May 18 2008
San Juan 21s in the NOOD
The National Offshore & One Design Regatta (NOOD) made its first ever date in Seattle this past weekend for three of the most beautiful days of sailing this city has experienced in a long time. Even better was the fact that the San Juan 21s managed to bring 10 boats making our class one of the more respectable showings of the regatta. Another great addition was an agreement from fleet #1 working sails boats that we could fly spinnakers and still get scored as working sails for seasons points standings. So I rigged Limpet up with some donated cleats from Chris Popich, and some donated lines from my boss Jim, and headed out to fly my spinnaker for the first time ever.
I don’t think I have sailed so much in 3 days since my Dad and I used to take time off in the summer to windsurf in the Gorge. 3 days is a long time to be on the water and focusing on sailing. The down side was that every night I got home and immediately wanted to fall asleep, the up side was some great repetition for my boat handling skills, which normally only get used every other weekend. I also got to play around with flying a spinnaker which was a first for me, and proved to be the highlight of the Regatta.
Day one started with a nice breeze from the North which built into a stiff breeze towards the end of the day. I had Jack Caldwell as crew on Limpet. Jack normally skippers Rascal but was unable to make the whole regatta. Luck for me as it was great to have a seasoned sailor for crew. We sailed 4 races total, and on the second race with Jack at the helm we flew the Spinnaker for the first time. Needless to say I was a little worked up trying to fly for the first time in a major regatta in 15 knot winds.
A smarter man would probably have practiced such a major new skill before attempting it in the biggest regatta of the year (complete with daily helicopter photo coverage), but not yours truly. There is nothing quite like a trial by fire to force you into quick synthesis of complex tasks, which when done wrong end up with your boat broached and sinking into the cold dark waters off of Ballard.
Needless to say I jumped around banging into things sweating and swearing, and generally getting myself worked into a tizzy. I am glad that Jack is such an easy going guy, because I was acting like a Tasmanian devil, and it was nice to have a calming influence on the helm. For all of my shenanigans we were unable to make any ground on the boats who weren’t flying spinnakers, and I think the general rule of the regatta was that I was slower with the spinnaker than without. But we managed to hoist, retrieve, repack, then launch and retrieve again in one race. We didn’t broach and I am fairly sure that I didn’t say anything which I can’t apologize to Jack for (I may need to let him barge on the next few starts in order to redeem myself) which is a major victory in my book.
At the end of day 1 we had managed to get 2 5th place finishes and 2 7th place finishes. Which was enough to put Limpet in 5th place overall for the Regatta.
More to come… until then enjoy some pictures. Just click on the picture to see a larger color version. If anyone wants me to send them a full 7Meg copy just let me know.
That is a huge spinnaker induced grin! Great job, Andy!!
Great shot at that mark rounding. To bad you don’t have a sound bite for it!
This is a family friendly site… I don’t think I could actually post a sound clip of that mark rounding without putting a NC17 rating on the site. I never really understood the phrase “Swear like a Sailor” until I was in ear shot of the J24 fleet. Those guys take themselves pretty seriously. I much prefer the more laid back approach of the San Juan 21 fleet.
i ve got a san juan 21 that has been sitting for three - five years. the windows are shot and i ve been looking for somewhere to buy them. do you know of anywhere that i might find these and other things i need for this restoration project? thanks