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hooblie
climber
from out where the anecdotes roam
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ferretlegger, better double up on the oranges, and hey ... go down below, find the mammalian row (particularly the ungulates) and check for any lactaters. you can save a lot of churning just now, given the current conditions. just sayin' there matey ... now that there's no doubt about who's captain, you're going to want some butter on your biscuit
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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How depressing, come on Susan you are the admiral, you have to find a better more reputable analogy than PTPP!
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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so why 7th in overall monohull?
Since they are all different boats they handicap them depending on the design. Truth is a race sled, a big fast boat, most of the others are more cruiser in design.
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SCseagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 7, 2012 - 12:35pm PT
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Another site through SingleHandedSailing Society with racers' updates. Some are crusing along, others are having power problems and hand steering up to 24 hrs at a time! It's always fun to read the progression from "sick sick sick" to "in t-shirts and shorts now, getting naps" etc.
http://singlehandedtranspac.com/updates/
Susan
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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5.2 kts - WOO-HOO!
That would have been termed 'Flank Speed' on tubs I have graced.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Funny. On small keelboats, we sometimes work our way back to the dock by standing pretty much over the keel and rocking back and forth.
You get about 1/8 knot out of that.
I have always wanted to sail around the world. I have tons of books on the topic. Unfortunately my sailing life has been all about racing dinghys on lakes. That is more intense than you might think, though.
I need to get with Russ the Fish and see if he would want to crew up. Fish will do anything for beer.
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Argon
climber
North Bay, CA
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Looks like Truth used to be owned by Best Buy spokesman Phillippe Kahn - so it must be in the Ellison Mariana Trench deep pocket class.
Any concerns about this Hurricane Daniel out in the Pacific?
Go Mouton Noir!
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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You can outrun hurricanes or steer clear.
Weather models are pretty good these days. Anyone can check them. PM me if you want a basic explanation, but they are all online.
Hey. I know a zillion meteorologists here. They are super good. I am sure you could hire one to help out. Maybe for free.
The entire brain trust of meteorology is in Norman, Oklahoma. It ain't all tornadoes, either. They do everything.
We have:
National Severe Storms Laboratory
Storm Prediction Center (They issue all weather watches in the u.s.)
Numerous research groups with too many acronyms to go into.
The University of Oklahoma..which is mainly a mesoscale school
They are all in a new big building under one roof. And yeah, they do tropical storm research as well.
One of my many weird hobbies was chasing tornadoes back in the early nineties through 2005 or so. Now it is so geeky out there that you might have 100 idiot chasers on a good storm. So me and my buddy, who is a full professor, only go out if it is within 30 minutes of the house.
I didn't go out this year, but I did see my annual tornado as one missed my house by 6 blocks.
I worked for Twister in 95. I drove a camera operator and his crew all over the U.S. I got them what little real weather that they used.
I worked on all of the field experiments for many years. Most of it was tornadoes, but there were some boundary layer experiments. I also got to drive geekmobiles into two hurricanes. Georges and Floyd.
Hurricanes make everything go fungal. Jerry threw my shoes out the window in north carolina because they stunk too bad.
Anyway, maritime warnings for the big storms is pretty good. Hell, I think the Navy's global models are still online.
most models are here:
http://stormeyes.org/pietrycha/ok.html#model
The tropical weather page is updated regularly and is really fun:
http://stormeyes.org/pietrycha/hur.html
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Ya mean it ain't 'red sky at night' any more?
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Argon
Good question about Hurricane Daniel. Looks like Michael is now finally into some wind and if he keep up this average he will be into Kaui sometime between Thurs to Sat. The Big Fat High looks to stay somewhat stationary but as you can see the isobars have tightened or are closer together so more gradient and more wind. The wind is also at a better angle for running, ie. astern and it will be a more comfortable ride. That is a relative term!
Hurricane Daniel is forecast to intensify and then as it hits cooler water, West of 125 degree longitude, downgrade to a Tropical Depression as it heads West. It is now moving West at approx 10 kts.(12mph) Roughly twice the speed of the "fleet." Later in the season as the ocean temperature heat up it is possible on an average year to have several hurricanes cruise West below the Hawaiian islands without downgrading.
With current patterns staying somewhat consistent the most the fleet will see will be a large swell coming out of the SE and later S. If Daniel heads more WNW it will be closer to Hawaii and there could be an additional wind factor involved. With the Big Fat High circulating clockwise and the Tropical Depression circulating counterclockwise the two can join forces with an Easterly component coming from the bottom isobars of the High and and Easterly component coming from the top isobars of the Tropical Depression. This is called a squash zone and if you are in the area you can get some pretty strong winds. All depends on the location of the boat, the High and the Low from the Tropical Depression.
Everything is opposite in the South Pacific so it gets dowright confusing sometimes.
Michael is currently at 29-59 degrees North and 138-12 West.
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John M
climber
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Maybe someone can explain something for me. When looking at the leader board it says that the guy on the sled is first in sleds but 8th in overall monohulls. Is there some sort of handicap? Because I can't figure out how he could be 8th.
Thanks..
http://yb.tl/shtranspac2012
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SalNichols
Big Wall climber
Richmond, CA
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Each boat has a time allowance based upon it's speed potential, expressed in seconds/mile. The Open 50 owes the rest of the fleet from a few days to a week or more of time. So, when you finish, the time correction factor is added to your Elapsed Time to determine your Corrected Time. Corrected Time is how the winners are determined.
The Open 50 is also the only one of it's speed potential in the SHTP, so he was given his own racing division. So yes, he will win the sled division, but as you can see, it'll be very difficult for Alex to correct out over the slower and very well sailed boats. Even though the other boats are slower, NONE of the skippers are slouches.
BTW, Alex Mehran is actually a very nice kid who actually works for a living and operates on a budget. Granted, his budget might be larger than Ferretlegger's or mine, but he watches his budget pretty closely. (Seriously, looking at Mouton Noir's electronics array, he has more electronic equipment than Truth by far...trust me).
As for why he entered this race...well the SHTP is the only race available for him of this distance on this coast that he can enter as a singlehander. Neither the Pacific Cup (starts in a week!) or the Trans Pac from Los Angeles permit single handed entries.
So, if you guys are getting off on watching sailboat races on-line...the Pacific Cup race from SF to Oahu begins on July 16th at 1300 hrs local time. Each boat will be carrying Yellowbrick trackers, just like the SHTP boats. Many of them will also be blogging about their race on Sailblogs, FB, or other places. Go to the Pacific Cup website http://www.pacificcup.org/ and follow the links.
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SCseagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 8, 2012 - 03:40pm PT
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Nice description Sal.
Yep Michael is a gear freak no doubt!
Mouton expects to hit half way today. Although we are used to being at the end of the pack and frequently the horses arse Michael was a little disappointed that he is likely to be DFL. Given that he said he likely won't use a chute as single handing it on a boat that size is just too risky for what small benefit it would provide. Fine with me... We have the rest of the world to see.
Props to Alex...flying across the open water at the speeds he has single handed is well ... I hope to see him in the Round the World single handed races. He can do it.
Off to Hawaii tommorrow on a bird and if all goes well off to Alaska on Big and Comfy Mouton in a few weeks.
Susan
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John M
climber
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Thanks for the explanation. I could imagine why this guy would enter the sled division. Sometimes the experience alone is worth it.
Have fun on your trip Susan. It sound like it will be wonderful.
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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I'm blown away by the level of skill and commitment involved in undertaking this.
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SalNichols
Big Wall climber
Richmond, CA
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Good question. Complex answer. It has to do with the Apparent Wind Angle (AWA) that Truth sails downwind in comparison to it's competitors. If the wind is dead astern, your AWA is 180 degrees. Truth and the Pogo 2 sail with asymmetrical spinnakers tacked to the bowspirit, so they can't drive deep downwind without the mainsail blanketing the spinnaker, causing it to collapse and get sucked back into the rig (ugly). Boats like the Cal 40 et. al. sail with symmetrical spinnakers attached to a pole that can be flown opposite the mainsail, out of the backwind vortex of the main at much deeper angles (say 170-180 comfortably). IOW, if the breeze is pointing directly at your target, you can point the boat right at it and minimize the number of miles that you have to sail. Truth can't do that efficiently, so they have to sail steeper angles to keep the kite flying, and gybe more frequently to get to the same place. So, if you're sailing at 175 AWA and turn to 175 AWA on the opposite gybe, you've only turned through 10 degrees and you're still pointed in the same direction. Truth has to turn through 35-50 degrees, thus the bigger gybe angles that you're seeing. If you watch the little Pogo 2, you'll see the same thing, just at a lower speed. Both boats make up for sailing these extra miles by sailing them very quickly.
Figuring out when and where to gybe is the toughest decision to make as the skipper and naviguesser. I delayed a gybe by 6 hours in 2010. In that amount of time (while I was asleep), the wind clocked right 15 degrees, lifting us towards Japan by 115 miles. That cost me 10 hours of elapsed time, and one place in the standings. It also put me in a position from where I had no tactical options, nearly forcing us to go to headsails to even hit Oahu vs....Samoa. Essentially, you want to keep yourself in the middle of the race course, so you can go either direction as the wind shifts, but you want to favor the right side of the course towards the last 5-800 miles because that's the direction the wind shifts.
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MisterE
Social climber
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Bump because after ferret-legging, this must seem easy...
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