Pied Piper has won the last seven races of the 2007 Great Lakes 70 season, in the process winning the both 2007 Verve Cup and 2007 Bay Harbor GL 70 regatta. The Verve cup featured a combination of windward leeward courses 8 miles in length per race and a mid-distance race of roughly 28 miles with multiply legs of upwind reaching and running. Friday’s racing was picture perfect with a NW breeze in the 10 to 18 knot wind range. Part of our normal routine is to have at least one practice day prior to the three day regatta. Usually this day consistence of checking and adjusting our rig tune and making sure we work out all the kinks in our boat handling. We have become very efficient in working through this practice day and it helps get our team up to speed so we can start the regatta in good form. I think a good next step would be to involve another GL 70 as a tuning partner so we could do more testing and add a little more competition to the practice day. Another good habit we have developed is being the first boat out to the starting area. On Friday this was invaluable, we were able to sail upwind and downwind the length of the course and get a good idea of what wind shifts we could anticipate up the course.
Many of the small changes that we have made to the boat through the winter and this summer have begun to add up to great boat speed compared to our competitors. We led at every mark rounding during Fridays racing and our smallest wining delta was 38 seconds.
Our team is exceptional at coming up with new ideas to help improve performance, this is a credit to the various backgrounds of sailing experience and education on the team. The talk onboard and Friday evening didn’t have much to do with our performance that day but how we could improve and other small variables we could adjust to go faster.
Throughout the summer one of my pet projects has been revising our cross over chart. In many cases our work on the cross over chart allowed us to select a better head sail then our competitors in race 2 on Friday our entire class choose to sail with #3 jibs, we utilized our #2 genoa. We were able to match speed and sail constantly higher then the fleet. This chart was also very effective in the mid-distance race were there were many reaching legs. Throughout the summer we have continued to experiment with our code 1.5 asymmetric spin and found that the effective range for this sail is higher then we originally thought. Early in the summer we only utilized the sail into the 12 knot wind range. We have found that this sail is the best reaching sail in our inventory up to about 18 to 20 knots of true wind speed at a 125 to 115 true wind angle. In the wave chop on Saturday this sail was very effective as it was more stable then its symmetrical counter parts.
Next year I would like to work on developing a true light air VMG asymmetric spinnaker. The code A1.5 has found a very useful niche on our cross over chart as a powerful mid range reaching sail. This proved very effective in the mid-distance race where the last leg was reach into the finish I am certain that this sail allowed us to put more time on the rest of the fleet in this race.
The crew came together very well. Throughout the summer we have been able to sub in very talented sailors with our core group and continue to have great results. This is really a credit to the team atmosphere onboard. This weekend we added Gijs “Guinness” Gunneman and Tim Johnson to the mix and both contributed well. Tim and Ben Biddick worked on the navigation of the mid-distance race and Guinness was invaluable working with Dave Shriner on the rig tuning and calling out puffs and wind shifts on the downwind legs. Unfortunately the verve cup was the last event in the GL 70 2007 season championship it seemed that we were just getting the boat on track and the season was over. After some of the adversity we had during the Chicago Mac Race I am very pleased that the team has been able to pull together and win 7 consecutive races and the last two regattas of the GL 70 Season.
The GL 70 is already in the Pied Piper Racing Shed in Muskegon. This winter we have outlined several additional modifications to the boat to help our performance and hopefully keep us ahead of the class going into the 2008 summer season. Our goal will be to win the GL 70 Season Championship in 2008.
Thank you to the entire Team for a great 2007 – Ron Sherry, Mike Hoey, Dave Jochum, Ben Biddick, J.B. Shumaker, Brian Brophy, Bob Weisen, Andy McCormack, Mike Rehe, Dave Lamere, Stu Thompson, Dave Shriner, Kevin Savitt, Brian Smith, Adam Hollerbach, Perry Lewis, Tom Ervin, Eric Jochum, Eric Vigrass, Tim Johnson, Gijs Gunneman
Many of the small changes that we have made to the boat through the winter and this summer have begun to add up to great boat speed compared to our competitors. We led at every mark rounding during Fridays racing and our smallest wining delta was 38 seconds.
Our team is exceptional at coming up with new ideas to help improve performance, this is a credit to the various backgrounds of sailing experience and education on the team. The talk onboard and Friday evening didn’t have much to do with our performance that day but how we could improve and other small variables we could adjust to go faster.
Throughout the summer one of my pet projects has been revising our cross over chart. In many cases our work on the cross over chart allowed us to select a better head sail then our competitors in race 2 on Friday our entire class choose to sail with #3 jibs, we utilized our #2 genoa. We were able to match speed and sail constantly higher then the fleet. This chart was also very effective in the mid-distance race were there were many reaching legs. Throughout the summer we have continued to experiment with our code 1.5 asymmetric spin and found that the effective range for this sail is higher then we originally thought. Early in the summer we only utilized the sail into the 12 knot wind range. We have found that this sail is the best reaching sail in our inventory up to about 18 to 20 knots of true wind speed at a 125 to 115 true wind angle. In the wave chop on Saturday this sail was very effective as it was more stable then its symmetrical counter parts.
Next year I would like to work on developing a true light air VMG asymmetric spinnaker. The code A1.5 has found a very useful niche on our cross over chart as a powerful mid range reaching sail. This proved very effective in the mid-distance race where the last leg was reach into the finish I am certain that this sail allowed us to put more time on the rest of the fleet in this race.
The crew came together very well. Throughout the summer we have been able to sub in very talented sailors with our core group and continue to have great results. This is really a credit to the team atmosphere onboard. This weekend we added Gijs “Guinness” Gunneman and Tim Johnson to the mix and both contributed well. Tim and Ben Biddick worked on the navigation of the mid-distance race and Guinness was invaluable working with Dave Shriner on the rig tuning and calling out puffs and wind shifts on the downwind legs. Unfortunately the verve cup was the last event in the GL 70 2007 season championship it seemed that we were just getting the boat on track and the season was over. After some of the adversity we had during the Chicago Mac Race I am very pleased that the team has been able to pull together and win 7 consecutive races and the last two regattas of the GL 70 Season.
The GL 70 is already in the Pied Piper Racing Shed in Muskegon. This winter we have outlined several additional modifications to the boat to help our performance and hopefully keep us ahead of the class going into the 2008 summer season. Our goal will be to win the GL 70 Season Championship in 2008.
Thank you to the entire Team for a great 2007 – Ron Sherry, Mike Hoey, Dave Jochum, Ben Biddick, J.B. Shumaker, Brian Brophy, Bob Weisen, Andy McCormack, Mike Rehe, Dave Lamere, Stu Thompson, Dave Shriner, Kevin Savitt, Brian Smith, Adam Hollerbach, Perry Lewis, Tom Ervin, Eric Jochum, Eric Vigrass, Tim Johnson, Gijs Gunneman
