Better late than never. A nice little video of the Open 6.50 “Chupacabra” making some swift progress down the coast of California in the Outlaw Regatta back in September of 2009 (original article)

The second stage of our excellent northern California road trip was the Sarcoma Cup. Organized by Richmond Yacht Club this was the 2nd running of this regatta aimed at raising money for the BeatSarcoma charity. (more…)

The first stage of our San Francisco road trip involved a couple of beer can races. The first in Redwood City on Wednesday and the second in Berkeley on Friday. (more…)

The red Open 6.50 came out of the container from France on Tuesday and here we are on Saturday waiting for the start of a 20 mile distance race to Squirrel Bank. The wind was light and the weather was more overcast than usual. We had decided to sail light and we were only 3 on board instead of the usual 4. The course was basically out and back (i.e. windward / leeward) which made it that much harder to sail to our PHRF RLC rating of 72.

We did well on the weather leg keeping up with, and even ahead of, the other boats in our fleet which included a Melges 30, a B29, a J80, a J105 and a C&C 25. Our only mistake was not sailing far enought to the right (we were only 1/4 mile short) in order to make the most of more pressure and a large lift. Those boats that “guessed” correctly saw big gains and by the time we located the notoriously hard to find Surfrider weather buoy we knew it would be hard to catch up.

In building breeze we set the kite, gybed and found ourselves pointed straight at the finish mark. It was going to be a reaching sleigh ride to the finish. With following seas the Open 6.50 was on a constant plane catching wave after wave. At times we would sail over the top of a wave to catch the one in front. It took us less than an hour to sail the 10 mile leg home and we would often see speeds as high as 14 knots on the GPS! It was a great ride! Those boats in front of us that looked small when we rounded the mark quickly grew bigger as we reeled them in and then they quickly grew smaller again once we passed them. It didn’t matter if we were to windward or leeward we seemed to pass boats as if they were standing still. The sea state, the breeze and the swell all combined to hit the sweet spot for sailing fast on the Open 6.50. Despite the grins on our faces the reality of it was that our less than stella windward leg let us down overall leaving us with a 2nd (out of 3) in the SPORT B class and a 4th (out 0f 6) in the combined SPORT A&B class (full results).

To warm up for The Great Vallejo Race we went out on a very stormy, windy, and wet evening to race in Berkley Yacht Club’s Friday Night Race. (more…)