Laser and Aero Sailors,
Thanks to Laser Sailor Erik Skeel for a nice summary of the day.
Sunday started off with a strong 15+ knot Southerly making for competitive races with only a few capsizes. The wind brought regular puffs and shifts providing ample opportunity for gains and losses. Both fleets we’re tight with close finishes showing that everyone who chose to spend the last day of February sailing meant business. Race committee did an excellent job running races on a square course with only the occasional over early. The day was called after five races in each fleet.
Erik found an issue with his Radial bottom section at the end of the day. Here is a link to a couple of pictures when he was de-rigging. These bottom sections have been known to break, but even with failure 75% of the way around, this one still managed to stay up. Kind of amazing!
https://johnbea.smugmug.com/Children/2021/Seattle-Laser-Fleet/2021-02-28-Frostbite-6/i-LDvVGZJ
One of our youth sailors Alex, who is proficient Laser Radial sailor, tried an Aero with a 5 rig for the day. Here are some impressions from his first experience in an Aero.
I found that this was a pretty simple boat to jump in and sail. I enjoyed how maneuverable it was on the starting line and how quickly you can accelerate and decelerate. It did take me a bit of time to get used to the fact that it wasn’t quite as stable as a Laser downwind, but of course, that is what makes it fun!. I think my favorite feature was having the outhaul and cunningham led to each side of the boat- I play them a lot.
I really liked how it had a place to put a masthead wind indicator vs on my laser I have to slide it in between my mast and sail- I really like a top windex. I appreciated how easy the boat was to rig and derig especially with the outhaul and cunningham knots that slid into the boom. I also thought it was helpful that the daggerboard had reference numbers on it- I often found myself putting it around the #4 mark. Two idea’s I’d use from my laser is a pvc tubing handle on the vang to make the loop easier to pull on in heavier breeze, and instead of the vang shackle it would be easier if it was a quickpin- especially for de-rigging.
Thanks for sharing your first impressions Alex.
John Beaver provided a place to upload all of my photos and short videos from last Sunday. Here is that link.
John also took photos from his inflatable boat. As usual, they tend to be heavily weighted towards his kids, but have decent coverage of the Laser fleet and some of the Aero’s as well. About his photos, John says: “They start out kind of bland, but get more interesting as I warmed up. 🙂”
https://johnbea.smugmug.com/Children/2021/Seattle-Laser-Fleet/2021-02-28-Frostbite-6/
The last Frostbite session for this season is on March 14th and Thursday evening racing begins in April. See the CYC website for the schedule and registrations details.
Cheers,
Mike Johnson
Aero 1377