Monday, December 29, 2014

Kona Worlds Follow Up

The Kona Worlds were pretty fun. I was content with my 13th place finish, but wish I had done a bit better. Wind was pretty good - almost all races were in 10-15 mph. I wish there had been more races in the 15-20+ that had been forecast for most of the week, but at least there were no drifter days.

Links:
Final Results
Photo Album with pictures from me and Ann Gratton
Official Kona Photos-1
Official Kona Photos-2
Freestyle video that Del Carpenter posted to Facebook

Here are a couple pictures from my photo album.
Me sailing #1470 between races
My gracious room mate for the week, Andy Gratton, on #2657
Andy gringing upwind with Nevin Sayre
Me approaching a finishing on port tack. I'll comment more on this later.
Me crossing the finish line on port tack ahead of #1875 on starboard. 1875 protested me on this crossing, and I ended up losing the protest hearing. I'll comment more in a future post... but I think this picture shows someone trying to head up and losing power in their sail from being clearly underneath my crossing.
Freestyle contest, while I was still upright ;)
Mile Marker 0 in Key West

Friday, December 26, 2014

Winter SUP

Weather was warm for this time of year, over 40F, so I took the SUP for a spin in the water that opened up near shore.




Ice Sailing

The ice was great on Lake Winnebago at the start of December. I was able to catch one of the days Dec.7, using a home built freeskate and later borrowed a Hiberna board from Kevin at Windpower. Also of note, these videos are my first use of the GoPro since recovering it from being lost in the Lake for over a month.

Great ice and 10-15 mph wind. Lots of sailors enjoying the day. I'm on a homebuilt freeskate and twin cam 6.0 sail.

Kevin Gratton and Alex Monroe in the smaller steel tube ice boats. Don Altmeyer on the Hiberna with a white and red sail. Andy Gratton on one of the stern steer speed demon ice boats ;) Several DN's and other ice boats out there too.
http://youtu.be/vUvyRkXdSSE


In the second video I switched to a Hiberna board. FANTASTIC BOARD. I wish the battery in the gopro had lasted longer. Probably sailed with Don for another hour or so.



Here is a picture of the gps track from the day.



Here is a zoom in of the gps path. Pretty cool how circular some of the arcs are from doing 360's on the hiberna. The area marked with the arrow is when Don and I were chasing around with each other and showing the hibernas to Joey. The 26.3 is during the best alpha500 on the track, with max speed of 26.3 mph on the way in, 17mph average through the 500m and almost all of that is while doing a 360. On that one I think I had planned to turn around, but didn't feel comfortable jibing at that speed so just did a full 360 and kept going - jibed later after slowing down.



Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Elkhart Lake August 2013

I ran across some nice pictures of my brother Adam and I sailing on Elkhart Lake last August. Clear water, sunny skies, and wind!