[C320-list] C320 or C34 - Which is faster?

[Jeffrey Hare]

Interestingly enough, last week while sailing Narraganset bay with my son,
dad and brother, we came upon a beautiful Tartan 3400 sporting a sweet set
of mylar sails and I commented to my crew that we were about to be spanked.

In 13kts of wind, we tacked up the bay together and while they seemed to be
able to point a little higher, they were *way* behind us after an hour.  I
suspect if they wanted to leave us in the dust they should have been able
to.  But it was obvious that we were sailing much faster than them on the
same tack back when we were within 100 yards of each other.

Maybe they weren't trying to go fast but their sails look nicely trimmed.

-Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: c320-list-bounces at catalina320.com
[mailto:c320-list-bounces at catalina320.com] On Behalf Of Ken Danko
Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 11:26 PM
To: C320-List
Subject: [C320-list] C320 or C34 - Which is faster?


I don't race my boat but I generally subscribe to the concept that when two
sailboats are on the same point of sail, and in sight of each other, it's a
race. I went out on Sunday just a few minutes behind a C34 three dock spaces
down from me and, as it turns out, we were headed in the same general
direction. Those of you in the bay area will get these place references but
the rest of you will get the general drift. I had my main reefed and my 100%
jib up in anticipation of serious wind later in the morning. The C34 had a
140% jib and a full main. In the light wind in the lee of Angel Island I
passed him pretty easily which was surprising since I had so little sail up.
Then we both tacked back and forth in 19 knots of wind up Racoon Straight
(fighting a current) and it was clear that my 320 was again faster than his
34. I had a bunch of amateurs on board and we weren't doing a great job of
tacking. We were just a bunch of people out for a fun day of sailing. I
assumed that the 34 was overpowered in the heavy wind while I was
underpowered in the light wind, yet I was faster in both situations. Anyone
else have experiences sailing along side a C34?Ken Danko"Grace" #802San
Francisco _________________________________________________________________
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