enjoying it immensely (the jib is roller furling). I didn't ask if he was singlehandedly trapezing as he is an older gent.

I also ran into another good friend; WRSC member Bob B. who had just gotten back in from the last race of the Laser Districts. He is over 70 and sailed in the Radial division with all the kids. Needless to say he got crushed and his back was also complaining quite loudly. Both of us have shared a campsite at the Mid Atlantic Small Craft Festival the past two years but I'm not sure I will be able do it this year.

Amazing what a unexpected phone call on Sunday morning will bring.

First Signs of Fall

Only in Annapolis..........

Last week I saw the floating docks for the Annapolis Boat Shows being trucked in from storage. It takes over a month to launch and assemble all these floating docks that gobble up several acres of Annapolis Harbor.

My source at the shows tells me that despite the recession, the Sailboat Show has about the same number of exhibitors, though the mix is different; less boat manufacturers and more on the accessory side.

The MotorBoat Show is definitely down as the 18'-28' market has crashed.