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West Wight Potter Mailing List maintainer
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Potterers - Evan and I crewed on a 50 footer (the Axel Heist, sister ship
of the Gypsy Moth) in a beer can race at the Vallejo Yacht Club on
Saturday. Talk about headsail work! This boat, a custom ocean racer built
in '63 has no headsail furler and changing things is quite a task. We were
six on the boat. The wind was light so the skipper had us sail out with a
170% genoa. The race course was out into San Pablo Bay and back. We had
to tack out of the harbor and that jib was tough to tack. Evan got the job
of walking the sail around the mast as it had a tendency to hang up on the
cross tree. I was the helmsman for the entire race.Then when we went out
into the bay the wind was comming out of the south east, so we decided to
fly the spinnakker. What a challenge! By the time we got the sail up,
the genoa down, and the thing properly trimmed, we had reached the mark.
We sailed about ten boat lengths past the mark getting it down and the
genny back up! I'd say it flew effectively for about 1 minute. Turning
back into the harbor we were way behind the only other boat in our class.
We decided to set the spinnakker again and got it trimmed on a reach and
began to really haul. We beat the 48 footer by about 5 feet of bow.
Although we were first to cross the line, I am sure we didn't win, some
real puny guys were right on our tails (no Potters). I have to say sailing
this boat was real work compared to our potters, much more fun and relaxing
to sail. Still it was a kick and we are going to continue to crew. Hope
this helps with the winter blues. - Eric
Eric E. Zilbert
Agricultural & Environmental Education Program
Dept. of Agronomy and Range Science, UCD
Davis, CA 95616 (530) 752-5943
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