Preparation for the Annapolis NOOD

Ned Goodman, the happy owner!

So after several months of waiting and planning we finally arrived in Annapolis, the weekend before the event, to rig, practice and prepare for the NOOD regatta.

The boat was all that Scott said it would be! It has some cool little tricks that make sailing it easier and the bottom is just sweet. It really shows that the extra money up front gave us a much better boat then we were originally looking at.

As mentioned we flew in the weekend before the event to get the boat rigged, prep'ed and to sail it for the first time. This gave us a chance to apply a new type of "speed spooge" that I had not used yet. We applied the Holmenkol Sport Polish to clean the top sides and then applied the Aqua Speed process over that. It is very easy to apply the two coats needed and the result was quite impressive. (when we watched boats get pulled in front of us at the end of the regatta, they had a lot more cleaning to do then we did. All we needed to do was hose the boat off and it cleaned right up!)

Saturday brought light winds but just enough to go out and put a few laps around the fixed bouys. It was good to get the boat around the "race course" to see what we needed to do to improve. We broke the first session down during a great lunch at the Boat Yard and went back out to focus on those aspects that needed work. It was even lighter then in the morning so we only did a lap or two and then sailed in. What we learned we needed to work on was 1) tacking, I was doing a horrible job of getting the tacked. We needed Roger to hold the Jib back winded longer during the tack as well. This helps the boat roll and brings the bow down on the new board with less rudder movement from me. 2) Our douses needed serious work.

By the end of sailing on Saturday I was pretty convinced that I had never driven a boat before :) I was really surprised at how different the mechanics of tacking the 22 are compared to boats like the S2 7.9. For those who are not familar with the 22, the driver sits well forward of the traveler and all the controls are lead up to that position. So in a tack you need to roll the boat, work the traveler and of course get back behind the traveler, get to the new windward side and then move forward. It took me a while!

Sunday was again light and we worked very hard at getting the issues settled. We again found a couple marks that lined up and sailed a ton of ups and downs. We slowly started to get our douses figured and with each one they got better. The same was going for our tacks. I was still not doing them perfect but I was at least getting the hang of them. Roger sorting out the proper amount of back wind in the jib was a big key in that.

We started to notice that we were doing some things very well for a new team. Our sets were awesome. We quickly did a couple things that helps us with the sets. We put a mark on the spinnaker sheet at a point that if we cleat at that point on the beat, we can set the kite and the mark pre-sheets the sail in and allows the kite to fill.

Our grasp of where and when to sit in certain positions for boat feel and heel was quite good as well. We were starting to figure out how the boat liked to sailed, mind you that was with out even sailing against another boat! Our gybes we very good, I was convinced that Ned lied when he said he had never done bow before.

As Sunday ended and we needed to head to BWI for flights home, I was very happy with the base that we had laid down. I was confident that we would continue to improve tacking and dousing and we would be at least competent when the racing starting. Now who knew at this point whether we would be fast or not, that would have to wait till Thursday.

I will post more tomorrow on the actual regatta.
Cheers

Tac.