St Mary's Training a Success!

After 7 days of boat work and 7 days of sailing I am bringing 'Sled' down to Florida to put it on a ship for the Bahamas (where the World Championships are in January) next week. In the future, as we become more accustomed to all the nuances in rigging this machine, hopefully we can improve on this 'boat work to sailing ratio'. But for now it is all necessary as we learn how everything works in the boat. The boat held up great in the training and we are excited about getting her up to full speed.

As far as the sailing went, it was perfect for learning the boat as the majority of the breeze was light to moderate. We had a couple days with some solid breeze and what a blast to feel the boat get up and go. Every now and then we nail our wire to wire tacks, but more often than not they are tarnished with imperfections; hopefully with time our consistency will improve. We spent hours working on our light air tacks and gybes and were stoked to feel some improvement over the course of the training. We have been doing our best to cross the boat together during the tacks and only roll enough to almost put the leeward wing in the water.

The other key we have heard to light air sailing in these boats is to keep the weight forward and get the fat transom out of the water as much as possible. Also sailing on a river here, we dealt with alot of puffy conditions, which make the skipper and the crew reactions to these velocity changes paramount to maintaining a balanced, fast boat - Over reacting to a puff can be very SLOW because of all the leeward helm and winward wing dragging. We have found in light air, with Jesse full out, adjusting to puffs, can do most of the boat trim work; It is only with major velocity changes that necessitate me moving forward and in to keep the boat trim in check. Being used to slow boats, we were also shocked at the change in downwind angles due to pressure, you can literally sail through 40 degrees as you deal with velocity headers and lifts - a testament to the apparent wind we are creating!

Below are some pictures that my dad got of us over the Thanksgiving Weekend. It was light, but the weather was very pleasant for the time of year. Thanks to Malcolm for all his work helping our campaign getting off the ground! He has been there since the beginning and his trailer box is awesome! Also thanks to St Mary's Sailing and Adam Werblow for taking care of us and making us feel so welcome; the new boat house is awesome!

-Zander