Thursday, February 19, 2009

CODE ZERO

My Assos fom Doyle are the 110 and 70. Because of the amount of light air we get in midsummer I am toying with adding a Code Zero to the inventory, which will fly in 35 to 58 apparant. Because of the shorter foot of the Code it would require adding a set of tweakers. I am looking at options for that with Harken's technical department and it will be ineresting to see what they come back with.

I was just wondering if anyone else is using a Code Zero with the boat and what their experience has been, or what the group thinks of the idea?

3 comments:

Fred Chadsey said...

Brian, you're a lot braver than I !!! I don't sail in those conditions, I'd just tear up gear. I've been in a Soveral 33 off-shore and hit w/ a squal and wind got to 63 kts apparent. Ripped mainsail, we dropped headsail. The wind seemed fierce enough that it heeled the boat w/ no sails.
So this old man gets goosy in 35 +, besides I've not had hull #14 in more than 18kts. How does the R22 handle in 35 kts + ?

Jim Lanter said...

Fred, I think he is talking about apparant wind angle, not speed. But, to answer your question, we sailed in a regatta in Sept. 07 with two days of wind in the 30s, with high puffs registered at 37. On day 1 we flew the chute in the 25 to 30 knot range with higher puffs and flew. Loads are high, but not too bad since the boat is moving. Day 2 saw higher sustained winds (30+). It's a slogging upwind with the main just flagging, and there were moments in the puffs where we were literally just going sideways. We did jib only down, but rounding the leeward mark we lost a rudder pin and retired, but not before the boat's crew took a pretty good beating due to a furled jib that came partially unfurled and the resultant lack of control. 20 to 25 is heaps of fun. 25 - 30 less so up but can be a blast down, and 30+ stay at the dock. Our first race we had Alan on the helm in winds gusting to 30 and hit 19.4 on the speedo. Big grins all around.

Brian said...

Hi Fred,

To clarify, I was referring to wind angle, nor strength. Our principle competitors are a 1D35 and a Frers 33-3. so I am looking for every possible tool to use against a couple of great boats with truly skillful skippers and well practiced crew.

BTW, on the Labour Day regatta a couple of years ago, sailing in 22 knots, gusting to 28, we tore the rudder off clean at the waterline. We heard a tearing sound and thought we had ripped the little asso we had up, but could see no damage. A buddy of mine was on the helm, and I asked him "How's the steering?" He wiggled the tiller, shrugged and said "Light". A boat coming up behind saw our rudder floating on the surface and a couple of days later it was recovered, having blown into my club's marina, and was picked up and presented to me. Our bowman, Cam Haley, said he would llike it as a souvenir, so I gave it to him. Later it was presented back to me at the Awards Banquet with a plaque on it. We give a "Heel of the Year" award to the skipper of the boat that has the worst wipe out each year, and that year I won.

Here's what happened. After we heard the tearing noise and nothing seemed amiss we carried on down wind. Over the next mile and a half we gybed a total of three times without the rudder, twice without incident. On the first gybe I thought, "That was pretty sloppy," but I was prepared to chalk it up to the windy conditions and the fact that this was the first time I had this crew together on the boat. The second gybe was no better, and that was alarming. There were a couple of real experienced guys and our steering should not have been that sloppy. Finally, we had to do a major gybe to starboard to lay the mark, and that, as the helmsmen later said, "Is when she realy shit the bed."

We broached badly and it was minutes before the boat started to climb back on her feet and that only after we had let the sheet go on the asso to try to take the pressure off. Somewhere in the middle of this mess the helmsmen reached down the rudder oly to discover that, "The rudder's gone! There is nothing there! "This is when we figured out what the tearing noise was.

Eventually she pointed down wind and found her feet and we used the tack line to get the asso in. We then headed up and sailed about half way back to the club before geting the engine out and starting it up.

Brian Pickton