Frostbite Racing!

[RobbieB]

The 2016 racing season is open in Charleston! We had our first chance to see how we stack up against the J's in 20 mph breeze.

We know we have a sweet spot in the 8-15 range. We've not sailed in less breeze as we have to have a minimum of 5 knots sustained just to hold place against the current so we'll likely never see true "light air" racing here.

Yesterday was our first go in "little jib" wind. There was a light turn out with only 3 J24's and us. Wind was brisk at a forecasted 15-20 with gusts of 25+. Small craft advisory was out. We had our very old jib up that is mostly sail tape and went with our chicken chute instead of the class sixed one.

I'd estimate we sailed most of the race in 17-20 breeze with some gusts close to 25 and perhaps a touch higher.

The J's all sailed with their big jibs. There was NO WAY we were doing that. With the little jib and the max tight rig we were able to point and hold speed with the 24's going upwind. However, there were times I just couldn't keep the boat on it's feet in gusts. Even with the main dropped all the way down on the traveler.

We were also "burping" the jib to help, but if we weren't right on top of the gust it was round up city!

Any advise on this? Should I go to vang sheeting the main? It's just such a beast to get back in with that kind of breeze and get the proper leech tension back on it I avoided that at all cost. Any advise here would be great.

It was a long course at nearly 9 miles. We got a nice start and were in first for the first half of the race. Set up the, (then) 2nd place J for a "windward hook" on the DW leg near the bottom mark as he was hunting us down on the DW leg right on our stern and went for a pass when he saw I wasn't giving up the inside lane for the rounding. A nice controlled luff, his chute hit our rigging, we had the protest but no damn flag to fly!!!!! So, we let first go. Managed to stay very close, but the overpowered situation caused a few bad tacks when we tried to engage a tacking dual so we just settled in for 2nd place.

We should get a video up from the 24 we raced neck and neck with. Once we do I'll see if I can get it posted here.

The other 2 J's were nearly a leg behind so it was a 2 boat race.