Lolita becomes Cinnamon Girl

I am pleased to report that my little wooden boat, formerly called Lolita, has a new home in the San Francisco Bay area and a new name that I think fits perfectly. Her new owner, Mariellen Stern has given her fresh varnish and a bunch of other upgrades and shes now ready to race. Here are some photos from her days in Newport Beach:

Cinnamon Girl as she looked in 2007.

Cinnamon Girl sports traditional lines above the waterline combined with a fast bottom.

With her deep fin keel and spade rudder, Cinnamon Girl is deceptively quick.

I designed this boat way back in 1978 for a client that wanted a traditional looking boat for cold-molded construction. I could not bring myself to draw a full keel on it so we compromised with a shallow-ish fin keel and skeg-mounted rudder. Twenty years later I found her in a warehouse in Signal Hill in a sad state of disrepair and bought her on the spot. I brought her back to my shop and rebuilt her in my spare time. In doing so I deepened the keel and put a new spade rudder on her. A few years later my plans changed and I put her in storage while I focused on other projects and went cruising.

Fast forward to 2013, it was time to either refit her again or find a new home for her. Fortunately, last April Mariellen came into her life. She had known this boat many years ago and loves it as much as I have over the years. After several years in storage the varnish on the hull and cockpit was in rough shape, the bottom paint was gone and there were a few other issues that needed attention. I had always sailed the boat in southern California where the winds are relatively light and only raced it a few times so it was very simply rigged, but for sailing and racing in the San Francisco bay area, we thought some additions were necessary. These included a new 100% jib set on a roller furler, rigid vang and improved reefing system among others. Here are some photos of  the work in progress:

Lolita survived the road trip from Costa Mesa to Richmond, CA

Topsides are prepped for new finish .

Several coats of Interlux Perfection are applied. The hull is made of cold molded fir and mahogany.

Once the topsides were finished, fresh bottom paint was applied.

With work on the hull completed, the boat was relaunched. The next step was to refinish the cockpit.

It was no small job to refinish the cockpit. Notice the old style Barlow winches.

Mariellen stands proudly with her new Cinnamon Girl

Cinnamon Girl in her element.

Americas Cup Observations

Its clear that the AC/72 boats represent the most significant advances in yacht racing in a generation. While small boats like the Moth have been foiling for years and other large multihulls have been using foils that are adjustable for cant and rake, the 72s are arguably the first to combine foils, wing masts and sophisticated foil control systems in in a truly competitive package. It is also important to note that there were no significant gear failures during the regatta. That is a testament to the highly developed design, engineering and testing programs of both teams. I think this bodes well for the future of the Cup competition. Once again, I have to confess that before the event I was among those who felt that this event could very well be a dismal failure. After witnessing the spectacular racing I changed my mind in this regard.

I watched every minute of the racing on TV and think it was extremely well presented. Journeyman sports announcer Todd Harris did good job in spite of having no real yacht racing experience. Sure, he made a few goofy comments but he also frequently acknowledged his lack of experience in the sport and didnt try to come across as an expert. I thought that was a refreshing departure from previous AC announcers. NBC relied on a cast of true sailing experts to deliver insightful commentary and I thought they all combined to deliver a quality sporting product.

What about the crews? Without access to the inner workings of each team we can only speculate on what occurred within them as the regatta progressed, but the indications are that the American team had not spent nearly as many hours on the water, in the boat they would race in the finals, as the Kiwis did. This became glaringly apparent when a Team Oracle crewman fell overboard before the start of the first race. Another interesting facet of the American team was the body language of two key members of their afterguard, John Kostecki and Tom Slingsby. We dont know what that interpersonal relationship was like but it was obvious that things improved when Kostecki was replaced by Ben Ainsley. This is not to take anything away from Kostecki as he has had  a long and illustrious career as a professional sailor. But sometimes personalities dont mesh regardless of the skills and talents of the individuals and perhaps thats all there was to it. In any case, the shift from Kostecki to Ainsley made a significant difference and in my opinion was a key factor in Oracles eventual victory.

It was compelling personal drama to see the juxtaposition of confidence in the two crews as Oracle began racking up wins against the Kiwis who came within a few puffs of wind of winning the event when race 13 was abandoned with the ENZ ahead with less than a mile to the finish line. When that race was re-sailed later in the day, the Americans began their improbable march to 9 points and the Cup. As the Kiwis suffered loss after loss their confidence was replaced first by concern, then worry and finally desperation. At the end of the event the strain and despair were evident on the faces of the ENZ team, especially that of Dean Barker, whose helmsmanship could not be faulted except on the starting line where he was frequently bested by Spithill. The Kiwis made few tactical errors and only one glaring boathandling error when they nearly capsized.

It was also interesting to see how the Americans continued to improve daily while the Kiwis seemed to remain constant in terms of boatspeed. I can only attribute that to the fact that Oracle was the faster boat and it took several races for the Americans to learn how to sail it to its optimum potential, while the Kiwis had the slower boat and couldnt get much more out of her.

In the aftermath of the event, Team Oracle accepted the challenge from an Australian group for the next Americas Cup competition. We dont know what kind of boats that regatta will be sailed in, but given the spectacular racing we witnessed in AC XXXIV, Im looking forward to some incredible technological advances and exciting racing in the event to come.

Americas Cup Lessons Learned

Apologies for the long hiatus from this blog. Its been a very busy six weeks since my last post, with several projects completed on Finisterra. But first we need to consider the AC regatta and lessons we can take from the racing and the boats themselves, and what this incredible event might mean for the future of the competition.

The boats:

1. It appears that Team Oracle really did have the better boat. I had thought that the bows might be too fine, lacking sufficient buoyancy to support the wing mast. But the designers and crew were able to keep the boat on its feet throughout the event. The Kiwis chose another route with fuller, more buoyant bows. Perhaps in a bit more swell that would have paid off, but it is clear that the Yanks had the faster boat for the conditions they encountered. This is an indication that Team Oracles designers had a better feel for the expected conditions on the bay and did a better job of targeting their boat for them, while the Kiwis opted for perhaps more of a safety margin in their bows and paid the price with more weight and windage up forward. This would cost them speed especially on the upwind legs.

2. Deck layouts for both boats showed significant differences. The most striking of which were the airfoils mounted on the aft cross beam of ENZ. There was a price to pay for them in terms of weight and drag and I think its doubtful that they did enough to smooth out the wind vortices swirling off the boat to offset the negative factors. The Kiwis seemed to have a more efficient winch layout, but I noticed in the later races there were times when grinders werent in the cockpit but grinding from a position on the trampoline instead. This was an indication to me that the crew was getting a bit rattled as they racked up loss after loss.

3. Much has been said about the fact that the tactician aboard Oracle had to grind winches on each tack or jibe while his counterpart on ENZ was able to keep his head out of the boat more and focus exclusively on tactics and strategy. This was more than offset by the addition of a strategist aboard Oracle. The early races showed that communication between tactician, strategist and helmsman would be crucial and it looked like ENZ had the better operational arrangement. However, once Ben Ainsley replaced John Kostecki those lines of communication improved drastically and it was beautiful to see how well Oracles afterguard worked together, and this was a key factor in Oracles string of victories.

4. There were other design features in the boats that probably made a difference. For example the helms on Oracle were angled inward a few degrees. This probably resulted in better ergonomics for the helmsman than the directly forward facing helms aboard ENZ.

5. As far as I could tell, the daggerboards were roughly the same but of course I dont know what the actual foil sections were. Another area of vital importance is the board control systems. We dont really know what the differences were and which worked best at raising and lowering them. Nor do we know which system worked best for adjusting cant and rake of the boards. Of course we can infer that Oracles worked better since they won but it would be fascinating to see side-by-side comparisons of these systems.

Ill write more about the actual racing in a later post.