Key West Race Week

Dave,

I wonder what the weather forecast will be - light winds and choppy seas will not be helpful for a Laser 28.

We sailed Convictus down in Key West Race Week back in 1991, all in all it was not a great success. While my memory fades a bit on the specifics, we had a slightly faster rating than we were accustommed to, I think it would have been 123 so it was tough, but not overly so. The real problem on the rating side was other boats. I can't remember the type but there was another 28 footer in our division that had about 3 feet less beam and was sailing with 8 people on the rail. With winds in the 15 knot range and very lumpy seas, we just could not get the boat going at all.

We had a #2 as well and this was about the only time we ever sailed with it. Perhaps the right setting would have been to sheet through the shrouds. The Genoa was too much for the conditions, mind you if we had 8 beefy people on the rail it might have been a different story. The Lapper did not have enough power to get us through the lumps. Where we were sailing I recall is where the deep ocean becomes a shelf a few miles off the southern coast. Because of this there are always waves in a breeze and the seas are very confused. As a helmsman on a Laser 28, probably one of the most not fun conditions to be in.

At the North American Championship at CORK in 1990 we had won every single race in a 32 boat fleet, there were plenty of good sailors there including Ian Bruce. So, I think it's fair to say we did know how to get around the buoys in a decent amount of time. That said, we just could not click in Key West and because of the general conditions and handicap situation, we've had little interest in going back.

Cheers,

Dave Black, from Toronto, is racing Jet at Key West.

I would assume that he is racing in standard one-design trim and has been assigned a 126 PHRF KW handicap. After the first 2 races he has an 8th and a 4th out of  a 10 boat PHRF 7 division. I am sure that he can be coerced into writing a regatta report for us poor frozen sailors...

-it's -15 degrees in Toronto today. Brrrr