Grand Prix Race Sails
NANUQ FINISHES 2ND IN QUICK RIDE TO KEY WEST
1/15/2011
Congratulations to Ullman Sails customer Glenn Doncaster and his crew who took 2nd Overall in the PHRF Division A of the Fort Lauderdale to Key West Race, January 12-14. Glenn’s Sabre 426 “NANUQ,” is based out of Fishing Bay Yacht Club in Deltaville, Virginia. Glenn and his crew decided to take NANUQ down to Florida only five weeks before the start of the race.
In order to get the boat down south, the team broke up the delivery into three legs, arriving in Fort Lauderdale three days before the start. As a well-appointed cruiser, NANUQ lived up to her reputation and the delivery crew was treated to reverse cycle heat, hot water, a generator, a dinghy on davits and full canvas finishing. Once in Ft. Lauderdale, the crew spent two days turning NANUQ from a cruiser to racer, including changing over the mainsail, removing the furling drum and loading a full inventory of race headsails. Several new sails were delivered for the race included a new S3 heavy reacher and a GPL IT Carbon #2 genoa, both of which worked beautifully in the heavy reaching conditions.
The race itself proved to be a quick one. Here’s an onboard report from the crew:
"It was fairly light at the start 8-10 and built throughout the race, becoming quite windy during the night. Top wind speeds were about 34 knots. It blew out of the north the whole race. We started with the .6 runner and were slightly slower than the lighter displacement boats. As the wind built we got on pace with the fleet and started to make gains toward nightfall. At dusk we switched to the new S3 heavy reaching chute and as we rounded the bottom of Florida the angle tightened and we progressively made gains. Around midnight the wind had built significantly and the apparent wind angle closed so we changed down to a #2 genoa. We beam-reached with the #2 and full main through the night surfing at 10-13 knots of consistent boat speed. The final leg was a beat up the shipping channel into Key West harbor with gusts in the high 20s”.
NANUQ finished in just under 20 hours, correcting to second in class! On arrival in Key West and after a number of celebratory rum drinks and a good night’s sleep, the crew turned NANUQ back into a cruiser. She will spend the rest of the winter in Florida and then Glenn will bring her back to the Chesapeake for more racing this summer
The SB-KH Race is usually a windy gear buster with wild stories and a lifetime of memories. Of course, that is when the westerly wind blows across the course and the SoCal summer weather is in full swing. However, this year's race was sailed with the "May Grey/June Gloom" weather that kept the sun and wind away. It is a clear forecast there will be no wind when there is no swell on the race course...it was as smooth as a frozen lake out there!
The regular strategies of (#1) getting low for the approach to Anacapa, (#2) jibing at the points on the back side of the island, (#3)exit off Anacapa on port jibe in a puff, (#4)sail across to the shore near or at Pt. Dume and (#5)keep jibing to the beach until the wind pressure drops, then jibe out till the pressure drops and (#6)keep jibing until you are about 10 degrees under layline to King Harbor, and finally (#7)FI NISH! were all in place, just SLOWED down to a crawl!
Luckily, the parties at each yacht club were in full swing, they do not need mother nature to cooperate to make the fun happen!
Ullman Sails was a sponsor this year and SB-KH was also the final race of the innagural Ullman Sails OFFSHORE Championship. Ullman Sails was well represented with U/S team members sailing on many different boats.
TP-52 PATCHES: Bruce Cooper, Erik Shampain, Ben Lakin
TP-52 FLASH: Mike George
FT-10 ANARCHY: Keith Magnussen
K9 EXIT: Bryan Dair
Class 40 YIPPIE KAI YAY: Ken Cooper
Andrews 39 BIEN ROULEE: Scott Poe
Andrews 70 ALCHEMY: Chick Skewes
-FULL RESULTS- Santa Barbara to King Harbor Race
*call Ullman Sails for new sail orders, post-regatta repair, sail inventory evaluation.
Photos are courtesy of JoySailing.
Visit Ullman Sails TV for video footage of SB-KH on the TP-52 PATCHES!
We would like to thank NHYC, SDYC, CBYC, DPYC, SBYC and KHYC for their support in the innagural Ullman Sails Offshore Championship.
San Diego, CA
Magnitude 80 was first to finish
Paul Stemler and crew took first in their class on the J-44 "Patriot". The Richley Family sailed their Choate 48 "Amante" to second place closely followed by Seth Hall's J-124 "Marisol" who used all Ullman Sails spinnakers to lead the way!
-Ullman Sails Offshore Championships -
A New Series is Born
As you may be aware Ullman Sails has been the major supporting sponsor for the following regattas which were billed as the Ullman Sails Inshore Championships. The regattas have been as follows:
The Ullman Team is taking the same expertise developed over the years for the Inshore Series and creating an Ullman Sails Offshore Championship Series. The races for the 2010 race season to kick off the Ullman Sails Offshore Championship Series are:
NHYC / SDYC Island Race - This is a new race from
SBYC / KHYC
This series should be a great addition to the
