Well, my blog has been a tad slow updating, but my time outside of work is spent mostly sailing, which is a good thing. Last weekend was a race weekend ...
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| What is different about the boat on the right? |
Well the race weekend was really interesting, except the winds were quite high so I fully reefed the mail sail and did a short solo run ...
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| The Hobie Cat all reefed |
Now the reefing was a good idea since it removed around 3 square meters of sail area, except even in the one short run I managed too much speed for solo sailing and could not find any crew so the boat was put away and I raced on a Hobie 17, which was a lot of fun but very wet. Definitely the fastest sailing I've done yet. The only Hobie 16 racing (see the first image) with the Frenches was really cool to watch since they were flying a hull almost the entire day with both of them fully hiked out! It would have made a great picture!
So with no racing, the boat was returned to its storage area for another weekend ...
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| The boat in its storage area with the cover (the dolphin striker ties to a stake in the ground under the tarp) |
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| View from the storage area (I'm in the back row of the Hobies) |
It was a fun weekend, but the day prior to racing I went into the hardware district of al Khobar to order some stencils for the boat so it could be officially named. These were installed just today ...
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| The newly named boat |
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| And the name is legible in two languages! |
Well, the boat was named for my bird, Moxie :-)
With the freshly named boat I did some sailing today around the bay, which was fun except the winds were the opposite of last weekend and the spinnaker was actually needed! I need to get some good pictures of the boat at racing speeds and some shots with the spinnaker fully inflated.
The only other excitement at the beach was the usual dolphin sightings and this unexpected visitor:
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| Sea snake washed on shore |
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| Sea snake free swimming after being put back in the water |
Very cool! Sounds like lots of fun!
ReplyDeleteD-man,
ReplyDeleteFun to see you doing the rag gig. Cats are hard to go about in compared to monohull, but they sure make up for it in speed. do you use a trapeze for hiking out? Sounds like you are enjoying it all. Cheers,
Chris D
The cat is definitely a different deal than the monohulls - and the straight light performance is truly amazing! With a good crew you can come about very fast - there are some techniques where you basically pivot the boat (if the crew is good) and the tack/jibe is fairly quick. I am still learning to hike how and keep things focused - it is a lot of work to learn this. For now, I usually have whomever I am sailing with do the hiking - although it is set up for two to hike out and it is impressive seeing a flying hull with two people hiked out!
DeleteI need to get a good picture of it with the spinnaker inflated as well :-)
And now I don't want to get in the water. I had heard the snakes were out there but not seen one yet. Are you racing at the regatta this weekend? Hope to see you out there!
ReplyDeleteIf I was still in KSA, I would have loved to crew with you guys.
ReplyDeleteHi, this looks like great fun. I am working down in Jazan. Are you still sailing in Saudi?
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Andrew
andrewschinsky@aol.com