This is always great, but for me especially nice. I found an amazing deal on a preowned Ullman carbon laminate headsail. So good I couldn’t pass up on it. It’s a 140 on my boat and requires no modifications for the boat at all! Just in time for a trip to Catalina coming up in a few weeks. It’s an exciting time.  I sent an email to the local Ullman sail loft, and almost sent an email to Dave Ullman himself.  I happened to help him with his iPhone years ago and he was nice enough to give me his number and email and said if I ever needed anything to drop him a line…well not this time.  I did get an email back from Bruce Cooper who works at the Newport Beach Ullman loft and not only did he know about this sail, but he helped make this sail!  It was a custom order for an Olson 30 race boat.  It was a one off sail but he said it was closest to a Carbon GPL Laminate.

 

After a week of big winds and bad weather, there was an opening for me to get Cuajota out with the crew and give the new sail a shakedown.

WOW!  What a difference from the worn out Dacron sail!  We were in about 7-8 knots of wind and the boat we turned into the wind and raise the main.  The boat glided effortlessly through the Newport Beach Harbor.  Nice.  So We gybed and flipped around and opened the Genoa.  BAM.  It was like someone hit a switch.  The boat hooked up and shot down the harbor!  Downwind and the boat was making a pretty big wake.  We sailed all the way down the harbor and to the harbor exit and saw some pretty rough conditions.  It was about 15 knots of wind and around 6 foot waves.  The boat was well composed and handled it like a champ.  We were on a beam reach and headed out a few miles offshore.  The wind started to pick up to around 19 knots and I didn’t want to get caught in winds over 20 so we gybed and headed back downwind.  The boat was composed and drama free.  Wasn’t really trimming too much just looking at the sail and making sure the boat was ok.

All in all I am tickled pink with the new headsail!  Looking forward to putting a lot of miles on the boat this year.  The Catalina trip is moved back a few weeks due to wind…lets hope we can get there and get in some good sailing.