What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing

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Another night of club racing at LMSA. Everything was trying to stop me from making it on time. Work has been ultra busy. The family was out of town and I had to attend to the pets. The boat wasn't ready. I needed gas for the outboard. Still, I made it to the ramp and quickly set up before dipping it in the water and heading to the start/finish.

I arrived at about 6:30 and was the last boat over the line. No big deal because its a self timed course. The wind was ENE setting up an almost perfect down wind leg. I set my Sea Pearl 21 wing on wing and over took one boat about 1/2 way down the course. I came up next to a second at the mark. That was fun! The Sea Pearl definitely makes time down wind. I had maintained about a 5 - 6 MPH speed down the course and the breeze felt pretty light but that's normal sailing downwind.

As I rounded the mark I was in the 2nd boats bad air. It was a significantly bigger sailboat than mine and I felt like I was standing still. I made the decision to tack and set my own course. I tried to point as high as I could and maintain good speed then tack again when I had separation from the other boat. It was soon apparent that I could not hold the same course as the sloops that were out there. With their jibs and main sails sheeted in tight they were able to point much higher and were on their way back to the mark much more efficiently than I could with my main and mizzen.

The wind steadily picked up to around 12 -14 MPH (Just a guess). My centerboard Sea Pearl 21 has no ballast and I was sailing alone so it quickly became a handful. I was already sailing with the rail in the water. When the gusts came I had to ease out the main or even dump it to avoid going over. As the winds continued to blow easing out the main didn't achieve the desired results. The boat stayed healed over and the main boom would be in the water. So I elected to reef the mizzen two turns. This helped with being over powered but after talking to many of the members of the Sea Pearl Yahoo Group I now realize that I should have reefed the main in order to not further hurt my pointing ability. I didn't know it at the time and it was a frustrating leg back to the start/finish. The boat that I passed downwind easily over took me 1/2 way back.

I didn't buy my Sea Pearl 21 with the intention of racing it against sloops on courses that favor those types of boats but I have a desire to learn how to sail my boat to the best of its ability. The centerboard Sea Pearl 21 Portsmouth Number is 96.6. I sail against Precision 23 (96.0), a Sirius 21 (96.7) and a Mac Gregor 21 (100) among others so I have reasonably accurate handicap system that allows me to gauge my own results against others even though they are in different boats. If I am getting beat badly by a Mac Gregor 21 then I need to work on my sailing skills which is the case right now.

So it was another day on the water where I learned a little more. Some of the suggestions that I received were to quit trying to race a Sea Pearl 21 solo. Get at least one crew and train them to reef the main. Unfortunately, most of my friends and family are as busy as me so consistent crew is pipe dream. I will most likely be sailing alone or with non-sailing guest which a previous sailboat captain like to refer to as TMB or tactical movable ballast. Meaning that there main value is in movable ballast when tacking vs as trained sailors who can work the sails or drive the boat. More than likely I will have to figure out how to reef the main myself. Another suggestion was to reef it prior to crossing the start/finish. That would work for strong winds but would be hard to anticipate when the winds are varying through out the course.

There was more good advice too. Another recommendation was to ad some weight to the boat. Most newer Sea Pearl 21s have water ballast tanks. Mine is an older model and was built before that option existed. I have seen how much room the tanks take up and I have no interest in adding them to my boat. I am considering putting in a couple of sandbags towards the bow. The hope is that the boat will settle down while reaching in stronger winds. The additional weight will keep the boat steady as the waves and chop get bigger. Also it might be time to buy new sails. Mine are in serviceable condition but are not in good enough condition to try and sail the boat to its optimal level. As soon as I have the additional funds I will be buying new sails.

And the title. “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” Its a quote from Aristotle that seems appropriate.