Mates: Yesterday was probably my last sail on the waters off Long Beach, Ca. I'll be leaving Ca for Tucson, with a couple of month stop over in Lake Havasu, AZ, at the end of the month. Next sailing stop will probably be the Sea Of Cortez. Never sailed there so that should be an experience. Hopefully, I'll find some Tucson trailer sailors to go sailing with. Yesterday, one of our forum listers, John Vandinther from San Pedro, Ca invited me aboard his boat (a Pacific Seacraft - what a bullet proof boat that is). I agreed to conduct a training session for him and two of his crew, one of whom had never sailed before. The wind was a bit higher than I would have liked (for training purposes) but we were able to put his boat through every closehauled training sequence I could think of. I did not have enough time to go through the other points of sail. During the session they put twist in and out, induced and reduced draft depth, moved the draft position fore and aft, changed fairlead settings, learned to tack the boat in under 30 seconds and lose a max of 1 knot of speed. Actually, they eventually got it down to 1/2 knot. They can now read mainsail and jib telltales with the best of them. Additionally, after about 1 hour, they were able to tell me what sail trim adjustments would be needed to correct trim situations on boats sailing around us. I love using that as a training devise because there are always so many poor sailing shapes to see on any given day. By changing the angle of attack and trim controls they were able to speed the boat up or slow it down just as you would use the accelerator on your car. I asked them to take the boat from sailing on its feets to about 15 degress of heel and they did so and then brought it back again and did it easy as pie. Sounds easy, but try it in 20 knots of wind with no reef. I felt pretty good stepping off John's boat as I felt they learned how to completely handle their boat. ALAN, you hot dog sailor (I wished someone called me a hot dog sailor as I'd take that as a compliment - I'm more like ham and eggs) your rope coiling technique has reached the west coast!! All lines on John's boat were coiled using your method and we did not get one snag. There is nothing worse than a snag in winds over 20 knots.
