LETTERS

work on Ross's previous boat, a C&C 45. I think it was in 2001 that Ross contacted me, saying that he now owned a new Jeanneau 50 cruising sloop, and that he was thinking of racing it in the Newport to Ensenada Race. He asked me if I would help him rig his new boat for the race, including doing the spinnaker. Could I refuse? Hardly!

Ross had traveled to the Jeanneau factory in France to oversee the inclusion of numerous custom features he wanted in his new boat. BTS was a beauty in every way — and it was loaded. Ross, more than any owner I've ever known, was familiar and versed in every single piece of electronics and machinery in his boat.

But he'd never raced a sailboat and he requested my expertise with rigging to get BTS into racing trim.

BTS was an all out cruiser. A large, inflatable dinghy was mounted upright on (removable) cradles on the foredeck. BTS had no spinnaker gear or hardware of any sort. I began by taking care of the basic needs: I procured a carbon spin pole, installed long mast track for vertical stowage of the spin pole, spinnaker sheets, guys, etc. BTS was hauled out in MDR, and I observed that the bottom paint was a rolled-on job with a stucco-like surface. I convinced Ross of the importance of a super-smooth bottom. We had removable covers fashioned to cover and fair the two large bowthruster ports under the waterline.

BTS's first race was the San Diego to Puerto Vallarta Race in about 2002, cruiser class. We were delighted to discover that BTS really did sail quite well and was especially fast downwind. I think we placed second in the race.

We found that when tight spinnaker reaching in a breeze, BTS would round up uncontrollably, and that the steering wheel became increasingly stiff to turn, resulting in almost total loss of feel in the helm. I delivered the boat home to MDR and we again hauled her out to look things over. The Southern California boat builder Dennis Choate happened to be in the boatyard, and when I told him of our terrible steering situation, he took the rudder to his plant in Long Beach and worked it over, making it slightly deeper, adding additional counterbalance, and making the leading edge fatter, rounder and less sharp. Choate's changes to the rudder fixed the round-up problem — mostly.

BTS has two steering wheels, which are, unfortunately, rather small, and which require a number of steering cable pulleys under the cockpit. We removed all the pulleys and had the bearings replaced with ball bearings. The result was a huge improvement in steering!

Two big things we did were to have Seatek in Wilmington [California] build a beautiful new mast (same length), with rod rigging; we also installed a Schaefer in-the-boom roller