2008 Snipe Southern Circuit

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BISSELL-HUGHES BLOG Snipe Don-Q Miami 4/6/08 11:08 am Wow! What a day. Yesterday was the first day of our 2nd regatta - the Don-Q in Miami, sailed out of the Coconut Grove Sailing Center. Winds were up in the teens when we launched. Two races on tap. We had our fill of break-downs and miss-haps, but we put all of them squarely in the 'plus coloumn' because we either battled back learned a big lesson. A very good day, all in all. We're excited for tomorrow's breeze. We rounded the top mark of the first race in 2nd, but our vang broke and we lost many boats on the reaches. We were able to grind back when our barber hauler broke. Dave repaired it sailing upwind and we finished a very respectable 6th. Quite happy with that. We need to get better at reaching despite the vang blow-up. For the second race, our outhaul broke at 2:15 to go. Brian steer the boat while Dave jumped up on the transon, pulled the main out on the track again, and lashed the clew to the end of the boom. Just in the nick of time as we were above the start line in a Z flag and sailed quickly to the line, crossing it at 1:08. We were down at the pin at that point, so not many options were left and we started five boats up from the pin. The race went well. We were much faster on the reaches and downwind -- part vang repair and mostly technique. Dave put the centerboard hook through is finger -- that was about the only issue during the race. All in all, a very positive day. When all put together, we were very fast. We still need more work on the reaches, but we've seen major improvements there already.   Snipe Clearwater Midwinters 4/1/08 - Posted 4/4 A much better day on the water. We got down to the club around 8:15am, flipped the boat over, checked spreader length and deflection. We opted to return to our "Pablo" numbers with the mast step further forward, longer spreaders, and max aft on the spreader sweep. Also, we followed Pablo's recommended tensions, keeping each setting at a constant tension of 19 on the PT-1 gauge (rather than a graduated tension scale with the tension increasing as you rake back). Success! We were fast and high upwind and the looser tension allowed us to float the rig further forward downwind. It was noticeably faster in the light and flat. We took 2nd in the first race of the day. After a long delay, Race #2 was on in breeze 130 degrees further right. We played the advantaged right side, but lost out to a short-term lefty on the first beat. Positions stayed somewhat static, we rounded the top mark in 6th/7th and finished 7th. Short legs. Chop and semi-increasing breeze. All the lead group seemed to be the same speed. Oddly, the 2nd and 7th actually dropped us down in the standings to 10th. Augie Diaz sailed a 1-1 on the final day to keep ahead of Andy Pimentel and Ernesto Rodriguez (all three were seperated by 1.75 points!). Clearly 10th leaves a great deal of room for improvement for the Don-Q regatta starting on the 4th. We're learning tons and looking forward to apply what we've learned in Miami! 3/31/08 - Posted 4/4 A hard second day is in the books. We battled after some poor starts, typically fairing better upwind over downwind. We've been having a tough time figuring out Clearwater. The sides play big, but the phases don't seem to be consistent. All told we're having some point problems upwind and some speed problems downwind. We're going to go back to the drawing board in the morning and retune the mast. Something seems off.

3/30/08 - 7:20 pm A tough, but positive opener for us today.  Overall, we realized some bugs in our boat's systems and took away a better understanding of where in the wind/wave range our tuning set-ups.   It was a short starting line today.  Windward/Leeward courses.  In Race #1 we played the start positioning nearly perfect from 1:30 on.  At the start, we were punched in the middle, easily over the boats to leeward and ahead of the boats to weather.  But, it was too good. The "I" flag went up, so we stopped and sailed back to the line to clear ourselves and start last.  The flag didn't drop, but there were a couple suspect boats and we were the only ones to return.  We knew then that it would be a "grind-back" and put our minds to the task.  We were a touch slow downwind, but found good speed up-breeze in the light conditions to finish a solid 9th.   Afterwards, we sailed by the RC and asked how far we were over by.  Their reply was that we weren't over at all, but "very, very close."  The true culprits kept sailing.  In the end, we didn't once regret our decision to return to the line.  An OCS is a tough card to swallow in the first race of a regatta.  On shore, competitors came up to us telling us how "launched" we were.  Oh, well.... Race #2 was tough.  We had an okay start but couldn't hold our lane above Ernesto. We choose to go bow-down to our own clean lane and reconnect with the fleet.  We didn't play the left enough in the top 1/3rd and lost a pack of boats at the top.  Slow downwind again, we ground-back on the second upwind.  Point was poor and we recognized that we were out of tune.  We had to ease too much main through the chop and found that we had too much sail up forward and too twisty a leech.  Once we added more vang than expected and engaged our windward traveler, we faired much better....but it was too little, too late. We salvaged an 11th. Disappointed with our finish we stayed out after the fleet headed in to practice downwind modes and new tuning.  All seemed better.  We quickly targeted that we had been doing a short list of things wrong and will rectify them for tomorrow! 3/29/08 - 10:48 pm We did a double practice session today. It felt great. In the morning session we weren't too fast and were quite unhappy with our speed through the chop. We wisely opted to sail back to the center, changed a few things, check settings, and launch again for what turned out to be a wonderful afternoon session. Conditions were still choppy and marginal hiking. Thankfully, we found our wheels again! After training we inspected the boat, cleaned the bottom, and sanded the centerboard. Tomorrow is the first day of racing. Photos: Hard at Work! Dave sanding the centerboard and Brian fixing the Tactic bracket. Both of us sporting the new North Sails Team Blue hats. 3/28/08 - 9:07 pm Brian and I have set ourselves up in Clearwater for the Snipe Mid-Winters.  We both flew into Ft. Lauderdale yesterday evening and picked up the Snipe at Peter Commette's.  We drove last night and arrived in Clearwater around 12:30/1:00am this morning.  Today we unloaded, cleaned, and rigged the Snipe -- fixing and upgrading a short list of to-dos while waiting for the wind to come up.  Many teams arrived today, so frequent trailer unloading was the norm.  As of an hour ago, we now have the N/S yellow van in our possession.   Thank you to Peter Commette for storing our boat after Worlds, Allan Terhune for organizing the One Design.com van, Stu Robertson for lending us his boat during February practice, Jerry Thompson for lending us a mast, Annapolis Sailing Fitness, Annapolis Performance Sailing, and North Sails One Design.