Dec 29 - Lac Bay

4,102 km

Lac Bay, Bonaire, Caribbean Netherlands

2014 Sailworks Retro 6.5, 2015 iSonic 107, Black Project Freeride Delta 21. Wind: ~ 16 knots

Today was going to be a day for practicing laydown jibes... didn't happen. Looked on the webcam before rigging, saw bundles of seaweed on the beach. Fortunately, I brought my only weed fin, the Black Project Freeride Delta 21 cm. Decided to rig the Retro to make it easier to waterstart when I would certainly botch port tack laydowns. First run across the bay was decent, the BP Delta obviously would not point like a slalom fin, but it held pretty well, no spin outs. The pluses of using the BP Delta was that I could make a run deep in to the mangrove shallows, which I did, and it did a wonderful job with the floating weed patches. Unfortunately, I swung wide on the jibe so only a little part of the jibe counted in the Alpha, but the jibe felt good. Back to the launch area for some minor adjustments and another run, also decent but a little too deep and hit the mud bottom in the mangroves. Turned around and realized I was in trouble. The wind turbine south of the bay usually points between NE and SE, it was now pointing almost S which meant I had to sail directly into the wind to get back. This was due to a rain squal moving through south of the bay. OK, took the indirect route back but the wind was also dropping so it was mostly just a long slow slog. Finally got back to the launch area and waited, and waited for the wind to pick back up. As the graph shows, it didn't. Good for Aron, Amado, and Taty on their foils, not so good for me rigged for high teen wind speeds... Basically, sailing session was over after only two runs...

I stumbled into Kuma's camera frame today. Roo, does the stance look less stiff?

I commented:

CONGRATULATIONS ROO! . Happy that everything (at least sort of) lined up for you and you had decent temperature! And congratulations on your second best 2 Sec Ave posted to GPSTC!

Now, back on the exercise equipment and prepare for Defi 

Roo commented:
Barton stance looks good, try the boom even lower to get out further away from the gear and load it up.

I commented:

Roo, the scary part is that I'm actually starting to think like you ! The part that is deceiving with the photo is that the boom height is set at the same height (and the absolute lowest height) that I can set it for when using the Gaastra Vapors. The Sailworks Retro apparently has a slightly bigger boom cutout, or maybe lower, or, whatever, the point is that I have already set the boom height as low as I can on the Vapors. I only set it as in the photo for consistency between sails. 

I'm a little stumped as to where to go now - seems like the only option is longer harness lines (using 30 inch now). I have a set of Severne adjustable that will go to 32 inch, so I can try that but at some point I think my arms will need to grow longer in order to get any further away from the rig...

I commented:
One point I forgot to mention, the Gaastra carbon boom that I use with the Vapors is actually a couple of cm wider than the Maui Sails boom in the picture. This extra width of course gets me further away from the sail (without stretching my arms  ).

Roo commented:
Longer lines and drop you butt. Can you drop the extension 1 notch so the sail is down lower?

I commented:
re: dropping the extension: Even using the RigWinch I can barely get enough downhaul on the sail now (per Taty's recommendation). There is maybe an inch between the sail pulleys and the mast base pulleys. Unfortunately, the Chinook mastbase pulleys are perpendicular to the GA sail pulleys so the rope needs to rotate 90 degrees and this rotation takes up most of the space. I have been wondering if I should switch to mast bases where the pulleys are in the same plane as the sail pulleys (I think Neil Pryde mast bases are the only ones I have seen like this). I have wondered for years why the mast base pulleys and sail pulleys don't align...