New boats in town

3 boats arrived today from the east coast. Pics to follow tomorrow.

White Rabbit #238 has changed colors to a light gray, a shade lighter than Peanut. Apparently it's picked up a nickname of "gray hare." Neat. Really striking; gray hull, gray bottom paint, no bootstripe. Very much a ghost boat, hope we don't have foggy days as it should photo well (if you can find it!)

Syrinx #239 belongs to Bill Berry, who's won 2x Nat's in the last 3 years, and come in second a ton of times. It has the most perfect bottom/keel I've ever seen. If you touch the surface, your skin tingles a bit. They've done some neat stuff with their mainsheet, going 2:1 gross tune and 4:1 fine. This means they can trim and turn really damn quick, but have to use the fine tune in lighter airs than we do. I considered this for 88, but kind of chickened out as it's a pretty big main for 2:1, and our main trimmer is my size.

Freedom #255 has got to be one of the prettiest Shields around. Flag Blue (I think), gold stripe, waterline and red bottom. Just looks classic. Makes me want to don an ascot. Actually I don't actually know what an ascot is, but it seems like something one wears when one has a postcard quality yacht.

Saw 239 and 150 go out for a sail in about 5 kts. Looked fun! I'm really itching to sail, which I guess is the point of taking a bunch of time off from the boat before the big event. Mark P from 63 was joking about us not sailing for a while being like the way athletes rest before a big event. I didn't want to say anything then, but thats exactly the point!

By the way, here are all the photos from our powerboat adventure (thanks CMRC, happy to make that trade anytime!)
http://picasaweb.google.com/chicagoyachtrigging88/Sailing91209?authkey=Gv1sRgCJGzhs-Pk57PZA# And I do mean ALL the photos, as in 471 of them. Highlights would be the start photos and the fog photos. We also zipped over to the big boat course and captured 88 crew Katie A finishing 1st in the J105's. Go K.

Helped out 130 today as they made a couple last minute changes, such as our spinnaker sheet ratchets and 2:1 jib sheeting. I sailed with that family for years and really have high hopes for them at Nat's. They've been pretty damn fast when they have the whole team together this year, so they should do well. Kevin on 150 has a great team too, with Ryan coming into town, and when those two get together it's usually rocket fast. I really feel like fleet 3 has grown a lot the last 3 years or so, so we should do well as a group at Nats.

More updates tomorrow as I measure the boats and meet more teams, this is really exciting to have Nationals in our pond!