Sailboat Racing.

Dirk Willims

Active Member
belong to a little yacht club here in town, we beer can race in the summer on WED, nights. It's a ton of fun. Recently traded my Santana 20 " Tuna" for the bigger Santana525, their older boats with a huge race following.

The 525 is literally a exact copy of the 20.

Last wed, I hit a rock pile which was buoyed improperly. The rock buoys were 100yards off the rock pile. Did major damage to my keel, and didn't discover that damage until we crossed the finish line. " had 6/8 inchs of water inside the cabin.

Pulled the boat, it's on the trailer, the boat is relatively lite, at 2200 pounds. But the club boat hoist was barely able to lift the boat, due to,water weight.

Pulled the keel two days ago, and was shocked to see just how much damage I did to the keel bottom area. I hit the rocks square doing oooo, 8 maybe 9 knots, I hit hard enough that the pressure forced the keel backwards, crushing about two inchs into the boats bottom.

I've got the bottom cleaned up, sanding and grinding all the dead fiberglass, and about half way done inside the cabin, on the floor.

Decided to lay in about 1/2 inch of fiberglass inside the floor pan, for integral strength. I'm not a finerglass guy, but I'm learning.

Moral of the story, keep you boat off the rocks.

Dirk
 
i raced RC 1 meter sailboats back in the early 1990's. I have a Australia II and NZL-32 Black Magic which is very fast. Fun sport to do and watch. The America's Cup Yacht's can do 48 knots with only 18 knot wind!!
 
I can barely sail. I picked up a little bit of how it is done, sailing with my wife, and in-laws. I could handle myself well enough in open water, but wouldn't begin to do anything in tighter areas.
My father-in-law was a sailor, who was raised by a sailor. He knew his stuff, and built a couple of sloops; the second of which was the boat I sailed on; a 28' single mast sloop.

In his last attempt at sailing, we were coming back into Dana Point Harbor, and he misjudged the depth of the rocks at the end of the jetty, where they dive below water line. He thought we were just going to get close,... but we whacked something quite hard. It deflected the boats sideways, and we kept forward momentum, and made it into the harbor.
They pulled the boat, and, amazingly little damage was done. The boat was built early in the era of fiberglass, and, according to him, they over-compensated, and laid a thick keel line.
I, though having sailed a relatively small amount, have run into a rock before. Its quite shocking.
 
i raced RC 1 meter sailboats back in the early 1990's. I have a Australia II and NZL-32 Black Magic which is very fast. Fun sport to do and watch. The America's Cup Yacht's can do 48 knots with only 18 knot wind!!
I also race soling 1 meter R/C model boats. As much fun as racing the big boats without the constant challenge of lining up crew and far less expensive. Also, not much risk of a grounding. I’ve retired from racing the big boats.
 
I made sure the hull & Keel on the Black Magic (using Victor models hull from Amkerica3) was super smooth. I used 3 layers of Poly Urethane. The fern design on the side was done as a decal. It will go as fast as a single person can row a canoe. Lots of fun chasing the ducks.
 
Are the boats models? Or are they real,manned boats?, interesting I've seen the remote control boats, but not given much thought to them, looks and sounds like a lot of fun.

I'm in southern Oregon, we've had so so much smoke from the Northern California fires, in our basin that ive literally quit working on the boats. We literally can't see across the street at times from the smoke.

My wife and me took off for the coast, for about 15 days. My lungs were getting trashed.

Three/ four weeks ago we purchased a North River aluminum River sled, 24 ft, for fishing the lakes rivers and coastal fishing and crabbing on Oregon's southern coastal harbors and estuaries. Boats got a 150 Yamaha and a 8 hp Yamaha kicker for fishing. Came with a killer Electronic's package. Very high end, minus a radar.

I'm 62 now, and I'm noticeably slowing down. My future hobbies have to reflect my abilities.

Dirk
 
The RC sailboats are not to difficult to build. You don't even need to paint them. I bought Victor Model Products boats. a couple of 1 meter jobs. The Stars & Stripes and Australia 2 are modeled after the 12 meter jobs, including almost scale hulls. You fill them with epoxy and lead shot! The RC isn't hard to set up either. Rigging is simple as you fine tune the sails for the winds. Some larger models have working spinnakers. I've even seen some modern cat models that can hydroplane. I like the 12 and 42 meter styles myself.
 
Some friends and I used to fool around racing each other in our Hobie Cat 14s in Banks Channel, Wrightsville Beach, N.C.

Lots of fun.

I expect it will be just a little too windy there shortly.
 
I'm going to look into the boats you mention. Always looking for cool stuff to do.

Hobies are a trip to sailing, I've got some time in, many many years ago crewing a couple 16s and 18s. Fast fun, they actually haul ass. Have a Couple memories of pitch poling on the 16s, I was on the wire, and about two feet to far forward, the keel caught a wave and we pitch poled. In one instance the trap line would not fall free of my trap vest, " was hiked out and when we cart wheeled, the wire didn't drop free as designed.

" came free under the pontoon" in the water. Good times.

My Santana 525 is not a modern boat. It's 25/30 years old, has a good following as do the Santana 20's. Both are very fast when sailed competently.

We also have a huge fleet of San Juan 21's racing every week, these are the most popular boats, and class on klamath lake.


Dirk
 
Back
Top Bottom