This year I will have the pleasure of racing in the Pacific Cup from San Francisco to Hawaii, with Scott Campbell on the J-46 Riva. As part of our crew training and boat preparation we delivered Riva from Portland to San Francisco last week . Unfortunately, we had no wind for most of the trip except around Cape Blanco and San Francisco Bay.

The most memorable part of the trip for me was when a mother and baby whale surfaced just behind my back and blew. I was driving at the time, and the sound was so loud I jumped and spun around faster then you can believe! I found myself looking down at the blow hole. I could have stepped off of the boat right onto the back of that mother whale! We saw quite a few other whales on the trip along with a lot of sharks and one Sunfish.

I was lucky enough to be driving when the wind picked up on our way into the bay. The wind was blowing about 25 knots in the video in the Riva blog (link below). Shortly after that video was taken, the wind picked up to 35 knots which caused our spinnaker halyard to slip half way down. That was a good reminder that you should always leave the halyard on the winch and not rely on the rope clutch. I wish we had video of the 35 knot sailing, but at that time everybody was too busy to be filming.

The North Design Suite is an integrated family of specialized software programs that brings unprecedented power and flexibility to sail and rig analysis. Sailors who want to learn about what goes into designing sails and what makes North Sails the leader in sail technology can visit the link below.

Congratulations to John Hanna and crew for winning the 2010 Oregon Offshore sailing Orizaba, a J-130. Oregon Offshore starts offshore from Astoria and finishes in Victoria, BC. Orizaba is racing with a North 3DL Marathon main, 3DL headsails and V-Series Asymmetric spinnakers. This picture was taken after we installed a new dodger and sail cover for John. Unfortunately for the crew, they did not get to race offshore with the comforts of the dodger.

Last spring we had the pleasure of building 3DL cruising marathon sails for Gary Klouda's brand new German built Dehler 44. I asked Gary to share his cruising experience with us.

After shipping over our sailing gear including the North 3DL marathon sails we commissioned our new Dehler 44-“Escapade 2” in late May in Wedel, Germany. Our adventure began by traveling down the Elbe River and up the Kiel canal then we embarked on a 1240 nm cruise. During early June we sailed along the east coast of Denmark up to Grena and then across the Kattegat to Varburg on the west coast of Sweden. On two occasions we were held up three to four days by prolonged NW gales. After experiencing the Midsummer celebration in Gotenburg we sailed north in the Bohuslan archipelago to the Oslo fjord. Along with fantastic winds for sailing we found very scenic anchorages, picturesque villages and wonderful fellow sailors who were willing to share information. The passages between the rocky islands were well marked but required a lot of concentration. Some of our favorite areas were Marstrand, Gullholmen, Smogen and Fjallbacka.

In early July we crossed the Skaggerak to southeast Norway and enjoyed very hot weather and some wonderful swimming at the anchorages. The remainder of the trip we sailed the west coast of Sweden again, across to Anholt Island, then south to Copenhagen for five days at a marina in the center of city. We reentered the western Baltic and returned to Wedel.

The cruise and yacht both exceeded our expectations. The weather was much windier and wetter than normal so we encountered some very confused seas compared to earlier experiences on the west coast of Vancouver Island and the Straits of Georgia and San Juan deFucia. The most challenging part of the cruise was the various types of mooring-from bow-to a dock with stern posts, bow-to with stern bouys, bow-to with stern anchor, bow-to to rock islands with anchoring rings. In many crowded marinas in July rafting is necessary.

The Dehler 44 is a great performance yacht and we were very happy with its handling and German workmanship. I would recommend anyone considering cruising these areas to join the Cruising Association(cruising.org.uk) as they are a valuable source of information regarding regulations, cruising guides, blogs, etc. Please contact me if you would like any further information regarding cruising Northern Europe or the challenges of purchasing a yacht in Europe.

One of the most actively raced boats from Portland is Eric and Kim Rimkus’s Cheetah 30. Not only do they race the Cheetah 2-3 days a week during the summer, but they race all winter long in the South Sound races. The Cheetah is a 30' sport boat weighing in at 2,300lbs with a 9’ carbon fiber sprit allowing for over 1,000 sq. foot asymmetric spinnakers. With the huge asymmetric and light displacement, the Cheetah truly lives up to its name when sailing downwind; however, because it is so light and tender, the boat can struggle upwind.

To help improve upwind performance we built a new powerful 3DL jib. Building a powerful jib is a little counter-intuitive, but since the Cheetah carries non-overlapping headsails, a powerful jib helps the boat perform better in light air. In breeze, you can twist the top off a little and still have shape, allowing the driver to put the bow down and punch through waves.
Since the Cheetah does not have a back stay we wanted to build a large roach main that had plenty of power downwind and could be powered up in light upwind work. However, we also needed the sail to be easily depowered while going upwind. We decided to build a Fat Head style main since we do not have a backstay restricting the roach. North Sails discovered in the America’s Cup that the bigger the head of the main the faster the boats went in breeze, which is not what you would expect. The reason the Fat Head mains work well in the breeze is that the large heads actually will twist off with more wind load and therefore depower the sail.

I had the pleasure of joining Eric and Kim at the Squaxin Island race. The race was a downwind start with the wind starting out in the teens and building to solid white caps. Of course, the Cheetah planed away from the competition while going downwind, but the test of the new sails came while going upwind to see how well we could hold off the heavier and bigger boats. The sails worked as planned, allowing us to finish 1st in class and 2nd overall!

Click on the link below to see how 3DL sails are made.