Happy Birthday To Me!

May 31 was our races 3 and 4. We got 2 bullets!

For crew we had me, Frank on main/spin, Josh on tactics/jib, Jocelyn on pit/grinder/compass and Niki on the bow. The day was actually a lot like the first race, with the wind out of the NW. Very puffy and shifty (around 15kts and 280deg)

We got out early and set a kite for practice. In this condition the Shields tends to be a bit hairy downwind: you steer dead downwind (or by the lee 10 deg) and pull the pole all the way back. This setup is fast, as you get the spin all the way out to one side, and the main the other, so the spin gets a lot of projected area before the wind. We also like to set the boat up so it heels to windward quite a lot, as it makes me use less rudder to keep the course straight. The part that's a bit, uhh, different, is the way the boat rolls back and forth. The Shields powers up pretty well, but its so heavy that it can't use the power to go faster, so it tends to try and throw you off with a deathroll! In addition, we had a wave angle that didn't match the breeze, so the boat tended to get pushed around a LOT on port gybe. We had a lot of new/newer Shields people on board, so I defintely got a couple skeptical looks in practice. We also took some t ime to sail upwind and get compass headings to help us make a plan for the first upwind leg.

During the start, we wanted to get the boat, and for once I got on the line ok and we came off the line going fast. The first beat was a bit tricky with the shifts. We tacked a bit too much, and stayed in the middle the whole time, but had a good eye on the compass/got lucky and had a nice beat. I think we rounded first or second, and hit the next bottom mark in first. We learned a lot about the wind direction, and were able to extend our lead on the second beat by tacking only on the important shifts. The last downwind we tried to beat an Etchells, but he got us at the end.

The second start, wow. We wanted the pin this time, but I got going a bit too early and ended up getting pushed over at the pin by 63. It took us forever to get back around the pin boat and restart. Eventually we started with a nice view of the back of the fleet. Our plan was to go left, which we were able to do. On the first beat we went pretty hard left for the first half, with 196 and 150 out to leeward, and we were able to round 2nd behind 130. We had an interesting situation on the run: square course, 130 ahead out to the right, rest of the fleet behind to the left. We were able to get left to cover the fleet behind, and pass 130 by sailing the "low and scary" way, with the boat by the lee, lots of windward heel. We rounded the bottom mark in first, but had a painful painful rounding/douse. Kite didn't drop right, jib didn't go up, and 130 snuck inside us. While rounding, they came out of the turn way powered up, and their rig slammed into ours, requiring us to hail protest. They did their circle, and we sorted out our problems and got going again. The 3rd beat was for the finish, and we ended up playing match race with 196 all the way up. it was a game of pressure or angle; we chose pressure while they chose angle, and we were eventually able to cross them, cover and win the 2nd race too. While the boring races (win start, extend, win) are what wins series', the come from behind stuff is always more exciting!

It was a perfect day of sailing, and not just for the wins. I really like everyone we've had sail with us so far, and it's pleasant to sail in a fleet where everybody gets along like our Shields fleet 3. It's days like this that make all the sanding and hard work worth it!

Right now we've got 6 series points, with 196 in second with 10, and 150 I believe has 14.

EDIT:

A couple notes on speed/tuning:

There was a lot of talk about rake/mast step settings this weekend since North Sails had two sailmakers out for a clinic. I'd measured our rake in the yard, but with all the talk wanted to double check it. I was curious to see if our boat had changed dimensions when moved from the cold yard/lousy trailer to the water with the rig up. For anyone who cares, here are our mast step dimensions:

Bury 35.5"
Y 134.75 "
Max Legal X : 140.54"
Actual X: 140 .25"

Our rig settings were tighter than the North guide, at 400lbs lowers, 850 uppers. Looking back at it, the lower tension helped keep the mast straight, but I don't think the extra upper tension did a thing. Our headstay (using the North datum system) was set to 48 1/4" which I probably should have tightened, but didn't seem to hurt.

We had good speed upwind. The rig setup was nice, and the trim was usually spot on. Since the waves were coming from right of the wind, port tack was nothing but suck going upwind. To compensate we had the stbd jib car one hole (.5") aft of the port car. Both were within an inch of the side tracks. On port tack we sailed with more twist in the main, mostly controlled with backstay.

Downwind the fast thing was as I said above: stick it dead down/by the lee, square back pole. Very important was vang tension to control the rolling. Lots of it, pretty much pull until you get the top batten parallelish. Driving the boat is a pain in the butt when the waves aren't square to the wind, and the crew spotted a couple wipeouts.

It's neat having crew that are great sailors, but new to the Shields. Everytime we get someone new on the boats thats used to other onedesigns, they have a couple things in common:

the main trimmers HATE the nash cleat (which I love when trimming, but may have to change)
downwind tends to make people nervous in big breeze
no one ever expects going by the lee to be quick
other one design sailors seem to rely more on twings for pole control, and less on downhaul
the j24 cowboy setup for the topping lift doesn't seem to work so good on Shields, at least not for us.
good sailors go fast no matter what the boat!

First Beercan Race/Dad goes to the races

Still slammed with work (have actually lost another 2 lbs!) so haven't had time to tweak our boat, or take photos. But.

Dad and I got the toerails on. They look great, although my eye still prefers the clean look of the smooth deck. That said, the foredeck crew likes it a lot! She may choose to stay on the boat all race from now on...

After work, I finally got my dad to sail on a Shields. He's worked on them for like 8 years now, but never actually sailed one. This wedenesday he sailed, and actually helmed, the entire beercan race. We won (although we were the only Shields) and there's a bottle of rum for him somewhere. Way to go!

RACING!

Wow. I looked at the last blog update, and realized the week that just passsed was definitely the busiest of the whole project.

No pictures, there really wasn't time. I can barely recall all the work we did, but I know I lost 10lbs in the last week, from skipping meals and long long days. It was all worth it though, this week and the last 9 months, as the boat not only got in the water in time for the first races, she came out fast and looking great!

Here's a quick summary:

Longboarded the bottom, and applied 6 coats of interprotect. This generally sucked, but the interprotect was actually a real peach to work with. Sanded up nice to around 320 and gave a great finish. Put VC17 on it (about an hour before launch) and it looks good, although the orange color is distressing to both Niki and myself. We can't wait for it to turn blue!

Installed all the hardware. I did this whenever paint was drying, or the water running off. This continued until literally the last hour before raceday.

Launched the boat late friday with Niki, Ray, Josh and my Dad, got the rig up, denamed it, Niki renamed it (yes, the boat is really named Peanut!) , sat down and had a beer with Kevin, got up early Sat morning to tune and headed out to the races in a pretty strong shifty NWer. Reports on the dock range from 20-25, and I'd side with the 25. Let me just tell you, just about the most stressful part of this project was sailing this brand new (to me) boat, which wasn't entirely finished and hadn't even seen daylight for 3 years, into big breeze. The boat was pounding pretty hard, and I could see dust coming out of the fore and aft hatches!

I had a truly excellent crew, and their skill kept me calm, and even got us to win the day with two second places, giving us a 1 point edge over the next boat.

It's been a pretty crazy winter, and nothing more than the last couple days. Today I had a chance to slow down, clean the boat (we kept stepping on shavings and bits of glass all race!) and think about the whole thing. A couple things come to mind:

The old adage about figuring out what your boat needs (time, money) and then doubling that figure is pretty accurate. I estimated 200hrs, and ended up at a bit over 400. It was a bit much really, but now that we've gone sailing on our new boat, it all makes perfect sense!

Sailing and boats are wonderful, but it's the people involved that really make it worthwhile, and usually possible in the first place. There are dozens of people that have helped in this project in one way or another, and many of them haven't even seen the boat! Some of my experts (boat builders, Shields sailors, materials techs) aren't even in this time zone. The people close to home have been amazing as well, we had a ton of help working on the boat, launching the boat and putting it all together. The last week especially impressed me, as friends and family came out of the woodwork to make the boat sail on time, and race well. It will be another post where I thank everyone by name, but for right now; you know you are, THANKS.

For the first race, I drove, Josh B came out and absolutely rocked the house doing tactics and jib, Josh's friend Christian was our expert boatspeed guy (although I think his sportboating self would resent the term "speed" being applied to our Shields) and Niki did bow. The day started out a breezy NWer, and luckily we had time to practice our upwind and downwind sailing a little bit before the race. This also gave us some time to load and stretch our shrouds out (about 3/16") and retighten just in time. I botched the first start, but we had had conservative tactics and good speed that got us into second, behind Kevin in 150 and ahead of 126. Next start wasn't a great one either, but it enabled us to get right early, which worked out great. We rounded the top mark in second to Not Passis/Farr40 guys/Quantum guy on 63, but Gary on 196 ended up sneaking around us both while we played cat and mouse. He held on to win the second race, with 63 following us in. The boat came out first for the day with 4 points, 150 in second with 5, and 196 with 6. Tight spread, but we're only going to get better at this!

I've still got some work to do: Dad and I are going to put the toerails on, and I've got a few tiny issues to sort of with parts. I was thrilled to see that almost everything we did in terms of rigging fit perfectly and worked great (with our schedule, there wouldn't have been time to fix a thing) This week I'm going to photo and make notes on all the cool parts of our boat, and do a rigging highlight, just in case people want to try some of our tricks.

Right now though, it feels great to sit here and enjoy my sunburn, while staring at the one good photo of Peanut in the water.

Paint Complete

GRAY!

Sprayed the topsides today with Mick, came out really nice.


Before that happened, I had to prep sand the primer. I'm so incredibly sick of sanding! I got it with 220, 320 and 400, then scuffed with a scotchbrite pad. After that, we washed the boat, again, and then taped off the topsides, again, plastic-ed the deck AGAIN and then washed once more, wiped with naphta, then washed the whole bloody shop to get the dust down. This took about 3 days. Here is the boat, in a rather ugly white primer stage.
After all that, the actual spraying is quick as can be. Wet down the shop floor and sprayed 3 quick coats of paint. Each one takes about 45 minutes. Happy with the results, although Mick keeps giving me guff about DA marks and muttering "owner prep" all day.

The paint is extremely shiny, here you can see Mick's reflection as he checks the finish with a light.
Here's a couple photos of the boat. The color is weird, at different angles and lights it can appear black, white and everything in between. Can't wait to tear the tape off, but we've got to shoot the white boot stripe first. I think the white paint there will really make the gray seem gray full-time!
Just to see if I could...
Hours, prep and painting topsides

Kristian 12
Mick 6

We are almost having fun yet

The rigging season is in full-on crunch mode, so I haven't had as much time as I'd like to work on boat. We've still got a lot done.

Deck paint is finished, both the nonskid and the shiny areas (I still haven't figured out how to refer to the non-nonskid parts of the deck. Nonnonskid sounds funny, maybe "the white bits?" I don't know.)

Really really happy with the way the deck looks! We've got matterhorn white awlgrip for the white bits, and a blend (6:1 Matterhorn White/Medium Gray) for the nonskid. Looks really cool. Added about 20 hrs to the project to add the extra nonskid areas (stock Shields only have it on the foredeck) and to get the contrast color, but I say worth it.

We (Mick, Niki, my Dad and myself) also started putting hardware back on. So far we've got the backstay gland, flagpole socket (just 1), traveler and associated gear and the spinnaker ratchet blocks. After all the paint prepwork, it feels great to be doing something I know how to do (rigging.)


Started sanding off the gray primer, got abour 40% done today. Monday/tues/wed (if I can) I'll sand off the rest, wash/solvent the sides, mask the deck and we'll spray the medium gray awlgrip on the hull.

Hours:

Mick: 4
Niki: 6
Victor: 3
Kristian: ???? I have no idea. I'd guess around 20 again.