Broachtastic.

Whoops no helm!

On our ears

Get that thing down!

WSC PY Autumn 4. WooooHooooo!

What more can you ask for? Sunshine, flat sea in the bay and 25-30 knots of breeze; just the stuff. Top boat speed of 10.3 knots today, really enjoyable. We spectacularly wiped out on the first gybe which the commitee boat got on camera so hopefully I can post some pictures soon.

What with another issue of getting the spi halyard caught on a mainsail batten, we only managed a third. The Achilles 24 of Paul Barford and Achilles 9m of Steve Dadd both like a bit of wind and sailed to a corrected finish in front of us although we were first over the water.

Really enjoyed the sail though, Farr Out positively gurgles and lifts her bow out of the water when you've got enough wind behind her. Must remember to keep the weight to a minimum on the bow during the gybe in heavy weather - you got to do it on your own Dave!

Check back for the cool broach photos.

Autumn 3 - struggle to finish

Got a first on this sunday morning race. I think we were the only ones to finish, which we did in about 1hr 10mins but the race was taken from the first time through the finish line (about 33 mins for us) and so the other boats in class got a finish as well.
Fair I suppose, but we played the conditions of no wind at all very well searching out bits of pressure and even used the incense sticks.

Autumn 2 - They come in threes....

I was apprehensive as we left the mooring for the 2nd race of the WSC autumn series. We'd had two breakages already: a lifting point on the inflatable tender and the main halyard shackle had given up the ghost. We all know that these things come in threes, what was next?

In the twenty knot gust conditions we were flying, boat speed of 9 knots at one point. Luckily the third thing to break was the pole downhaul block shackle and Dave on the bow sorted this by keeping his foot on it while we were doing around 8 knots, he then fixed it in enough time for the gybe.

A second place to Sole Bay on corrected, but we were out front all the way round and maybe lost a bit of time on a trapped spi halyard problem, resolved by Rich Veale by hoisting on gen 2.

All in all a good sail and great to see that we still have the boat up to speed even with me driving!

Great Start

Iain Jones was race officer last sunday and took video of our start.Cheers Iain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXBVdkllX_8

WSC Autumn Series - Race 1

I managed to prise the tiller from Stuart's hands for the first race of the autumn series, or to be more correct Stephen let me do it because by rights it should have been his turn. I really liked getting back on the helm but made sure to learn from Stuart's techniques for getting the boat going fast - I think I read somewhere about Laser 28s "first go fast then point".

Still sailing in PY class which means we're the fastest boat in class, it makes a change from being the slowest boat in the IRC class. This meant that we were first over the water by a pretty good margin and eventually coming third on handicap to boats behind. Ho hum, we had a patch of very light air that maybe they didn't get. We sailed a good race with moments of brilliance, for me the best bit was an inside overlap leeward mark rounding with a windward spinnaker drop which took out Foxed Again and Snow Goose (even though they weren't in the same class!). Great crew work from everyone.

Looking forward to next week.....