J29 Synergy

As evidenced by the fact that I was the last sailboat in the water at Edgewater Yacht Club, I’m leaning toward selling Synergy and giving up boat-ownership until I have more time for the sport. (The last time I sailed her before I moved her to Sailing Inc. was in late August.) With SparkBase growing like gangbusters, I just don’t have time to take my eye off the ball. Sailing isn’t going anywhere. So….Synergy is for sale. (Items with “New” indicate they were purchased and installed between August 2010 and June 2011.) Here’s what you get…

Hull #52 (It may be 54, I have to verify that.)
New Bottom completely replaced in 2010 (Soda-blasted, then faired, then Epoxy-coated, then VC Offshore’d)
New Headstay, TuffLuff, and Vectran Backstay
New Running Rigging
Re-Built (cored) Rudder
New Tiller
New Fuel Cubby

New Nexus Electronics (Speed/Depth and Wireless Wind)
New Stereo and Speakers
New VHF Radio
Self-Tailing Primary Winches

2011 Doyle AP Kevlar #1 (used in 2 regattas only)
2010 Doyle Dacron Mainsail (Full roach, still crisp and new)
2003 North Sails Kevlar #3
2002 Halsey Lidgard Kevlar Heavy #1 (Re-cut in 2010 Used for 1 season)
2001 Halsey Lidgard .5 Runner Kite (Used for 2 seasons)
1993 North .3oz ultra-light wind  Runner kite. (Don’t laugh…it rocks)
1993 North 1.5oz Heavy Wind “Chicken Chute”

New Heavy and Light Spinnaker Sheets in 2011
New Carbon-Fiber Spinnaker Pole
New Porta-Potty (removable)

100+ pair of light-blue Synergy sunglasses.

There’s a lot more to it than that, but you get the idea.

Asking $19,200. She sits in Cleveland Ohio on land right now. Contact me if you have questions. (doug@sparkbase.com)

The CYC Fall Regatta brings the 2010 Synergy race season to an end. Thanks to all the people that came out to lend a hand, crew, or just stop by and say Hi. Getting her back in the water was a lot tougher than I thought, but way more fun than I could have ever anticipated.

Our last hurrah was a doozie though! Saturday at the CYC-FR brought us 5′-8′ seas, and winds gusting to 30kts. On the first down-wind leg, we hit 11.1kts twice…before the rudder came out of the water and we broached. We got everything back together and were headed back up-wind towards the finish when the traveler broke its self in half and deposited ball-bearings everywhere. That was it for Saturday’s racing!

Sunday we did much better. Pulled out a 1st, and a third…but the DNF penalty from the only race on Saturday made it impossible for us to finish in the money. O-Well….life goes on!

Special Thanks to Kendra, Doug P, Kevin, Debbie, Christian, and Garrett for crewing for me this year. Big props to Jon Duer for coming out and saying “Come Up Doug” and “Come Down Doug…the other Down Doug” 10,000 times. I’ll be better next year….I promise.

By now, most of the J/29 guys I know have heard about ShowDown’s…well…showdown with South Dumpling Island last week at the Fishers Island Race.

The end result for owner Bijan Rishadi was the loss of a boat. When I talked to Bijan this week, he said it best. “After all, everyone is safe and it is just a boat!!!”

While they were on the rocks counting blessings, the real tragedy was happening on another boat that had lost their skipper Don “Donzo” Wilkinson to a suffered severe head trauma. Really puts things in perspective. Donations can be made to the Wilkinson Family Fund

As the days get shorter, and the air cooler…it’s time to wind down Synergy’s first season in the water in 11 years. The CYC Fall Regatta is September 25th & 26th. Synergy will be there with a full crew, and ready to see if we can end on a high-note.

Stop by and see us!

About 1/2 way back from Put-In-Bay last weekend, we stopped to take a dip for a few min.

After a refreshing 20min swim, we all climbed back on the boat and saw that a wayward fender was trying to get home on its own. I fired up the trusty outboard to go retrieve it. After 5sec of powering the boat, the motor snapped off the mount and quickly drove its self to the bottom of Lake Erie in a spiral “bat-out-of-hell” fashion.

If anyone is looking for a good used outboard, there is one on the bottom of the lake at 41.559444 -82.309722.

The remainder of the sail (like we had a choice) was pretty nice. Even WITH the excitement, we ended up making it from PIB to Whiskey Island in just under 11h.

Thanks to Christian, Geoff, and Len for making the trip with me. Extra-special thanks to Maureen and Susan for lending me two of the aforementioned sailors.

Update:

We’re back in business.

After a REAL rough time getting out to Put-In-Bay, and a long 3 days of racing, Synergy managed to take 3rd place in the J-29 class for the 2010 Inter-Lake Yachting Association “Bay Week” regatta.

We started strong with a 2nd place finish, and placed 3rd for the next 4 races, finishing the last race in 4th place, and securing 3rd place with 15 points.

Trio was a tough boat to beat this year missing a perfect record by taking a 3rd on the first race. After that, they were fired-up and hard to catch. Ovation was never that far behind them, and we were close to Turtles Gone Wild and Turtle Stampede the whole time. The whole field was very close and no boat had a clear speed advantage. It all came down to crew teamwork and driving. (We had the crew teamwork, the driving was suspect.)

We can’t wait for next year…

Out of the Frying-Pan…into the Fire.

I’ll be taking Synergy out to Put-In-Bay later this week for her first full regatta in 12 years. When I was growing up, Bay Week was 300-ish boats, and a good-ole-time. Last year, they only had about 50 entries. Time for a reboot!

This year, they’ve gone to a “weekend” format, have dedicated docks, and a fully staffed race committee. These were the biggest complaints from years-past, and the hope is that they can return this regatta to its former glory. With 150 entries so far, I’d say they are off to a good start!

This week I replaced the only lines that were still original, added a rigid vang, replaced the foreword jib cars, fixed the depth transducer, fixed the SailComp, added a battery charger, and added a wind instrument. I’m officially done for the season! I don’t want to go into any debt on the boat, and need to start using money for things that don’t float.

Look for Sybergy out there on the J-29 course, or when we’re back at the docks. A lot of the people I meet have a story about the boat. I’d love to hear yours!

It’s not a 3-day regatta with 100 boats, but we DID do well on our first trip around the buoys. Doug Pierce and I beat out 5 other boats for the #3 spot in the 2010 Leukemia Cup Doublehanded race.

Bad parts:
I was literally going backwards at the start because I didn’t have enough room to swerve my way up to the line.
We tacked too early, and ended up having to shuffle at the first mark.
Spin halyard was wrapped 2-3 times around the Jib, so we spent 5min trying to get the kite loaded.
Couldn’t get the kite down quickly, so we went about 2min past the second mark.

Good Parts:
We beat a J/92 boat for boat.
We were able to fly a kite with just the two of us.
I didn’t hit anyone.
I brought home 3rd place on my first race.

Throwing my hat into the ring for this one was easy.

Doug Pierce and I are going to break Synergy in softly at CYC on Friday night in the Double-Handed race of the 2010 Leukemia Cup.  After our training last Saturday with my Mom and 2-kids running around the boat, we were able to get a kite up, and flew it up to 6.5kts on a reach. If that isn’t double-handing at it’s best, I don’t know what is!

Stop by and say Hi before or afterwards. We’re both pretty excited about it. Now…if we can get to the podium…that’ll just be downright special!

For more info about the Leukemia Cup, or how you can donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, please visit LeukemiaCup.org.

I seem to have an invisible spinnaker! This is the .4oz that the boat came with. It has “5 Knots MAX!” written on all the clews and the head.

We rocked it double-handed on Sunday, and had the boat over 6.5kts with it!