Anthony and Cy

Measurment and Practice Race

Hello All,

Cy and I made it though measurement with no big hassles.  The process for the 49er is pretty simple.  You take all the non fixed stuff off the boat and the mast down.  The measurer then weights the boat to make sure it is not under 94 kilos. If it is, you put lead next to the mast step to get it up to 94.

We had done a little homework in San Diego when we picked up the boat.  The offical measurer was there and he allowed us to do a test weight.  It came out at 93 kg.  So we have the option of putting one kg of lead or doing things to the boat that make it easier to sail and more useful than a chuck of lead.  One of the common things to do add grip tape to the bottom of the cockpit as the original non skid wears out.  We purchased a bunch of skateboard grip and put that down.  We put lots of polish, bow stickers and basically anything to get it up to weight.  It sorta worked as we only had to put on .45kg of lead.  This is great because as the boat is light and we have the extra weight next to the mast step (best place) and as the boat gets older and soaks up water we can take out lead.  There were many new boats here that weighed in heavy.

We have now reassembled the boat and picked out best rig.  We had three to choose from and picked one that we originally bought in Miami a year ago.  A huge thanks to those donors who believed in us from the start and gave us the money to buy that mast in Miami.  We picked the mast as we used it in San Diego when we were there training with our old boat. Towards the end we were able to go quite fast even with the crapper boat we had. So the mast must have been ok. While training here in AUS, we have had our best days with that mast as well.

While on the mast subject, yesterday was quite windy and two out of the three China boats broke their rigs.  They didn’t seem to have any extra, so we sold them our third mast.  Don’t worry though as we have our spare mast ready to go fully rigged and ready to be plugged in if we break ours. The mast design is changing from a two part aluminum composite rig to a three piece all carbon rig after the olympics.  So off loading a rig was a good $ decision as well.

Last night the club hosted the opening ceremonies with the traditional Aussie National Anthem, flag raising of each country and bring in some big names.  The big names were Eddie McGregor who hosts the Aussie version of the game show, Who wants to be a Millionare.  The other more commonly known was Uber Aussie sporting hero, John Bertrand who won the America’s Cup.  He as been out watching the races and has really enjoyed watching us.

Today is the practice race and it is blowing 25 to 30 so we will see what happens.