Cruising or Racing

[sveinutne]

During lunch Friday I talked with a college of mind that is also a sailor. I told him I was bidding on a large Genoa in good condition and hope to get it for $150 plus postage. He is not a cruiser; he and three others use their boat strictly for racing. Then he answered that he would not dream about buying a used sail even if the price was low. Then it struck me, maybe my raising days are over. I do not have a budget to spent $10K every season for upgrade of sales and other equipment, and I am above 50, so I am not the fastest man on deck any longer, so my help during a race might be limited.</SPAN>
When I use to go racing on Wednesdays, all expenses was paid by the boat owner, and he took care of all expenses always, so for me it was a very cheap hobby. But now he is on the around the world trip with his sailboat that is estimated to take 3 years. At the moment he got a hard life on a beach in Trinidad.</SPAN>
This was quite an eye opener for me. I like racing, but I do not have the money it takes to make the Ericson 41 into top racing conditions. I can take part in the racing, but I should not expect any good position, most likely last place. So then I do not know if I will enjoy racing as much always coming in last, when I was used to be on one of the fastest boats and sometimes made a winner.</SPAN>

 

[Seth]

A good choice?

Good morning (from Chicago) Sven,

You are coming to the right conclusion-for 2 reasons:

1). While your E 41 is a beautiful and good performing boat, you will never be very succesful racing with used sails and gear.Even in PHRF (or the euro equivalent) racing, the days of being competitive without newer sails and all of the go fast tools are over. Even the cruiser-racers strip everythng out of their boats when they race, because the effect of having the extra weight and in the wrong part of the boat (bow and stern) simply slows you down too much to overcome by sailing well.

2).Perhaps more importantly, unless there is a fleet or division of similar old boats (such as boats of the old Olson 35/38, and similar vintage boats) from the same era, your boat really cannot be competitive-even if you had new sails.

If you were to ask for my advice (I know you didn't), I would say to optimize the 41 for cruising, and get your racing fix on other boats which are a better fit for today's racing environment and budget.

If you really wanted to race I would stick to shorter port to port distance races (1-2 day races of 40-150 miles), since these often have a cruising division, and in that case, if you were to pull off the cruising gear you might being to at least be in the game. Buoy races will be an exercise in frustration.

Enjoy your beautiful classic cruiser and let someone else pay the racing bills!

 

[sveinutne]

Seth,</SPAN>
I agree with you, and deep down I guess I have known it all the time that the Ericson 41 would never be a top racer, but it is a very beautiful classic, and I hope I will have many good hours in her. Maybe under right condition I can pass some other cruisers. </SPAN>
What is very good is that sails in good condition can be bought with a 90% reduction in price.</SPAN>

 

[Emerald]

Hi Svein,

I just wanted to give you some positive perspective by relating a racing adventure in Emerald. You see, she surprises many a race boat, or "hot" boat out there, and it's lots of fun. She isn't "competitive" around the buoys,but a load of fun on all points of sail, and a source of much enjoyment, as she sails well. Several years ago, I beat a J-30 on a broad reach. It was blowing around 20+ knots. I had full main, staysail and yankee out, and she was balanced and really moving along nicely. There was this J-30 up ahead of us, and we just kept gaining on them, meter by meter, minute by minute. It was fun watching the skipper on the J tweak stuff and look at us, as he surely was not going to be beat by this big old cruising boat, but we did, came right up past him, took his wind, and kept on going. If we had tacked and gone uphill, it would have been a different story, but we didn't, and the course was a broad reech, and Emerald was in her own. So, enjoy the beauty and fun of a classic that sails well, and when given the right conditions, will show she has a heritage under her keel, and is not a lady to be taken for granted:

 

[Randy Rutledge]

Reminds me of the fighter pilot that flew by the cargo plane doing rolls, dives, all sorts of stuff and radioed in “Hey what do you think of that” the Cargo pilot replied “Watch this”, after a few minutes he called out “What did you think if that?” the fighter pilot said “of what?” the cargo pilot said I got up stretched my legs, went to the head, and got a cup of coffee.
Speed is not everything, Enjoy the great classic boat and if you race you have to remember you are in a motor home racing against sports cars. I raced my Ericson 29 against Catalina 22s and 25s and Capri 25 in short buoy races and just rated my performance not placing in the fleet. I now race a Mirage 236 and get to look at the pointed end of the fleet, today three first place finishes in the three races.
The little racer is fast and wins but I miss the challenge of chasing the pack in Rumkin and occasionally being in the middle or even top three.

 

[sveinutne]

Thank you all for encouraging words. The previous owner told me that the Ericson 41 won a race in Florida back in 2002 I think. That was mostly because of the high swells. Late at night they were at fourth place but during the night the three boats in front of him had reduced their sails because of the swells, and in the morning they had passed two of them and were on second place, and during the day they manage to pas the last one too, so under the right condition it still could be a winner, but I will not use it as such with the price new racing sails will cost. I might try to repair the set of racing sail that came with the boat just to see what they can do. But first I need to get the mast fixed and erected. By the way, when I woke up this morning we got 20 cm of new snow so we still got one month to wait before the sailing season starts here in Trondheim.</SPAN>

 

[PDX]

Good morning (from Chicago) Sven,


If you really wanted to race I would stick to shorter port to port distance races (1-2 day races of 40-150 miles), since these often have a cruising division, and in that case, if you were to pull off the cruising gear you might being to at least be in the game. Buoy races will be an exercise in frustration.

Around here the "cruising" group, in addition to "show your barbecue," means no fly sails or, in other words, no spinnakers.

If you decide to race, I think you will discover that light air days are going to be your best racing days, and yes, you will want to fly a spinnaker.

Also, if you do handicap racing your rating will be performance adjusted (and in a sense age adjusted). That's the whole point of handicaps. You will not be in the same group with J-122s even though they are the same length overall. If Europe has a PHRF equivalent, your boat will probably handicap in the low 130s. The other boats in that group will range from your boat's age and size (such as a Cal 40) to newer smaller boats--more contemporary hull designs and rigs but likely with smaller sail areas and shorter water lines. Under those circumstances, there will be certain conditions that play to your advantage, such as a long spinnaker run in light air.

I'm not trying to tell you what to do either, but if I had an Ericson 41 I know what I would do. I would race it. I wouldn't buy new sails for it every year or put new bottom paint on it every year. And I probably wouldn't win much, if ever. But I would have fun.

 

[sveinutne]

Yes, we do have a handicap system or "LYS number" this is a number you multiply your time with, so high number is high performer boat. I would guess the Ericson 41 would get around 1.2 depending on what sails it will register with. Spinnaker will give and extra 0.01 or 2.
But this summer I will concentrate on getting the mast up, and see how the boat is working. Then I will decide what to do.

 

[windjunkee]

just FYI, I'm campaigning with a 1987 Beneteau/Frers 50 and working with their sail inventory. Between now and June, 2013, we're going to be buying either 4 or 5 new sails to the tune of around $40,000.00. We're having a new #1 built right now. However, the current sail inventory is pathetic so to save some money, I purchased a used carbon/kevlar #2 and a used drifter. First I cleared it with our North Sails loft and with our local Quantum loft that they even recommended going with a used sail or two in our racing inventory. The drifter is good as is, but the #2 needs to be resized for our boat which the experienced sailmakers at North are doing right now.

The point is we're not buying used sails as our primary sails, but as back up sails. I'm told the performance doesn't suffer significantly. The trick, I'm told by the experts, is to buy a headsail that is as close to your luff length as possible. Panel or membrane sails, as opposed to single-string design like the 3DL, are more amenable to resizing.

By the way, as Seth knows, our older Ericsons CAN be competitively raced, though you shouldn't expect first-over-line honors. Our little Ericson 32 has more trophies than we ever thought possible. We won overall (corrected time) honors in the Marina Del Rey to Puerto Vallarta race in 2007, twice won PHRF overall in the Santa Barbara-King Harbor race (91 miles) and won several times racing from Los Angeles to San Diego. Keeping our sail inventory up to date is a priority and we buy equipment with racing in mind, but we don't strip out the boat when we race.

Jim McCone
Voice of Reason E-32-2, Hull #134
Redondo Beach, CA

 

[sveinutne]

Jim,</SPAN></SPAN>
I wish I had your $40000 budget for new sails, but I don’t. But even with new sails and good boat you need something more to win, and that is a good crew and someone able to read the weather and know how to take the max out of it, so to get all your trophies you need a combination of all this.</SPAN></SPAN>
I feel I am in the other end of the scale. I am just a crew member that wants to sail and race, and manage to buy an Ericson 41 that needed all my money just to get afloat, so cruising will be my only option, at least for this season.</SPAN></SPAN>