Thursday, January 13, 2011

Cool Videos

DUE TO ISSUES WITH PHOTOBUCKET ALL OF MY CONTENT, PICS OTHER BLOG POSTS HAVE BEEN MOVED TO journalofmicrotom.blogspot.com. PLEASE GO TO MY OTHER SITE TO SEE ALL PICS.

Some Sea Pearl 21 videos taken during the 2010 Everglades Challenge. The Sea Pearl 21 is a great boat but anyone willing to take on a multiday near shore sailboat race like this is pretty darn tough.





After watching these videos I find myself missing my Sea Pearl. The new San Juan 21 is working out well though. http://mysj21.blogspot.com/

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Time For Me To Sign Off

DUE TO ISSUES WITH PHOTOBUCKET ALL OF MY CONTENT, PICS OTHER BLOG POSTS HAVE BEEN MOVED TO journalofmicrotom.blogspot.com. PLEASE GO TO MY OTHER SITE TO SEE ALL PICS..


I have been procrastinating making this post but about two months ago I decided to sell Endurance. I let it go for a few hundred dollars less than I had paid. I sold to the first person who found it on Craigslist and came to take a look. The new owners name is Christopher (left). From the moment I met him I knew he would be a great next owner for this boat. He has the same enthusiasm I do. So why sell such a great boat? Ultimately, I got bit by the racing bug. I found myself spending more time on my local waters competing in evening rum races and weekend club races than I did cruising. Where the Sea Pearl 21 is genius in its simplicity I found my self surrounded by sailors who wanted to go fast and spoke in terms that did not exist on a unstayed cat-ketch design. I felt like I had gotten everything I could from this boat before I needed to start tweaking it and that did not sit well with me because it would take the boat away from its strengths.

My hope is that Christopher will start his own blog and continue to keep you informed on Endurance and the adventures that lay ahead.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

LMSA - Rum Race

DUE TO ISSUES WITH PHOTOBUCKET ALL OF MY CONTENT, PICS OTHER BLOG POSTS HAVE BEEN MOVED TO journalofmicrotom.blogspot.com. PLEASE GO TO MY OTHER SITE TO SEE ALL PICS.

Another great day on Lake Monroe. Sadly the summer Rum Race series is coming to an end soon. Daylight savings time will affect the amount of sun light available to race on a week night.


A big thanks to Jason for coming out and crewing on Endurance. Jason is starting to get the hang of things (or he is in fear for his life when I go forward and decided it was better to help, hehe). He was doing a great job setting the sails at the beginning of the night and securing them after the race. Beverage service was also exceptional. lol

In fact a great crew day for the Lake Monroe Sailing Association. We had 3 new crew members show up for the evening race. All three were able to secure a ride. We had a couple new comers and one very experienced sailer show up.

As usual I was worried about the wind falling off as the evening progressed so crossed the line right at the start of the 6:00 - 6:30 PM window. The wind was ENE and I elected to go wing on wing with main on starboard and the mizzen on port. We sailed with the main's boom about 5 degrees forward of the mast. We were about 1/2 way across the course when a wave shifted the boats balance and the main sail jibed unexpectedly. It gave Jason a good scare but when I trimmed the sails the boat took off. The boat speed was up about 1/2 to 1 MPH. While surfing waves we hit speeds as high as 8.8 MPH.

Once again when we rounded the mark the real race began for us. This time I was committed to rounding the mark and trying to point high enough to go strait back to the start finish. We actually did decent for a first attempt. When pointing the right heading of 120 we were able to maintain speeds in the low 5 MPH range. That's not fast enough to win but for most of the leg we were pointing high enough to have a chance at making it.

I took some pictures of my GPS screen and I can see a couple of things that are worth noting. The first picture is of the entire course. As you can see we did have to tack on the way back. This may have been avoidable. When I rounded the mark you can see in the second shot that I fell off badly. At the time I was trying to get up to speed. I don't think that I was in a wind shift or header. That was poor sailing on my part. I need to tack cleanly and start reaching immediately. Figuring out how to do fast tacks in a Sea Pearl is going to take some practice.



In the 3rd picture you see me falling off again. That was a wind shift that I expected to happen as we got closer to the start/finish. Typically as you get closer to the island off of Sanford the wind bends a little and becomes more easterly. This meant we had to tack so that we would make the start finish line. After looking at this 3rd picture I noticed two things. First, I may have gone to far off course. I say this because when you follow my track after the 2nd tack you can see I didn't sail a strait line. I was actually falling off to the mark. What I don't have pictures of was the fun part that distracted me. The faster two S2 7.9 boats in the fleet were almost on top of me when I tacked. When I came over and was on a starboard tack I passed very near the first boat just behind him and in front of the 2nd one. It had the potential for being a dangerous move but we pulled it off perfectly and it would have made for a nice little video to review later. In hindsight I would have enjoyed tacking back to port and covering the 2nd S2 7.9 just for kicks.

The other thing I noticed in this last shot of my GPS was that we had two very clean tacks. No wandering around or falling off. That could be because of two reasons. One we weren't trying to point that high so it was easier or we did something better than when we rounded the mark. Not sure but I am going to try and do it again when I round the mark next time. I need to start analyzing some of my tacks and see if I can determine my angle of sail when reaching too.


Our finish time was good, 38:25.That's almost 4 minutes better than last week. And instead of being 8 minutes behind the leader we cut that in half to 4 minutes too. Other than the unexpected jibe it was one of our cleaner sails too. Overall results ended up like this.

Rank Boat Helm Name Elapsed Corrected
1 Risky Business Fisk Hayden 29:08 35:58
2 Show Me Andy Forrest 35:15 36:43
3 Sail Gator Jerry Brinton 30:04 37:07
4 Endurance Tom Dyll 38:25 39:46
5 Free Spirit Don Hoofring 36:20 41:39
6 Cavu Jack 41:09 41:54
7 Catalina 25 Bob 44:01 46:52

After the race there were some interesting conversations at Wolfies. Fisk from Risky Business complimented us that we had come a long way on Endurance and it may be time to move into a more competitive boat. I can't deny considering it. I started going to the Rum Races in order to learn how to get the most out of my boat and own abilities. I can not fault the boat at all. Its a lot of fun to sail in a small package. But I need to consider something a little more stable and roomy for my 5 person family and at the same time would be able to race well in the club. I haven't committed to doing anything yet but my days as a Sea Pearl 21 owner may be numbered.......

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Video of My Hatch Cover

DUE TO ISSUES WITH PHOTOBUCKET ALL OF MY CONTENT, PICS OTHER BLOG POSTS HAVE BEEN MOVED TO journalofmicrotom.blogspot.com. PLEASE GO TO MY OTHER SITE TO SEE ALL PICS.

Several people were asking for more info about my hatch cover. I did a quick sail on Lake Fairview and when I went to take down the boat I shot this video. About 1/2 way through I show off the hatch cover a little. (Tip: Once the video starts switch the 360p to 480p or higher. The video will look much better. If you have high speed Internet access watch it in 1080p and full screen mode.)




Here are some of the things people asked about:

3:30 Accessing the hatch from the side
3:45 Picking up the entire hatch cover
4:10 Taking apart the two sections
4:25 Close up of 1/2 of the cover
4:50 Stacking the two sections and walking on it
5:20 Putting the sections together
6:15 Latch close up
6:30 Seal between two halves
7:15 Walking on the deck while taking down the masts

Another Wednesday Night Rum Race

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First off, thanks to my friend Jason for showing up and helping out. Great having you on the boat. If your willing to crew again I will supply beverages.

Last nights race was a little more tactical than my past attempts at sailing the course on an east wind. At first I was concerned about too much wind. Earlier in the afternoon it had been up to 18 MPH with gusts up 25+ MPH but the breeze was quickly fading as the evening came progressed. 


We have a 30 minute start window and I was going to go over the line right at 6:00 PM to maximize my wind. I fumbled the start a little bit trying to jibe and get wing on wing with the main on the starboard side and the mizzen to port. My logic (and I don't know if its right) was that the wind was ENE on the starboard side and this way both sails would be fully exposed to the wind. Also the main could be flown forward of the main mast. This worked well and we made good time to the mark while enjoying a cold beverage. We monitored the GPS seeing constant speeds in the high 6 - to low 7 MPH. Our peak speed hit 8.5 MPH.

As we rounded the mark I failed to notice the wind shifted slightly further out of the north. I was on a starboard tack going north when I should have rounded the mark and tried to head strait back to the start/finish. I might not have been able to point high enough to pull it off but I definitely should have tried. It would have been a better course than the one I sailed.

I started thinking about this more and more. Finally I decided that I would analyze it carefully. I looked at my GPS. Below is picture of the screen. The triangle on the left is the race course. (The triangle on the right is just sailing after the race was over.)


I took the GPS positions and entered them into Google Earth using the mark and path functions. From their I could see the total distance I sailed vs. the distance sailed by the more experienced racers in the club sailing sloops.  (evil Precision 23s and S2 7.9s)



First thing I noticed was that I sailed an extra 8/10ths of a mile. Thats a 24% increase in distance. My down wind leg was 15:30 and calcuates to an average speed of  6.8 MPH. That leaves me with 26:38 to cover 2.58 miles. Which means I was traveling 5.8 MPH on my two tacks trying to get back to the start/finish. (Are you still with me?)

So let theorize that I rounded the mark and headed strait back. (That's a lofty goal to hope that I could point that high but I am theorizing). That means I would have had to maintained a speed just under 4 MPH to complete the course in the same time. This might have been possible.

Ok, last one. If I take 8:30 off of my time I would be competitive with the fastest boats. To do that I would have have rounded the mark and gone strait back to the start finish at an average speed of 5.8 MPH.

So my conclusion is that if I figure out how to point high and maintain fast speeds I may be able to pick up some additional time. And does anyone's head hurt besides mine?

Saturday, September 11, 2010

St Johns Trip - Sea Pearl 21 Lessons Learned

DUE TO ISSUES WITH PHOTOBUCKET ALL OF MY CONTENT, PICS OTHER BLOG POSTS HAVE BEEN MOVED TO journalofmicrotom.blogspot.com. PLEASE GO TO MY OTHER SITE TO SEE ALL PICS..

  • A tiller tamer is a must. I pulled a MacGyver and got one working but I need to rig a real one.
  • Keeping the centerboard slightly down allows for easier turning.
  • You can never have too many bungees.
  • Pull the plug when it rains. Pull it when anchored for the night. Its much easier than bailing.
  • Remember to put the plug back in before going again.
  • Hang fenders horizontally off of the oar locks for better protection
  • Oars don't last long when you use them for pushing off the bottom.
  • Storing masts off of the centerline frees up a lot of space and access to the compartment. Need to come up with a slick way to do that quickly. I might add additional oar locks that are sized for the masts.
  • Electric rigging with navigation lights would be nice.
  • PVC rollers do well for getting over land obstacles such as weirs.
  • 2 HP Honda 4 stroke on a Sea Pearl 21 will get around 40 MPG.
  • The 2 HP Honda 4 stroke has a manual tilt adjustment with 4 positions. Nice for very shallow areas.
  • You can stand on the starboard rail and make the motor come up a couple inches when negotiating shallow water. 
  • A few hatch modifications are in order. New buckles on the sides, Perko latches on top. A couple of spacers are needed to make the hatch lid line up better and be easier to open and close.
  • A Sea Pearl 21 fully loaded with camping gear is very hard to load on the trailer compared to an empty boat.

Friday, September 10, 2010

St Johns Trip - Update 5

DUE TO ISSUES WITH PHOTOBUCKET ALL OF MY CONTENT, PICS OTHER BLOG POSTS HAVE BEEN MOVED TO journalofmicrotom.blogspot.com. PLEASE GO TO MY OTHER SITE TO SEE ALL PICS.

Well  it's finally here. Our last day. Johanthan and I elected to take out at different locations. He headed to Sanford and the Lake Monroe public boat ramp where his family would pick him up. I choose to go up the Wekiva River because Wekiva Island is only a mile from my home. Its a 15 mile run up river. The Wekiva has a good flow to it and can be a little tricky to navigate due to submerged logs and and lots of eel grass getting rapped around the prop. But its a place I know very well so I was sure it would be a relaxing trip.

Not really much to report. Just a few pictures of the river, Wekiva Falls and arriving at Wekiva Marina.Total time to get up the river was just over 4 hours. Distance was 15.1 miles. I arrived at noon just a head of some light rain.

Mark 96. Entrance to the Wekiva.
Check out the bottles.
Entrance to Wekiva Falls.
Cool tree.
Wekiva Island


Thanks for reading my trip blog. I had a lot of fun making the trip and sharing it. A big thanks to Johnathan for inviting me along. I would have never considered a trip of this magnitude on the St Johns. Especially the distance covered. I learned a lot about Sea Pearl 21 sailboats and the St Johns too.

Trip Distance Log

Camp Holly @ 192   (Mile 0)
520 Bridge 28.7 Miles
528 Bridge 37.4 Miles
50 Bridge  50.8 Miles
46 Bridge  72. 5 Miles
46/Lake Jessup   91 Miles
415 Bridge 94 Miles
I4 Bridge 101.3 Miles
Wekiva River  107.5 Miles
44 Bridge 120.3 Miles
Deleon Springs 135.1 Miles
44 Bridge 152.4 Miles
Wekiva River 165.2 Miles
Wekiva Island (Tom) 180 Miles
Sanford Lake Monroe Public Boat Ramp (Johnathan) 176 Miles