And who would’ve thunk, in light air, the Viper made a fantastic, laid back day-sailer! My daughter drove the boat out of the yacht club cove and all the way across the lake.  The look of absolute concentration on her face was quite a sight.

Then she insisted that we needed to fly the kite, so up it went, and she of course trimmed… I think she liked trimming the spinnaker even more than driving the boat.  When the breeze finally picked up a bit, we started heating things up under the spinnaker to pick up the pace.  My favorite moment of the day was listening to my daughter call out the speed numbers off the Velocitek GPS as we went faster and faster.  When we hit 10 knots, you’d think she had just won her first regatta!  I think she’s caught the speed bug.  Good times! 

Bottom line, in light air, I was surprised as just how laid back the boat is, and how light the loads are on all the controls.  The little one had no trouble driving the boat, nor trimming the big spinnaker, which she did all by herself until the breeze went up above 10 knots.  At that point she needed help trimming in, but only when we heated up the angle to speed the boat up.  She also really enjoyed sitting on the open transom dragging her feet through the water and making big rooster tails, getting towed behind the boat hanging on to a line, and of course sitting at the bow slicing through powerboat wakes.

When we bought the boat, I was worried she’d miss the old keelboat we used to have, where she could spend time in the cabin.  Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to miss the cabin, and on the Viper it’s been much easier for her to parcitipate in actually sailing the boat, which she really enjoys.

We had 26 boats registered, and a very deep, competitive fleet.  The number of competitors has increased by 45% for two consecutive years mirroring the growth of interest in this modern 21 foot sportsboat. The Class Association has grown from a mere 20 boats 2 1/2 years ago to 100 boats in North America today. What makes this growth particularly remarkable is that it occurred without the extensive marketing and promotion usually associated with the launch of one-design sportsboat classes. The Viper class pursued a different formula.

Quoting Justin Scott, current president of the Viper Class, “It was back to the future.  The great classes of yore like the Lightning and the Etchells and the Star were not launched with a large marketing campaign and expensive advertising budgets, They were beautifully designed, well built boats and the classes grew by word of mouth because they were fun boats to race and sailors told other sailors about them.  It seemed to us that the age of the internet made ‘word of mouth’ possible again, and that we had come across a beautifully designed, well built, modern equivalent of those great classes”.  Justin and the other founders of the Viper 640 Class Association believed there was a place for such a boat and furthermore that if existing owners spread the word and if sailors could buy the Viper directly from the builder, costs could be kept down and the Viper could provide a much needed value for money modern one-design boat for the North American sailing community.  So far, the ‘word of mouth’ formula has been a huge success, with new Viper 640 fleets starting around the country and the builder of the boat, Rondar Raceboats, shipping new boats as fast as they can build them.

Our adventure began Wednesday, July 23rd.  Our crew was converging from far and wide:  Charles, my old high school friend, who would be trimming the kite (and hereafter shall be known as “The Kite Man Trimmeth”), was flying up from his home in Annapolis (lucky dog).  Knox R., who would be splitting the charter with me and co-skippering the boat, was flying in from Atlanta, and I was coming from Austin, TX.  The plan was for all of us to fly in to Boston on Wednesday evening, and meet at the boat bright and early Thursday morning to launch the boat, and get some practice time (the three of us had never sailed together) before the beginning of the regatta.  Riiiiiight….  

Well, the trip out to the east coast was fairly eventful, as there was bad weather in the northeast, which backed up flights into Boston from all over the country.  We eventually made it in, but didn’t get to our hotel until around 3 in the morning, not looking forward to starting the regatta on only 3-4 hours of sleep. Knox never made it out of Atlanta, so we thought we’d have to find someone else to race with us the first day of the regatta.

However, the weather deities had other plans in store for us.  Thursday, the official first day of racing, dawned with unstable weather, and after waiting around for several hours for things to settle down, the race committee finally cancelled racing for the day just as some Texas-size thunderstorms started moving through the area, complete with torrential rain and a tornado warning.  So in lieu of racing, the Viper fleet spent the afternoon enjoying a tech-talk with Brian Bennett, the designer of the Viper 640, and Paul Young from Rondar Raceboats.  Brian and Paul had flown to the regatta specifically to support the fleet with tech talks, on-the-water coaching assistance (more on that later), and to answer any and all questions from the Viper sailors.  Having them as a resource was a wonderful addition to the regatta, but at this point I had no inkling of exactly how much I and my boat in particular would benefit from Brian’s presence.  I was about to find out!

On Friday, the first day of racing, the owner of the boat we were chartering insisted that we sail with a friend of his, as a sort of “check out ride”.  And who was this “friend”? None other than Brian Bennett, who is not only the designer of the Viper 640, but also an America’s cup sailor, Whitbread Round The World helmsman, Contender Dinghy Junior World Champion, etc. etc.   In other worlds, we had one of the true rock stars of the sailing world crewing on my boat!  When I bought my Viper, I never imagined that I’d get the chance to sail with the designer and builder of the boat, never mind have him call tactics and coach us in a regatta…  As an added bonus, the owner of the boat let Brian borrow his brand new suit of sails,  which we took out of their bags for the very first time that morning.

Charles graciously agreed to hop on to another boat that was missing crew for Thursday, and Brian sailed with us the first day, coaching us on Viper-specific boat handling tips, speed secrets, and calling tactics.  We could hardly believe we had the designer of the boat onboard…  A really nice guy, fantastic coach, and a magician on tactics.  He seemed to always keep us in good pressure, and put us in the right place at the right time to take advantage of every lift and puff.  He worked us pretty hard on boat handling, practicing roll tacks and gybes before and during the first race.  It was surprising how well the Viper responded, and how much faster it seemed to maneuver, when you snapped off a good roll tack or gybe.  Essentially, he had us sailing it like a big dinghy instead of a small keelboat, and it was an absolute hoot.  It seemed like the best of two worlds:  The nimbleness and maneuverability of a dinghy combined with the security and stability of a very beamy boat with a weighted bulb.  But I digress… Getting back to the race, by the first windward mark rounding, we were in second place, just a couple of boat lengths from the leader.  We rounded, set the kite and immediately gybed, heading left on the first downwind leg, while the leaders went right.  We made the right call (or got lucky!) and coming back together near the leeward gate, we were in front.   Unfortunately, on the second beat they passed us again, and then held the lead to the finish.  But we were still ecstatic with the result. 

Our original goals for the regatta had been to have fun, meet as many of the sailors in the Viper fleet as possible, learn as much as we could about making the boat go fast, and never finish dead last in any race.  A second place finish in this very competitive fleet was never part of the plan, so we were a little in shock after that first race.  J

In the second race, with Knox my co-skipper driving, we also did quite well, with a 6th place finish.  We finished day 1 of the regatta in third place overall, hardly believing it ourselves.

On day 2, Brian left our boat to spend the rest of the regatta on the Viper fleet “coach boat”.  The fleet coach boat had been organized by our class leadership, and is one of the things that made this regatta so great.  For this event, the Viper fleet waived the “no outside assistance” rule for our class, in order to allow Brian Bennett and the builder of the boat, Paul Young from Rondar, who is also a world-class sailor, to coach the fleet from a RIB that spent the weekend zipping around the race course, giving real time feedback and advice on boathandling, trim and tactics to anyone who wanted it. 

Sailing with Brian was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  We learned a ton in the couple of races we had him on the boat, and also figured out what we needed to work on.  By the end of the regatta, we were much more comfortable with our boat handling, roll-tacking and roll-gybing the Viper like it was a 420 dinghy, and carrying the kite REALLY deep into the leeward gates, snappinng off mexican takedowns without shrimping the spinnaker, feeling like rock stars. :-)  The breeze picked up enough in the last race on Saturday for sustained planing runs, with extra bursts of speed as we surfed down the gentle Atlantic rollers with huge smiles on our faces.  The day ended with a power three-sail-reach all the way back in to Marblehead harbor under the kite, clocking sustained double digit speeds.   It was one of those sailing days you really hate to see come to an end.

For the rest of the regatta, with our original crew back together, our results were more in line with our original expectations, given that we no longer had our star tactician onboard, and perhaps also due in small part to the much older sails we were now racing with (but let’s be honest, I’m sure that Brian’s absence had a lot more to do with it! J).   We had moments of brilliance intermingled with complete brain-f*rts, but never stopped having fun.  Our scores ranged from a 15th, to a 22nd, to end the regatta in 17th place overall out of 26 boats.

We accomplished all of our goals in spades, and can’t wait to race the Viper in a one-design event again.  Once we’ve had a chance to practice a bit more, we expect to give the fleet a little more competition. 

Our whole crew agreed: The regatta was an excellent event, the people we met were competitive yet friendly and helpful, and the boat was fantastic.  Now I just need to figure out how to get myself one of the gorgeous new Viper 640’s being delivered by Rondar.  Hmmm… let’s see:  If I sold mine and saved my pennies for a new one???…    Does anyone local want to buy my gently used, rock solid Viper 640 so I can get a new one and we can kick-start the AYC Viper fleet? J J J

More photos from the regatta are here:

http://dantucker.smugmug.com/gallery/5543874_VeqyJ#339633137_k9dEC

and here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/pbfein/Nood2008

 If anyone is interested in seeing online replays of the races, visit our Viper Fleet online replay page here: http://www.sailhack.net/gps_replays/2008_viper_na/

Races from Friday and Saturday are already posted online, and we should have Sunday’s races posted in the next couple of days.  I organized the GPS-based replays for the fleet, and even got a nice award for it at the end of the regatta (totally unexpected and very flattering).

To use business-speak, this challenge presented an opportunity to apply a hardware installation method suggested by Brian Bennett, the designer of the Viper 640.  Thanks, Brian for the process.  It worked like a charm!  Using your method it’ll be possible to install hardware pretty much anywhere on the boat without having to cut any new inspection ports to get at the underside of hardware locations.

Here are Brian’s instructions verbatim:

“As the boat is Epoxy, the best local repair and strenghtening can and should be done with G-10 (Garolite). This is a compressed fiberglass sheet product which can be tapped into (and American made). Because the Viper is a big can, you need to use a material than can be tapped without need for backfastenings. G-10 will do this. You will have to cut a hole (or slot), sand the piece of G-10 (I would recommend 8 - 10mm), and epoxy the contact side, before passing thru to the inside, and holding up in place while it cures. In the past I have used a piece of seizing wire, then just cut the wire when the epoxy goes off.
The core can then be backfilled with epoxy and the outside sanded and finished. Then your hardware can be installed via drill and tap method. The G-10 should be twice the size of the fitting you are installing.” 

Here are a few photos of the process on my boat:

Brian had recommended 8 to 10mm thick G-10.  I had access to some sheets of 1mm thick material (Thanks, Dave!), so I ended up building up a sandwich of 8 layers of the stuff epoxied together under mild pressure, which yielded almost 10mm thickness.  And man, this stuff is dense and strong!  Given that my 10mm thickness of G-10 was home made, I wanted to test it to make sure I could drill & tap it, and then also test its screw-holding capacity.  So I drilled and tapped a hole for a 10-24 screw in the corner of the backing plate, which went smoothly.  Here you can also see that the backing plate has been scored agressively (with coarse sandpaper and a hack saw blade) to help it bond to the deck once it gets epoxied.

Next, it was time to put a screw into the freshly made threaded hole, and test the G-10’s screw-holding power.  In this photo you can see the screw in the backing plate, but unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the next step;  I clamped the G-10 with the screw in it to a workbench, put a pair of vise grip pliers on the screw head, and tried to yank the screw out of the G-10 as hard as I could.  I ended up picking up the corner of the workbench, and the screw didn’t budge (nor did the G-10 flex at all, for that matter.  This stuff is STRONG!)  So, the test was declared a success.  Time to get to work on the boat! 

This step one was the easiest, AND most terrifying… cutting a slot into the cockpit floor.  Below you can see the slot cut in the cockpit floor, with the backing plate that will go in the hole, and the eye-strap that is the point of this whole exercise. 

Below you see a test fit of how the backing plate will be inserted in the hole in the next step.

Next, I drilled a couple of small holes in the backing plate, exactly where the screw holes for the pad-eye will eventually be, and led a couple of long pieces of thin wire through those holes.  The wire is there to pull the backing plate back up against the underside of the cockpit floor once it’s been fed through the slot in the floor.  I put the wire exactly where I want the screw holes for the hardware to eventually be, for two reasons that should become obvious shortly.

Now it was time to mix up some epoxy.  Two pumps of West system were enough for the job, with some high-density filler mixed in to thicken it slightly so it wouldn’t all drip off the backing plate while I was sliding it into the hull.  I covered the bonding surface of the backing plate with epoxy, and fed it into the slot being careful to hold on to the wire “tails”!

Once the plate was inside the slot, it was easy to flip it flat against the underside of the deck and maneuver it into place with the two wire tails.  By centering the two pieces of wire in the slot, I could also make sure the backing plate was located exactly where I wanted it (one of the reasons to drill for the wires where the screws will eventually go.  In this picture, you can see the very high tech (NOT!) scrap-lumber tripod and screwdriver used to tighten the wire, pulling the backing plate up against the underside of the deck.
The Shiner Boch is there purely to provide scale and some Texas authenticity to the project. 

Once the backing plate was held in place by the tripod, I filled in the rest of the slot with thickened epoxy.  Here I should have thickened the epoxy further, to “peanut butter” consistency, so I could fill the slot and then scrape off the excess with a straight edge.  The way I did it, I ended up overfilling the slot and couldn’t scrape it flat since the epoxy was too liquid.  This made for a little more grinding work later to flatten the epoxy.

After the epoxy set, the wire tails were cut off, and it was time to grind/sand down the epoxy plug.

Once the surface of the plug was flush with the deck, it got drilled and tapped for 10-24 stainless screws.  The remaining wire also got drilled out in this step, so as not to cause a corrosion problem down the road (the second reason why the wire tails were located exactly where the screw holes would later go)

Finally, it was time to screw in the eye-strap.  A little 3M 4200 on the screws to seal the holes, and that’s it!  Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but it looks great and feels rock solid. 

This first time took almost an hour from start to finish, but now that I’ve done it once, I think I could cut the total time required to maybe 15 minutes.  For hardware like the eye-strap I mounted here, I probably will also have to paint the small exposed epoxy area for cosmetic purposes and for UV protection.  For other hardware like cam cleats and cheek blocks that I need to install next, I plan on cutting the slots so they will be completely hidden by the hardware once it’s mounted, so the end product will be completely invisible.

Thanks again, Brian Bennett for the process.

After several hours on Saturday getting the new carbon mast stepped, rig tuned (approximately) and a bunch of other little rigging projects done, we put the boat in the water in time for a late afternoon sail.  Many thanks to Charles and Dave for their help and patience as we got the boat ready to go.  (How many times did I say “wait, just one more thing”?)

 We had a nice sail in fairly light air on Saturday.  At first, we had 4 guys onboard, which was a bit cozy, but the boat really came to life in the light breeze with two onboard, when we dropped the other two guys off at the dock.   After getting off the boat, Dave K managed to get a couple of good pictures of the boat in the water (thanks for the pics, Dave!)

On Sunday we went out again after another couple of hours of additional setup work (fixing little things we’d identified during Saturday’s sail).  This time, the breeze was up, with wind in the mid teens, gusting to 25+ knots.  And wow…  did the viper move!  We didn’t fly the spinnaker, since I still need to finish setting up the running rigging for the kite, but even with main & jib only, we were easily popping up on plane and taking off on some screaming reaches.  Fun stuff!  

We managed to put the boat on its ear once when I didn’t react quickly enough to a huge puff (operator error!), but the boat behaved very well, sitting there with the leward rail in the water until we eased sheets, at which point it settled back down and we were off and running again.  All in all, much fun was had!

It turned into quite the epic roadtrip.  The seller had agreed to meet us in El Paso, TX (about halfway between Austin and Phoenix) to deliver the boat, but he was running late, so we ended up going all the way to Las Cruces, New Mexico to meet him.  All in all, we drove around 1300 miles in 20 hours.  Here are some pictures from our adventure:

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Download: 2008 BTF Replay
(Will launch a java applet in a new window. See the bottom of the replay page for hints & tips on using the player)

The replay includes tracks for the following motley collection of Texas Centerboard Fleeet Sailors:

• Mike M (Contender Dinghy)
• Steve W (Sunfish)
• Jim B (Sunfish)
• David L and crew (Flying Scot)
• Felipe P & Dave K (Laser 2)

We did ok on the first leg, which was downwind so we could fly the “Big Purple Monster” asymetrical spinnaker on the turbocharged Laser 2.  Sadly we only got to fly the kite on that first downwind and one other short leg.  We were a bit underpowered and overweight for the Laser2 when not flying the big kite, so Mike in the Contender, Rick P in his MC Scow, and David & crew started pulling away from us on the upwind & reaching legs.  We ended up 4th across the line and 6th on handicap, but still had a wonderful time.

Thanks to DaveK for putting up with my driving and constant fiddling for several hours, and to the Stillhouse Sailing Club folks for hosting a great event!

 David Luckenbach has a good writeup of the race with photos and videos on his excellent SailingTexas web site HERE.

Essentially, this tool will generate a circle of waypoints centered around your sailing area, but several hundred miles away.  By uploading these waypoints to your GPS receiver you enable “VMG relative to a heading” functionality, similar to what is available on the ultra-cool Velocitek SC-1.  As long as your GPS receiver can calculate VMG to a waypoint, and you can upload waypoints to it from a “.gpx” file, you should be able to use this tool/hack to improve the sailing usefulness of your GPS.

Download: VMG_circle_waypoint_generator_B4.xls
(requires Microsoft Excel 2003 or later to run)

How does it work? Why is this better than simple VMG towards a mark? See the FAQ.

Screenshots:
 

Please note:  while this tool allows you to configure your “standard” GPS to approximate the VMG functionality of a Velocitek SC-1, it is NOT meant to replace or compete with the Velocitek. If you use this tool/hack, and like the “VMG to a heading” functionality, you should consider upgrading to a Velocitek SC-1, which will give you “VMG to a heading” in a much easier to read display, plus many more useful features, and a more rapid refresh rate (2x per second, compared to most GPS receivers which only update 1x per second). Oh, and FYI… I have no relationship whatsoever to Velocitek.  I just like their product!

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Have you ever suffered the frustration of having to manually convert a latitude/longitude between degrees-minutes-seconds and decimal degrees, or degrees with decimal minutes?

Different GPS receivers, maps, web sites, and documents will express lat/lon in one of the three formats above, and while it ain’t rocket science, it can be tedious to manually convert from one format to another, given that you have to go to and from base-60 (minutes, seconds) to base-100 (decimals).

The little spreadsheet below was created to simplify that process. It’ll let you enter a latitude or longitude in any of three formats, and return the latitude or longitude in any of the other formats.

Download: lat_lon_format_converter.xls

Screenshot:

The plan now is to find a boat that will be more fun to race (meaning FAST!), while at the same time still providing a good platform for family daysailing.  I’m looking for a Viper 640, but the hunt for a used one is proving difficult, as the boat has experienced a huge resurgence of interest in the last couple of years, driven by an enthusiastic class association.