Tanzer 16 -- It's always something--spinnaker pole

Tanzer 16 -- It's always something--spinnaker pole -- May 21, 2017  The spinnaker pole is a pretty simple device--piece of aluminum tubing.  Hook in the middle.  Spring loaded snap hook on each end. Worked flawlessly for two years.  All of a sudden it jams.  No reason.  No grit, dirt or salt inside. Teflon spray doesn't help.  Of course the end that jams is the one with the pressed fitting not the one held in by a screw.

Solution:  Disassemble.  Cut through the aluminum by not the plastic plug.  Sand all the pieces with 220 grit (it takes a lot of sanding).  Lubricate with Teflon.  Reassemble.  Seems to work.

Tanzer 16, Little Fixes, jib sheet cleat, tiller

Tanzer 16, Little Fixes, jib sheet cleat, tiller, May 20, 2017 -- This is the first winter that we did almost nothing to the boat.  Two little modifications have made it just a little easier to sail.

Cam cleats were added to each side of the pedestal making it easy for crew to cleat off the jib without a line running across the cockpit.  Thus freeing up more time to fiddle with other little adjustments.

Saw this idea in photos from a Craig's List post.  That boat had a factory
pedestal and mounted them on the top.  This works fine.  (Yes! It is a busy
little centerboard cap, but all that hardware makes it easier to single-hand
and race.  My Catalina 22 has many less lines than my Tanzer 16.

And, silly as it seems, we needed to fuss with the length of the tiller.  We brought it back to normal length and moved the hiking stick forward a bit.  All this in an effort to get the weight forward on upwind beats.  (More about this later when we review out last race.)

Shortened the tiller back to normal length, and, just cause I
had a can handy, added some rubber grip paint to the end.

We are still not happy with our handling of the spinnaker--but we are getting closer.  The next thing we try will be to shorten the retrieval sock or eliminate it altogether.  If we want to use this sail in our short races, it has to go up and come down quickly and easily.  Last week we did not use the spinnaker and gained on the two Harpoons that used up a lot of time getting their chutes up and down.

The sail works great.  We are just too slow--in short races
that is really a big problem.  It we want to use it, we need
to get it up and pulling in less than 30 seconds.

Tanzer 16--Rain--Rain--Rain--Drying sails

Tanzer 16--Rain--Rain--Rain--Drying sails -- May 12, 2017  Sails are expensive, I like mine to look nice.  That means drying them out to prevent formation of our state flower, mildew.  Hate those little black spots.  So before we went sailing yesterday I cleaned the shop.

It rained like crazy, but worth it. We had one of those rare days when the wind was blowing 10 knots, but the water was flat.  We put the boat on a broad reach and flew up the bay.  We practiced weight placement on a beat, a run, and a broad reach.  Weight forward on a beat and reach definitely improve speed and shorten tacking time.

Now the clean up.  Sails, bags, rain gear spread out on the floor--glad we didn't fly the spinnaker.

After our tests, we decided to shorten the tiller back to its original length.

Thinking about modifying the way we launch the spinnaker--more later along with new jib sheet cleats on the pedestal.

Dry sails stay new looking a lot longer.

Cut the tiller back to its original length.  The extra five inches was good for
single handing--but not so swell with a crew.

Tanzer 16, First Race of 2017, 4 boats and lightening

Tanzer 16, First Race of 2017, 4 boats and lightening -- May 5, 2017 -- There are old sailors and there are bold sailors.  It seems there are also lucky sailors.  The weather was great until 1300--then the humidity rose sharply; the clouds built up quickly.   It was certain that a rare Puget Sound thunderstorm was on its way.  (Once spent a very long summer at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri --  I know what a thunderstorm feels like and how it smells when it is building.)

By 1500 it was rumbling all over the county and by 1600 trees were falling and power was going out. We make our go no go decision for racing about 1630.  I am willing to sail in the rain. I am willing to sail in rain and too much wind (up to a point) and I am willing to sail in rain with no wind.  I am not willing to sit on the water with a 23-foot aluminum stick up in the air during a lightening storm.  (A day later, the news said that a motorcycle rider was hit by lightening and killed during the peak of the storm.)

There was lots of chatter all afternoon on email -- "Go?"  "No go?"  "Maybe I will go down do the dock and see."

This strike was a couple of miles south of our race course.

In the end four dinghies showed up along with the committee boat.  They found a little crack in the storm and got in three races.

I think Garner Miller took this picture.  I was home
waiting for the lights to go out.

In the words of Fleet Captain, Jim Findley, "4 brave diehard sailors got in 3 dinghy races between the lightning storms. There is a thin line between brave and stupid. I THINK  we were on the brave side of the line.  Jim."

A picture taken later in the evening -- after the race, shown below.  So we are starting the first series with a DNS and at least 15 points at five points per race -- Oh well, it was the right decision for us.

Posted by KOMO-TV.

Tanzer 16 Dinghy Dock --added a roller

Tanzer 16 Dinghy Dock --added a roller--May 1, 2017  Spent all winter (and spring that felt like winter--it has been the wettest winter/spring in 126 years) thinking about how to make the dinghy dock easier to get the 400 lb+ Tanzer up on the bunks.  I probably went down and looked at it five times, but couldn't come up with a plan.

Since the boat is going in the water in two days, I finally sucked it up and went down there in the rain with some string, sticks, and a measuring tape.  The only improvement I could think of was to add another roller.  It's the one with the lighter color wood.  Dinked around and determined the height and position of the roller.  Then I was able to make it at home.

The roller might be 1/2-inch high (we can remove the spacer between the 2 x 8's if we need to).  We won't really know until we pull the boat up on the dock.  Wish me luck--oh yeah, they are predicting lightening for our first race on Thursday.  Luckily the marina has a bar.

Besides adding the roller, all the screws were tightened or replaced and some
cleats were added to fasten down the boat cover.  Yes, when the boat is on
the cradle it touches the Lido.  Or almost touches.

Race Announcements -- 2017 -- May thru September

Race Announcements -- 2017 -- May thru September --  April 24, 2017  Here are some opportunities to race your Tanzer in a mixed fleet with a Portsmouth Handicap--Usually there are two Tanzers at the starting line, 1304, Eric; and 1306, Jim.  The races start at 1830 in Budd Inlet.  There is a very nice launch less than 1/2 mile from the starting line.

Weekly:  Thursday evenings.  We usually finish while there is still light to put the boat back on a trailer.  1st Series--May 4, May 18, June 1.  Summer Series--June 15, June 29, July 13.  August Series--July 27, August 10, August 24.  There may be racing on the alternate Thursdays, but the committee has not organized that activity as of today.  (check with me after May 11)

Eric was first to finish and first overall in our "Race to Somewhere."

A rare photo of 1306 first at the starting line.  (That's us.)

Weekend Races/Regatta

Race to Somewhere.   Saturday, August 19.  We take off from the harbor area in Olympia and sail toward one of the nicest coves in South Sound, Gull Harbor, a distance of about 2.5 miles.  Only two prizes  First to finish and last.  We eat a great lunch. Then there is a somewhat more serious race back to Olympia.  The afternoon usually provides more steady winds.  We finish in time to load trailers in the light.  Last year a small fleet of 6 Mutineers beat all of us in the first race.

Dinghy Regatta.  Sunday, September 10 (the week after Labor Day).  Usually three races with longer courses than the Thursday night races.

Social Time.  If Eric and find out that we will have some visiting Tanzers, we will arrange for some beer, pizza, and sailing talk.  Please let us know.  jslosson@aol.com  If we get five visitors, maybe we will even come up with a trophy or a plaque.  jim

Tanzer 16--Stern up improves upwind peformance

Tanzer 16--Stern up improves upwind performance  --  December 15, 2016  For a couple of years the two best racers in our little fleet said that we needed to put more weight forward when we were going upwind.  Actually Kevin--the more colorful of the two--said, "Get the ass up in the air."

The fall regatta was a unique opportunity.  Winds were light and variable, we had too much crew, and the committee boat was willing to take lots pictures.  It was helpful that we race against two Harpoons that have approximately the same rating as our Tanzer.  We had some great starts--different post--but obviously we weren't going to win any races--time to experiment.

If you were going for comfort and ease of moving about the cockpit, the boat would trim out like this. The stern is in the water, and it is, of course, aggravated by hanging an outboard on the back.

At this particular moment we were headed down wind, but this weight dis-
tribution gives an even worse case of stern down when you are headed
upwind.

We intentionally tried different trims by putting my weight and Susan--not so much weight--as far forward as we could get.  Tony pulled out the extension and scooted forward too.  The boat trimmed out like this.

In this picture Tony is still farther back.  Susan and I are are up on the deck
and the transom is all the way out of the water.

In this photo we had Tony move forward while we sat on the deck.  The stern
is way out of the water, and the bow is probably down a little too much.

What we learned from these experiments:

• Weight forward definitely improves tacking.  With the weight forward, even when we were over-trimmed, the boat tacked as fast as the competition.  It also was far less likely to get locked in irons even in light winds.  In addition, it took a lot less rudder to turn through the eye of the wind.  We assume that moving the weight forward, and thus altering the trim, moved the pivot point of the boat forward.

• Weight forward reduces wetted surface.  This made the boat a little faster in the 3 - 5 knot winds.  In general we were almost as fast as the Harpoons even with the extra weight.  (Almost is not fast enough when you owe them a few seconds every 15 minutes.)

• Weight forward improved pointing--a little.  We usually point almost as high as the competition, but with the weight forward it was improved slightly--they did not outpoint us. When we added a little makeshift barber hauler (not legal in class rules by the way) we pointed even a little higher.  We could also get another degree by holding the boom up to weather.  I have no doubt that the bridge style traveler is a better racing configuration than the standard traveler. But I doubt that I am a serious enough racer to make that change.  For now we will just hold the boom when we are not sure we will make the weather mark.

• Weight forward is kind of a pain in the butt.  For starters we should leave the outboard at home.  The engine plus the bracket puts a lot of weight at the far end of the lever that is the boat sitting in the water.  It takes a lot of weight to compensate for that 2 hp Honda which was pretty much the lightest four-stroke I could find.  But it can be a long paddle back to the marina so the engine probably stays.  Sitting forward of the centerboard trunk requires a lot of mobility for the crew.  Since our youngest guy is 63 and I am 69, that is not a small issue.

So racing summary for the year.  We continue to improve.  We are not beating ourselves with bad maneuvers  We did manage to beat a few boats now and ten.  Kevin, did honor us with a hard luff at the starting line so that we had to do a 720 turn.*  If we get the spinnaker thing working and keep our weight forward.  We might just win some races.

*This will be a later post.  In retrospect, I think maybe it wasn't a legal luff and I should have protested him.  Maybe we were just giddy to start first a couple of times.