J24 Blog

How to get faster starts, or at least look cool while trying.

The 5 circles arching across the top of the face change from blue to red as the minutes of the starting sequence ticks down to the final horn. With this bad boy on your wrist how could you not be in clear air, at maximum speed, with a nice buffer defended to port?

Ok, so it costs about as much as our boat, but still. It even says “racing” right on it. Racing. They even printed it in red.

In case you feel the need for other features beyond those two:

It’s available in Titanium to keep weight down. (See the “how much does your paint weigh?” posting for some context on this issue)

It’s a self winding watch so as long as you are moving you are keeping it charged. For the LONG coma-like hangover after an afternoon-evening-night in the Rum Sponsor’s tent at a regatta, it’s got a 44 hour reserve power - so when you finally arise from the dead, scrape the fuzz off your teeth and prepare to head out for day two of racing you won’t be able to blame your watch for making you late.

Lastly, it looks fantastic and will provide one more (perhaps the only) reason for your fellow one-design racers to pull your ass out of the drink if you forgot to latch your lazarrettes and are watching your J24 win the race to the bottom.

The Omega Seamaster Racing Chronometer. Please buy me one.

Sailing is a ridiculously gear and gadget intensive sport. And believe me, I mean that in the best way possible. There isn’t a week that goes by without a visit to Fisheries Supply or West Marine to peruse the aisles of upgrades or accessories to make us faster, better, cooler than before. There’s even a terrific blog from here in Seattle ( Navagear) that helps to feed the gear geek sailor.

Fortunately, due to the dual constraints of one-design rules and budget limitations, I’ve gotten better about ignoring most of the “stuff” that I come across.

But this latest piece of cool gear is a must have.

Set aside whatever opinions you have about Team Alignhi, the America’s Cup in general, and the spate of protests and lawsuits arising out of this year’s event. Check out the beautiful piece of equipment that came out of the Team Alignhi partnership with Wenger, maker of the orignal Swiss Army Knife.

It doesn’t seem to be available at any retail outlets locally yet, but can be ordered via the Alignhi Knife Website online. The site also features an animation of the various tools and a video of the TV spot for the product.

I’ll be ordering mine ASAP. I’m certain it’ll make our boat better, faster, cooler than before. Maybe with a Swiss and Italian accent, as well.

No wind tonight, but it’s 80+ degrees in September in Seattle, so by State Law we had to take the boat out, drift around, and drink beer.

That wraps up our season of Tuesday night racing for the year. I feel like we improved a great deal this year, more than our standings in the rankings reflect. The balance of “is it the sailors or the boat” continued to shift as our tactics and handling skills improved over the season.

I’ll write up a detailed schedule of the boat optimization plans we have for the off season, but in short we’re going to fill the various thru-hulls and defunct electronics that we’ve been uselessly dragging through the water this season, and sand and re-coat the bottom.

We’ll probably have the boat out of the lake for a month or two, then put it back in for some wintertime camping and cruising adventures. A weekend circumnavigation of Vashon Island is already in the works for Columbus Day…