TWO great DS experiences

[calden]

Hey all:

I had two wonderful DS experiences this weekend.

1) Went out with a hard-core racing buddy (he pilots a J/24 around) in some great wind. Started off the day early with 20 kts, lots of whitecaps, and some spitting rain, but it settled down just a little bit. Still danced among whitecaps, though. We arrived at the lake just in time to get in some racing, which I have not yet done. We competed with about 6 other boats who were likewise foolish to brave the precipitation. Came in last the first race, but we were the smallest so that's not surprising. Second race I was getting the hang of it and responding more to the specifics of racing, and we smoked a competitor and did much better. I actually strategized a slightly different tack nearing the mark, and cut him off by being on a starboard tack while he was coming up on a port tack. We were a bit ahead anyway, and this meant he had to drop off, and he lost lots of distance. Hee hee!

From going out with my friend I learned that a lot of my sailing, learned through books, this great forum, and solo trial-and-error, is pretty much right on. We also stopped at his yacht club for lunch, and I'm starting to think that $13,000 for a slip on a beautiful mountain lake ain't too bad.

2) Went to the same lake today for a church camp retreat morning service and lunch. Hmmm, I thought to myself, they have a few sailboats there, I'll try and get an hour in while there. I walked to the dock and what do I see but a dirty DSII with sails all awry on deck and in the cockpit. I poked around, decided the running rigging wasn't too badly rotted, and decided to take it out. I quickly found out the main halyard was jamming while raising sail. The wire was jamming in the sheaves and coming out the back of the mast UNDER the aft sheave and binding in a little slot it had worn in the mast head. Discouraged for a few minutes by this, I decided to try and fix it. It had a hinged mast after all, and I can take that down and put it back up in a jiffy on my boat. After this repair I paddled out of the little bay and into the wind, and after raising the jib she got going nicely.

What fun to sail a DSII and compare it to my DSI. Lots of rigging differences - wire luff in the jib and no hanks or clips to the forestay, looser standing rigging, tapered mast, lighter mainsail and heavier jib, but other than that basically the same lines. I think the main difference I noticed is my boat, the DSI, keeps more speed coming out of a tack compared to this one.

I liked the bigger boat feel of the DSII, but mine has more cockpit room, plus all that great teak-against-teal color thing going on. I also can track down leaks a little easier.

Nice boat, nice racing, and great sailing experiences these last few days!

Carlos