Four of the Team Turicum took a foredeck clinic on a Farr 40 with Blast Sailing. After all, the Bowman is the coolest position on the boat and many of us wanted to give it a try. To explain the Bowman’s position please allow me to quote the Bowman’s Union:
“Start a cold shower and get in. I recommend wearing your foul weather gear, but that's up to you. Spin around about ten times or so, just enough to make it seem like the shower is "heeled over". Now, with a medium sized frying pan, give yourself a good whack on the top of the head while yelling "MADE!"
To stay out of trouble at home, don’t use the new frying pan!
After an evening of theory we spent the next day on the water. It was a sunny spring day, the breeze first light at 5 to 8 knots, gradually built to 15 to 20 kts, just as our skills increased. We could not have wished for a better day.
We rotated through all the crew positions on the boat. This gave each of us an appreciation of what is involved at our team mates positions. It also served as a great team building event.
We practiced hoists, douses, peels, sail changes and countless jibes with the spinnaker up. We probably did more jibes that afternoon than we will do during all of Vic-Maui.
The instructors did a fabulous job and we all left with a big smile on our face. What a Blast!
The following day we met at the Vancouver Rowing Club to work on Turicum’s mast: The welder built up all the weak spots. We pulled a new coax cable for the VHF, took some old fittings off (the impact driver got good use that day), cleaned out some corroded spots and painted it all with rust preventing paint. The day ended with a couple of pints of beer on the Rowing Club’s deck. Great team building again!
The new rod rigging is supposed to come now and we are planning to step the mast next week.
Just a couple of days before the start of the Southern Straits Race on Easter weekend.
We will be doing Straits on Havoc, an SR33. You can watch race progress on this site:
(showing 2011 tracks until race start)
Our next practice race will be Halibut Bank - this time on Turicum.
Aloha!
