[quote=nacraman57][quote]NACRAMAN, what is the best you have got from your 5.7? As soon as my buddy get enough confidence to solo the 5.7, I'm going to swap, & see what I can get from the 5.0...damn, it's a good boat!
[/quote]Ed,ran across your post and thought I would bore you to death with a reply. The weekend of Aug 4th 2006 our local Hobie Fleet 291 hosted the Hobie Division 7 North Central Championships at Lewis and Clark Lake in Yankton, SD. One of our traditions is to have an open class Longshot Race the Friday before the regatta. We have a shotgun start off the beach, race to a bouy up the lake, round on a port tack and race back. That particular Friday at the start of the race, winds were 25-30 gusting to 39. Our lake is situated SE to NW so a south wind will allow you to sail a broad reach to the end with nary a tack. We had no business being on the lake that day! My two daughters and I took off at the gun and it was pure chaos from then on. Jen was trapped out at the front beam, Melissa was trapped out and standing with both feet straddling my butt halfway to the shrouds. Jen was watching for gusts and counting them down...5,4,3,2.... so I would know when to ease off the sheet. I was travelled out about a foot . Jen also had my Garmin GPS unit hanging from her neck that she would look at time to time. At one point I heard her exclaim...Holy S___! It was reading 23.2 mph! One caveat.... it only lasted about 30 seconds then we hit a header, the hull slamed down and we all took a bath! The committee boat with the bouy was having a hard time getting ahead of us to drop the bouy and in desperation threw it overboard at 14.7 mi. from the start. As I was to the starboard I completely blew the tack and had to circle the mark. Nonetheless we covered 29.4 mi in 1hr 55min. Fifth out of 17 boats. Our fleet commodore, Dave Rice on his Hobie 20 hit a submerged object with his daggerboard at full speed and effectivley removed the bottom of his hull from the daggerboard well back.[img]http://www.thebeachcats.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=88109&g2_serialNumber=3[/img] Marquis Erikson was coming in off the wire on his beautifully built A-Cat when he was slammed into the raised windward daggerboard. He actually ruptured his spleen and required surgery to remove it a few days later! It was insane!! It still inspires us old dogs to swap tales of that race around campfires to this day! Ironically, a few hours before the race we hosted a sailing seminar by an Olympic class sailor (who will remain unamed) who stressed the fact that if at any time your main is backwinded you are doing someting wrong! Crap!!! My main was backwinded so bad it didn't even have any shape on the bottom half!!! About a half hour before the race she and her husband backed their Capricorn "Frenchy Boat" up the beach because they didn't want to "hurt" it! Our next Old Timer's Regatta is scheduled for July 28th-29th with the longshot on Friday the 27th. So if the wind is howling out of the south and the rollers are crashing onto the beach...do you think this 60 yr. old grandpa is going to risk going out??? Well, Hell Yeah!!<!-- editby --><em>Edited by nacraman57 on Jun 29, 2012 - 08:42 PM.</em><!-- end editby --> [/quote]
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