Sunfish Challenge - Norfolk VA

[Kevin]

Here's an interesting race I just heard about. Not in my neck of the woods. But could be perfect for some of the east coast guys. Open to any boat under 22 feet long. 11 mile distance race.

http://www.sunfishchallenge.com

Kevin.

[admin]

Yah, this is a neat event. I didn't think it was open to anything ballasted, but it looks like there's a Sonar Class.....wait, a Sonar is 23 feet LOA....

does not compute does not computer does not

[Mist]

I noticed the Sunfish Challenge results had three Viper 640s in it. How about an i550 class next year? I'm certain Mist will be ready.

[admin]

It would be hoot to do this...as long as the boat doesn't break up off Sewells Point Spit! I'm in depending on date and tropical weather forecast

[admin]

DON'T GO TO THEIR WEBSITE! it has been hacked and there's a virus waiting for you.

It looks like it's on Spetember 17th this year (2016) -- this site is safe: http://www.sail1design.com/event/sunfis ... ance-race/

So all you east coasters, we can coalese down there and race Saturday and Sunday late morning. Or Friday evening.

Or wednesday....

[Mist]

I'll (mist) be ready! If folks are looking for a place to stay while in town. I'll offer my 29' boat for you and crew to camp on free of charge, at the local yacht club. There'll be shower and food facilities and such too. One could sail to the race course from the club or trailer their boat over to the other side of the harbor and set up there. If there are more folks than I can accommodate, I'll try to arrange additional boats for camping on. Just pm me if you're interested. Lets plan ahead and have a great turnout.

[admin]

Most excellent! Should I start a thread on the dreaded "Anarchy" and anticipate the ensuing hate-fest? We could call it the i550 east coast something or others, invite the World!

[Mist]

I've been contemplating the anarchy avenue for more invites. Can't quite get myself there yet. I'll be away from computer/internet access for awhile. Let's brainstorm on that thought a little bit.

[admin]

Same here. I always feel like I need a shower after visiting that site.

Right, let's let it lie for awhile....I think most people eventually come here when there is anything to check with regard to i550s

[Mist]

I just spent 10 day blasting around the BVI on a few different multihulls one was high performance and the other a hotel on water. Winds were 20-25 knots the whole time.

The vacation did not result in any thoughts of wisdom for whether to announce i550 sunfish challenge plans on sailing anarchy. Let's keep thinking about it...

[admin]

Hah, that sounds like a total hoot, Tim. Hope you had a great trip and we can think about the SA announcement until October as far as I am concerned (wink wink nudge nudge)

[admin]

Alas, due to family demands and my own unpreparedness, I don't think I'll be able to drag the boat down to North Folk this year for the SUNFISH CHALLENGE.

One of these years though....hoping to be able to retire in 24 months

[Mist]

I'll be there. Join us when you can. Are there any upcoming northern bay races that I should travel up for? With enough notice, I'm willing to travel.

[Mist]

Does anybody know the Portsmouth Yardstick rating for i550? I've been given 79.8 by race management, but they list my boat as i505. I wonder if they mistook my i550 for a 505.

[Mist]

On second thought, using the reverse conversion formula provided on Wikipedia, 79.8 sounds about right. It closely equates to phrf of 148, which I figure is good. It might be too generous???

[admin]

Hi Mist, I saw your post on SA. Great that you made it out this summer!

I am excited about the 2017 season. I've already connected with someone who wants to promote some sporties racing on the bay. Maybe we can get some VXone and Vipers out with us at Screwpile?

My main thing is to completely revamp the keel and the keel lift system. It became such a nightmare we stopped using the boat late last summer. I have the keel home now and am going to grind it down to the original laminate, wrap it once in e-glass and CF, and put a top coat on West System graphite on the outer surface. That and also cut out the keelbox inner sleeve and widen the keel slot guides to much less tolerance. The thing was so tight, we had to use a sledge hammer to bash the foil out of the boat.

We also need to find a way to get a better grip on the kite sheets....another way to reduce load. In 12 kn of breeze, trimming the kite got to be tiresome very quickly with just one ratchet block taking the load off.

With regard to the D-PN rating, we got 141 from PHRF which relates to about 78.5 D-PN.

[Warren Nethercote]

What PHRF Fleet gave you 141? Chesapeake?

[admin]

Yes, it was PHRF of the 'Peake. Puts me at the tail end of PHRF B here, with our splits. Not great.

[Warren Nethercote]

Going back two posts, have you tried adding a second ratchet to the spinnaker sheet? Just replace the first block with a Harken 40 or 57mm carbo ratchet, preferably of the auto-on-off sort. Or, if using a single Harken ratchet already, consider changing to Ronstan - their ratchets generally hold better, but do chew up sheets faster. I changed to a 70 mm Ronstan ratchet on my DN and found it reduced static loads relative to a 75mm Harken ratchet. But it sounds like you need a tandem arrangement - accepting the risk, of course, that the sheet will be slower to release..

[Mist]

Hey TF and others,
Yes, I'm very interested in the Screwpile regatta. I'll keep the middle of July open. Please let me know when the dates are posted. I'll reserve a hotel room right away. Also, I'm confused on the Chesapeake rating. I didn't think I could get a rating as the boat is less then 20ft long. Folks at my yacht club are quizzing about how I can get a rating.I don't know what tell them.

My boat may sail but it definitely not optimized yet. I to am fighting the 'too much load on the spin sheet' issue. The info on anarchy forum is great. Additionally, I need a gnav. I'm hoping to purchase all the piece parts for a Viper gnav. Anybody know how I can do that?? Plus I simply need to learn how to sail this boat, it's not the 30 foot slow slug I'm used to.

Is anyone up for organizing something for the Midwest? I like the idea of lake Erie, put-in bay aera. I'm up for that to if I have have enough notice.

[Warren Nethercote]

APS has Viper gnav bits. Vela Sailing Products is another source.

[Mist]

Warren,

Thank you! All of the boom fittings and blocks are available from APS for approx $290.00. I'm still having issues finding the mast strap, strut, and strut end fittings. I'll call APS tomorrow. They probably know something I can't understand from their website.

[admin]

I think we should do Screwpile. There are a few folks who want to get a Sprotboat start reinvigorated there this summer. Some are larger sporties, the GP26 for example, but maybe we could enlist a few VXone and Vipers and maybe coax another i550 or two to travel to Solomons. Same with Put-in Bay, I could do that in August I think.

Mist, my boat is still a work in progress and we have yet to really get any sort of racing-caliber crew work settled in. We're terrible. Our gybes have gotten a little better but not much. The boat is forgiving enough to want to go fast no matter how much we try not too