Represent!

As of about a week ago I got asked to represent the Banks Sails Northwest loft. So all the older sails are going on the market and there are new ones being ordered!

Also for this coming season we have some changes coming on the boat. Stephanie will be giving up her bow position and coming to the middle where she will be taking over as midcrew. Then Heidi ,one of the OCU students I coach, will be stepping into the bowman job. Should be alot of fun having them both in those positions and I hope we prove to be fast like that.

I promise I will start posting more pictures and and stuff on here. It is just tough sometimes but I want this so I can someday look back at the history of what we have done.

Just got the rudder back from Mike Kelleys shop, it is amazing! Smooth and looks like it will be fast! And now we have decided to add a flicker to the top of the mast to help the backstay clear the mainsail on tacks and gybes. Doesnt that sound fun!

Long time no write

Wow, haven't been posting much. Honestly not to many people read this so it probably isn't the end of the world. But that is okay.

We have had a great season, managed to take 7th at nationals and the event went off really well.

Gonna try and post more often for the coming months.

Dogwood 2011!

Nathan Green, Stephanie and myself went to Tsa la gi this past weekend and had a great time. Stephanie cleaned the boat up before we left, here is a picture of the inside.

We towed the boat home Thursday and once again had two boats in the drive... my neighbors love me.

We drove down friday night and set up camp, upon getting there there were already 4 other Santana 20's sitting there. We decided not to rig that night and all the 20 sailors went to dinner together. What a fun group of people!

The next day we all launched and got ready to go race, here are a few pictures of us at the dock.

Two days of racing we ended up in 3rd overall. The racing in the 20 fleet was tight! Lots of wind all weekend long and I have to admit that Nathan did an amazing job as new crew.

Of course IV and Brit were blazing fast but we did manage to scrape out a couple of wins over Brit. Some surprises came from Killin Time, one of the Kansas City boats, showed some really great speed.

Stephanie took some great pictures with her fancy app that she has on her phone. Here they are! I really like them.

This is by far my favorite!

Few little projects and an OCBC work day!

Steph and I went to OCBC yesterday to attend a work day that I am required to attend being a provisional member.

Instead of working inside which was the original plan we ended up helping prep the RC boats for this upcoming season. Basically all we did was clean them up and put all the gear back on them. They are all cleaned up and we splashed one of them.

After that we ate the free meal that OCBC provides after the work days. Basically just some hot and ready pizzas, some fried chicken and beer!

After lunch we helped John Barnett (the owner of another Santana 20) drop his mast to help him prepare for next weekend. That was an event but to protect the innocent I will not tell the story until we are out of danger of receiving the Pat White error in judgement award.

Once his mast was down and ready to travel Steph and I started working on Arrested Development. Just a few little projects.

- Added new boards to hold the hatchs in, they were just some aluminium flat bar that I rounded the corners out on and then bolted them in place. They work really well and look pretty nice compared to the falling apart old ones.

- Added a piece of PVC to the upper shroud bases, this will be easier on the genoa when it gets sheeted past it.

- The last project was to make new Winch handle holders out of a larger piece of PVC pipe. They are hung just inside the cabin at a nice angle that make the handles easy to reach and hopefully will make tacks a little faster.

So next weekend is the first regatta, Nathan will be doing midcrew since Mike will be down at Lakefest on the tri.

The Buccaneer!

Just thought I would also say something about my other boat on here also.

Two years ago I bought a Buccaneer 18, it needed some work when I bought it but we did a little work and took it out twice. Since then it has really just sat until this year.

With the Santana 20 now being kept at Hefner I wanted a boat to race on Thunderbird. So I started working on the Bucc, I cut the mast step out and reglassed a new piece of plywood under it to provide support.

From there I moved on to rigging and finding some sails that weren't completely blown out. I got all the halyards rigged and new jib blocks, then found a good deal on a spinnaker and later on a GREAT deal on a main and 2 jibs and another spinnaker.

The main and Jibs are actually for a 505 but it turns out that they fit very well on the Bucc. The main is a few square feet larger and the Jib a tiny bit smaller. Not quite perfect but a good deal.

As the Bucc plan developed and I thought about it more I started thinking that maybe Stephanie should drive the Bucc at Lake Thunderbird. So that is the official plan, stephanie will be driving the Bucc and I will be crewing. It should be fun and should help stephanie become a little more developed as a sailor.

The next project on the Bucc was to get it looking better, so Stephanie started wet sanding to get the oxidation off the boat. It was pretty bad! Eventually I started helping, and we moved pretty quickly. One entire side is done so far and it looks really nice!

I will post some pictures of it tomorrow!

Winter is over, Boat is fixed!

Okay, no post in a long time but here we go!

Winter has finally come to a close, at least in my mind it has. It is 80 degrees outside today and things are starting to green up. That means, at least in my mind, that it is SAILING SEASON!

Over the winter we ripped out the old bulkheads in Arrested Development and replaced them with new ones that I glassed in. Also the compression post and the plate it sits on have been replaced.

Our first regatta is April 16-17, Mike is already committed that weekend so Nathan Green (no relationship) will be sailing with us. He sailed with us in the Hiram last season and did well so he has been invited back!

We got t-shirts made for the boat, and I got a sweatshirt also.

Well, hopefully I will have some pictures of us on the water soon to post!

Schedule for 2011

So winter has sucked so far! But I promise to post more this coming season, shoot we may even have a video camera to take some video with sometime soon.

But here is our schedule for this coming year.

April 16-17 Dogwood Regatta Tsa La Gi (if this conflicts with Lakefest it isn't a big deal)

May 14-15 Spring Open Windycrest

May 21-22 Kansas City Regatta The Club up there.....

June 25-30 Nationals OCBC The first two days are the light house then nationals

Sept 30-Oct 1 Indian Summer OCBC

OCt 22-23 Frostbite Tsa La GI I think this used to be the Equniox but it got moved

November 5 or 6th Hiram Douglas TSC Mike this is all you... tell me when it is and I will be there

Next posts will be some major work being done on the boat!