GeoffS's blog

I just looked back at the first photo I posted here, compared with the shots from Fire on Ice last weekend...

Feb, 2004:

Light winds made for some pushing Saturday, but a number of racers got around the track in good time.

Light wind and cold temps kept the track quiet until afternoon. Three boats setup and sailed, with a fourth arriving as the sun was setting.

Winds and the temperature are forecast to build through the morning, so Saturday's racing looks to be exciting.

Some photographs...

Ken Smith, Dan Heaney, Jori Lenon:

The Pits Saturday, 8:00am:

The awards:

No sailing today...
The wind deities neglected to favor Lake Pepin with wind until well after the regatta was called "complete" and most people had packed up. Many of the local sailors (including two Ice-Optis) were out ripping around in the freshening breeze as I pulled out of The Pickle Factory parking lot at 2:00pm.

A course was set in the light morning breeze, and a race was started. Steve Orlebeke missed the time-limit on the first lap by two minutes, and the black flag was run through the fleet on the 4-wheeler.

The light morning wind filled in nicely allowing five races. The ice got progressively softer all day, but I didn't see any particular runner that was dominating. The sticky ice and 10-15kn breeze made for pretty high loading on equipment, and there were a couple of runners broken, along with one mast.
Preliminary Results are posted here.

I wimped out and only set my boat up before heading into the Pickle Factory for dinner. Tom Meyers, Markham Chattertom, Pete Johns, and some others ripped around the lake all day. Adam Koller arrived around 5:00, setup his boat and headed out for 45 minutes of sailing before sunset. Ed Newcomb and his son were sailing their steern-Stearer and Skeeter (Ken Whitehorse's old "Fast Buck) all day, too.

I'm planning to leave straight from work tomorrow, so I loaded up the boat and gear this evening while it was warm and the sun was still out (thanks to the earlier Daylight Savings Time switch!).

I'm hoping to get to Pepin around 4:00pm Friday and setup the boat so Saturday morning is a little less hectic, and I can help out with registration and stuff.

One item I didn't repair on my DN was the bow-tang. It got twisted a bit in the crash, but it still fit nicely on the hull (it just wasn't quite centered...). I figured the forestay loads would straighten it out, and after a day of sailing around in winds around the teens to 20 mph it looked brand-new again!

Also, after said day of high-wind sailing, I'm pretty confident the repairs will hold up. I haven't checked everything with the proverbial "fine tooth comb", but so far I haven't seen (or heard) anything that would cause me to worry.

After a day of sailing in 5-10 mph winds on some fairly rough ice, every thing is still holding together...

[3/1 Update: still holding after a long day of hard sailing in high-teens and low 20s]

Well, it's all done! I've never had so much trouble mounting plank hardware. though. Yesterday the holes stripped, and today I got the hull plates mounted too close together! Argh.. Luckily, I was able to simply shift the plates and drill new holes, so it was only a minor speed bump, but I'll certainly be fixing things as soon as I can get back into the shop (probably not before the Westerns in a week).

Two more hours. Total = 35

Well, one snafu is over a week of work ain't bad...

When I was attaching the plank plates to the hull, one of the epoxy-filled holes stripped out. I've never had that happen before. The other plate went on with no problems.

Well, it's almost done!

I made lots of chips and sawdust between using the router to trim the deck plywood and the sander to level out the joints where the new deck fairs into the old.

This evening was a pretty straightforward set of tasks. The "must do" item was to glue deck plywood (3mm Okume) to the top of the sideboard and grab-rail. I also did some sanding to fair the glass patches into the surrounding areas.

This evening was a quick stop in the shop again. I started by sanding the really rough edges off the various patches (just so I wouldn't cut myself on the sharp edges). Then I laid out the fiberglass to bond to the outside of the sideboard.