Tanzer 16 -- Catalina 22 love triangle -- another boat -- mistresses

Tanzer 16 -- Catalina 22 love triangle -- another boat  -- August 31, 2016  I am blessed with a wonderful wife and now two mistresses.  Fortunately the mistresses are both boats.  Yesterday a Catalina 22 was added to the mix.  No plans to race the Catalina, but needed something to take out my young grandchildren, and friends my age who really just want to kick back and drink a beer while I sail.  Pat, my wife, says she may go out on this one--we'll see--she has never set foot on the Tanzer.

The big challenge with the Catalina is to leave it be.  It is ready to sail, and I don't need two boats as dialed in as the Tanzer.  Maybe I will have to actually retire--two boats is a lot -- well four actually, but one is an aluminum fishing boat and the other is a canoe and they aren't very demanding--more like flirtatious dalliances than mistresses.  Throw in a big yard and I might just be too busy to work.

Just about the max boat my little Dodge Dakota can handle.  The plan is to
keep this boat under cover most of the year and moor it in Budd Inlet May
thru September.  Boats are cheap--sails come dear.

Tanzer 16 Spinnaker wrap -- What a mess

Tanzer 16 Spinnaker wrap  --  What a mess  --  August 23, 2016  We installed a spinnaker launching chute and retrieval sock last winter; it was a big effort.  Slowly we have been learning how to use it.  Mostly it works pretty well.  Very mixed results in last week's race.

We didn't expect to do very well.  We had three guys in the boat, and the winds were light.  But we thought at least we will get to practice a bit using the spinnaker.

The spinnaker fits nicely inside the launching chute.  It is supposed to keep
the deck clean and simplify the launch.

There are a lot of reasons why we shouldn't use the spinnaker on our races--primarily because the courses are too short.  However, if we could get it up and down quickly, the spinnaker would be useful in the light air races where our weight is such a disadvantage.  (See our page on Racing the Tanzer 16 in mixed fleets.)

The first hoist during the first race was perfect.  We were dead down wind, the sail came out of the tube in a flash and immediately started pulling us down wind toward the finish.  When the wind shifted to a beam reach the sail still worked well, we brought the sail in with no fuss.  Great!

But alas.  Our joy was short lived.  On the second hoist the sail came out twisted.  I tried to fix it.  It got worse.  I tried to fix it more--it got way worse.  Eventually it was wrapped in a tight knot around the jib furling drum.  I got frustrated.  Briefly considered taking my sharp rigging knife to the sail. Recovered my sanity.  Abandoned the  race. Cussed--including the F word and the "What a CF!" words.  I seldom swear on the water (sound carries).

It got way worse than this before it got better.

At two in the morning, I had trouble getting back to sleep and thoughts of spinnaker screw-up stalked me in the dark.  Finally fell back to sleep with the realization that the initial twist was caused because the sail head had flipped over when the halyard was reattached for the second hoist.  Further realized that we should not have attempted to use it in such a short race.  Main lesson from all this: When the spinnaker is a mess, don't spend time trying to fix it, just retrieve it and sail on with the jib and main.

The committee boat appreciated our early retirement from the race.  "If you can't be fast, at least quit early."

Adding a Catalina 22 to my little fleet next week.  We won't be racing that boat--unless of course there is another boat on the water.  Then we will be racing even if only one of us knows it.

Tanzer 16 PNW Invitational--Pretty much a bust

Tanzer 16 PNW Invitational--Pretty much a bust  (but still we had a good time) -- August 16, 2016  Doggone there just wasn't any wind!  We sailed north for two hours and they called the race. One catamaran and four Buccaneer 18's managed to finish.  The rest of us just couldn't complete the 2.5 miles.  We had a great lunch.  Eric (T-16 1304) and I (T-16 1306) traded great Tanzer stories and looked over each others' boats.  The Buccaneers were all from out of town, and they read the wind better than we did.

The race back was worse.  I told my crew, Dan, "Well, either we will look pretty smart or very foolish because we are quitting first." At that point the race hadn't even started. It was the right call.  The little 2 hp Honda got us back to the dock in about 35 minutes.  The wind came up just as we turned into the marina--Still a good time.  Hope some more Tanzers show up next year.

Would you come down if there was a t-shirt?  Hats?  Free beer?

Yup, that's how much wind there was after we sailed 1.5 miles of a two and
a half mile race.

Gull Harbor, the lunch spot, is one of the most scenic little coves in Sourthern
Puget Sound.