I
had the pleasure of racing in the Pacific Cup (San Francisco to Hawaii) with Scott
Campbell on the J-46 Riva. We finished 4th in division and 11th overall. We
missed 3rd in division by less then 6 minutes in a 2100 mile race!
The most memorable experience for me was tight reaching in 20-30 knots with our asymmetric spinnaker in big swells while driving at night with no moon or stars. The only thing you could see and go by was the orange glow of the instruments. The driver being basically blind to the surroundings had to rely on wind angle, knot meter and boat speed. During my watch the three of us just started laughing about how crazy and surreal it was crashing through waves and surfing 24,000 lbs while not being able to see a thing except the instruments. While we were crashing around in the dark the other watch was down below trying to sleep. However, it is hard to sleep when the boat starts surfing. Down below while Riva surfed it sounded like the boat was being dragged through a gravel pit. Ear plugs became a very handy tool!
Riva usually flies symmetric spinnakers, however we decided that it would be worth taking a small rating hit and add a asymmetrical spinnaker to the inventory. That decision ended up proving to be a very good one since we used the asymmetric for several days with noticeable increase in performance. The other main sails we used were a spinnaker staysail and a 3DL main and 1.5oz symmetric spinnaker. The 3DL main and 1.5oz spinnaker have now crossed the Pacific ocean twice!
The most memorable experience for me was tight reaching in 20-30 knots with our asymmetric spinnaker in big swells while driving at night with no moon or stars. The only thing you could see and go by was the orange glow of the instruments. The driver being basically blind to the surroundings had to rely on wind angle, knot meter and boat speed. During my watch the three of us just started laughing about how crazy and surreal it was crashing through waves and surfing 24,000 lbs while not being able to see a thing except the instruments. While we were crashing around in the dark the other watch was down below trying to sleep. However, it is hard to sleep when the boat starts surfing. Down below while Riva surfed it sounded like the boat was being dragged through a gravel pit. Ear plugs became a very handy tool!
Riva usually flies symmetric spinnakers, however we decided that it would be worth taking a small rating hit and add a asymmetrical spinnaker to the inventory. That decision ended up proving to be a very good one since we used the asymmetric for several days with noticeable increase in performance. The other main sails we used were a spinnaker staysail and a 3DL main and 1.5oz symmetric spinnaker. The 3DL main and 1.5oz spinnaker have now crossed the Pacific ocean twice!
Editors note: Kerry didn't mention that he broke the all-time speed record at the helm of Riva of 18.2 knots!
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