Boxing Day Race - Haul Out

A hectic couple of days for FarrOut post Christmas. We participated in the annual WSC boxing day race after being towed out into the bay by Rumrunner having started the engine in the sub zero temperatures, but presumably wiped out the impeller of the raw water cooling pump due to it being frozen. We also had to wash down the decks to clear them of ice but the seawater had nowhere to go, the scuppers being just solid ice plugs:

It was a good race with some Argie-bargy on the start line when all the other boats decided to mess with our planned port tack flier. Our lateness for the start meant that we hadn't had time to work on our angles and so selected the symmetric kite. We didn't do too badly and the fleet was really bunched with Rumrunner being up there as well with her brand new sails. They got past us but didn't deal with the massive shift which I must say we played perfectly dropping the kite and just trimming on the white sail as it hit us. The guys up front did brilliantly in switching to the asymmetric for the next leg and we flew up the rankings. If the race had finished at "X" we would have been right up there but the lack of wind on the beat up the harbour to the traditional finish outside the club had us scuppered. Well done to Sapphire for winning.

Fun was had by all for the last race of the season for us and the next day we hauled the old girl out of the water for a few months of pampering ready for more glory and disappointment next spring!

WSC winter series race 5

With Dave and Darren indisposed this sunday we were down to the three owners, so it was great when Steve Dadd's crew from Rumrunner / Spindrift were similarly down to three and joined us underachievers on FarrOut. Our Steve and Daddsie had carried out similar training the night (morning?) before the race and so were both match fit.

A sunny and fresh morning started off nudging the 20 knots mark but tailed away during the race and 6 largish guys and a dirty hull is definately not what we wanted by the end of the race. Paul Elson was thrown right in at the deep end with the combined pit/trimming role and he coped superbly as it's quite busy in there. I volunteered to do the honours at the pointy bit in Dave's absence and was nothing but civil to the numerous skippers I had sitting behind me. My problem with the foredeck on a Laser 28 has always been going around the front of the mast during the tacks, the triangle formed by the jib sheets is quite small and the deck slopes away making it quite precarious. I favour the laying on your back with your feet in the anchor well approach. Once I'd cleared that up I'd say it went quite well with quite a few gybes and no wraps, thanks to our new friend Neil on "human guy". We felt sorry for Scoline when their gybe didn't  go as well....

The start was good but we really could have punched a hole in the side of Excaliber who should have gone up and OCS, ho hum probably have done the same thing myself but if you're reading this Joel the next transgression will be ours.

Nice to see a new boat out there John Stevens with a J80, interesting that it didn't really get away from us upwind - we'll see what happens when they get more used to it. We were very closely thinking about buying one of those before buying the Laser.

Anyway, not a bad performance considering our many handicaps and we managed to beat a couple of other boats on rating even though we were last over the water after Scoline retired.

Winter Series - no hope

There was snow on the decks when I went to the boat to repair the broken bits from the last race. Luckily all this was gone by sunday racing, which was relatively warm for the time of year and nice sunshine.

We went well for the start of the race, but as I've said before I think that we have to treat the rest of the season as training because the state of FarrOut's hull is beyond racing spec! This showed when the wind died and we lost all the ground which we had gained and as the slowest boat in the fleet we're always going to pay when the wind dies and everyone else is so much further round the course.

The race was won by Excalibur again, they couldn't be caught by Draig in those conditions and the length of the race with the wind dying kind of gifted it to them and so the series. A deserved series win with only one blip to their otherwise straight bullets.

FarrOut will return in the new season with a painted and faired bottom and we can start again! Oh hang on, we've got a few more races yet.

Nice mini footage

Thought I'd share this footage of a mini sailing with it's spi. Not a bad tune either, quite relaxing with all this cold weather around.

Race 3, Snow on the hills.

In minus temperatures and with snow on the hills we braved it out in the bay for the third race of the winter series. The race officer gave us a hut start and a course change that we only saw within the five minute pre-start period meaning that we weren't as prepared as we usually would be. We were slightly late on the start but had a good first beat that meant we were back in it.

Unfortunately we were a bit short handed and got into trouble after the gybe mark when it was clear that we wouldn't carry the kite up the next leg even though some broaches were fun. The low temperatures must have had an effect on the gear because we had some breakages which meant that we didn't have twinning lines or a starboard jib turning block after a while. We lost time up the next beat fixing gear and changing to asymmetric kite. It was all lost after the second gybe on the ayso with a wrap from which there is no way back and we overshot the gybe mark sorting it out.

A retirement was fitting in the circumstances. No serious damage but some bits to sort out......

Winter Series race 2 - a stable northerly?

A funny old wind for race 2 of the winter series at WSC, a strong northerly topping out at about 24 knots but without the real gusts and swings that you expect from that direction. FarrOut ended up with a 7th on corrected time, not a bad race, the course set was a "triangle sausage" meaning that we could use the asymmetric spinnaker on the first two spinnaker legs and the symmetric spinnaker on the deep leg. This last leg we sailed particularly well, sailing by the lee and keeping 7.5 - 8.3 knots downwind to cut the corner on some other boats only to lose some of the ground on the next beat.

The race was won by the X99 Excalibur, I wonder if they can straight bullet the series?

J'ai franchi la ligne!

Nearly There - Guadaloupe that is.

I can almost smell the Rhum blanc Agricole, and man you can smell that stuff from a distance. Been doing well recently in the Virtual Route du Rhum steering the Monococque FarrOutGBR814WeySC from a starting position of 37,000 odd to the 18,000s. Should finish this morning.

Winter Series Starts

Joel and the crew of excaliber showed us the way for the first race of the winter series at Weymouth Sailing Club. It was nice to see Richard's old boat doing so well, she always was a fast boat.

There wasn't a great deal of wind for the race and we didn't have a bad one on FarrOut, finishing sixth out of nine boats. The triangular course suited our choice of assymetric spinnaker even though it was quite deep to start off with. I thought Scoline did really well, they were off like a shot and up there with the faster boats.

Rainy and cold for the first of the winter series

Route du Rhum - Cammas Wins

There's so much going on in the Route du Rhum that it's hard to keep track. Franck Cammas has crossed in the fastest time on Groupama 3, followed in second by IDEC Francis Joyon, Thomas Coville on Sodebo is just on his way in now. In the IMOCA class my money is still on Armel Le Cleac'h.

Perhaps the most interesting is the class 40. It's worth having a read of Pete Goss' blog: http://www.petegoss.com/routedurhum/blog.php . He's really showing that he's still got it and it's great to see a Brit out there in the top flight even though by his own admission he doesn't know his boat as well as some of the other racers. Come on Pete!!!!

It's a long slog in the virtual race, I'm managing to stay ahead of Pete Jackson on Albran by taking a bit more southerly option but may run out of wind any day now!

End of Autumn Series - Race 6

FarrOut ended up tied with Scoline in fifth place for today's race. So there were more boats behind us on points than in front of us, and we beat a couple of boats over the water, we can be really happy about that! I think that we sailed a good race and were pretty fast, especially on the beat.

Good fun and all smiles. Congratulations to Joel and the crew of X99 Excalibur for the overall series win. And I think congratulations are also due to Weymouth Sailing Club where the IRC series has been well attended and given some excellent close racing. The results have shown how well IRC has worked in the mixed fleet.

Bring on the Winter Series.

http://www.weysailclub.org.uk/content/view/298/151/

Virtual Regatta - Route du Rhum

For some mad reason I signed up for the virtual Route du Rhum, however I haven't been paying much attention to my boat. I was abroad with work this week so didn't panic about changing course. I don't seem to be doing too badly though. I'm kind of demotivated as this is the first virtual regatta when I haven't been given the "pro" sails for free. In fact if you want sails and pilot and stuff like that you end up paying €20.
Not feeling flush I think we will just lazily steer the boat for free, it'll be a more chilled way of doing the race with no getting up in the night. Could the fact that I'm currently reading "The long way" by Bernard Moitessier be anything to do with my attitude?

At bl**dy Last!

Young Sam's bath-time sticky letters spell it out.....after so long with little success, the crew of FarrOut can celebrate a convincing win in the WSC sunday morning IRC series.

The race went well from the start with only ourselves and the Figaro 2 "Milan" seeing the pin bias on the line so that we could both bang a port tack flyer and cross in front of the fleet. Up a lumpy beat to M and we were third to the windward mark with only the Figaro and the Melges 24 in front of us. We held on and kept it safe, keeping her going the right way in big seas and deep runs.

Let's see more of it.

A Figaro 1 wins Solent Series!

http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/?article=154492

Well done to Black Diamond for doing so well in a Figaro. Hopefully this will encourage Richard and Simon who own Rattler. It's true that the IRC rating at 0.974 has been much better this year but I'd say that it's still a difficult boat to win in, and as us lot on Rattler managed to just pip Black Diamond in this year's Round the Island race I reckon it's about time they did some more round the cans racing (without nicking the FarrOut crew that is!).

Rattler in her Le Havre "Groupe Partouche" days.

Autumn Series Race 4

Hooray, we've got our boat speed back! This sunday's race was a cracker with a 10 boat IRC fleet. We only had four people on board but the boat was flying with her newly scrubbed bottom. The highlight was overtaking an X332 zooming along with the Tuareg ayso, unfortunately we found ourselves to leeward of Iduna and wasn't able to overtake because of their wind shadow and it took a while before we could make the move to go above her. It was quite breezy and if I headed up all I could see happening was accellerating and driving up their transom!

It all went wrong on the gybe as Dave was missing from the bow this week. Stephen's stirling effort couldn't save us from the wrap and we ended up losing a spinnaker sheet. The temporary replacement wasn't ready in time for the downwind part of the course so we goose-winged.

Top boat speed of the day 9.3 knots. Although we had a nightmare after the first reach, we did OK in the fleet and without the problems I'd like to think that we'd be up there. Roll on next week and great to see Darren back on the boat.

Filthy Bottom

I really hope that this is the reason that we've been doing so badly recently. That International VC Offshore really hasn't done the business for us in Weymouth harbour. I think that we'll try Nautix T speed next year.

We had sea squirts, worms, barnacles and everything on the bottom and to be honest the bottom is still horrible after we sprayed it all off. The worm casts had to be scraped off with a plastic scraper!

Route du Rhum 2010

I'm started to get excited about the Route du Rhum. Of course I'll support Safran in the Open 60s as ever but I have an idea that Armel Le Cleac'h (BritAir) can beat Mich Desj (Foncia), although the prof has got a new boat....it will be interesting to watch, I wouldn't bet any money on it though!

The Categorie Ultime multihulls are going to be amazing with these massive 100' + machines lined up against each other; Thomas Coville (Sodebo) vs. Frank Cammas (Groupama). 46 classe 40s....in fact 87 boats signed up at the moment.

Not long now.

http://www.routedurhum-labanquepostale.com/en/s01_home/s01p01_home.php

Autumn Race 3 - Max Points!

Another maximum point performance from FarrOut this sunday morning. We were doomed from the start being the slowest boat in the fleet and a forecast dying breeze. Sure enough the wind died off a lot but I think the filthy hull was a big problem to us. A lift out this friday should sort this out but I really haven't been happy with the performance of our anti-fouling this year.

All smiles on FarrOut though, as we used the tail end of the race to work on our boat speed and think that we have got an improvement there. There's nothing worse than working your butts off to go as fast as possible and then some flash git zooming past you, I stumbled on a YouTube video that indicates this quite well.....let's make sure we're the overtaker and not the overtaken. Enjoy.

Beneteau First 30, Juan K - Mich Desj

The FarrOut boys were disappointed by the new Beneteau First 30 when we had a poke around at the Southampton boat show. We were expecting to be entranced but instead were numbed by the poor level of finishing, it maybe that the test boats were rushed out to the boat shows but personally I'd have had someone fairing that keel bulb overnight seeing as though it was directly in the eyes of the public. Stepping from the First 30 onto a J97 turned frowns to smiles; a totter down the pontoon to an Archambault A31 and the smiles turned to leers.

The excellent Swedish blog Blur.se got to have a test sail on the First 30 and have published some polars and a test IRC cert. Worth having a look, click the translate button if your Swedish is rusty: http://www.blur.se/2010/10/12/first-30-polar-irc/#comments

Can we forgive the poor finish quality and stumpy looking mast if it goes like a train and wipes out bigger competition under IRC yet still satisfies the "sell it to the wife as a child friendly cruiser" test?

Still think Steve and Richard preferred the old salty cruiser boat at the boat show, they worry me......

Autumn Series Race 2

It was a very rusty and hung over FarrOut crew that made it out of Weymouth harbour on sunday morning. It was blowing quite hard from the east and our broken engine couldn't deliver us enough power meaning that we had to short tack out of the harbour causing a bit of drama first thing and a desperate scrabble to get the headsail up.

We went for a conservative sail plan of No. 4 headsail and full main, which maybe left us underpowered at times but not on our ears at others.....ho hum always a difficult choice. It was blowing at least 20 and with some seas that tended to keep our speed down to windward. With an excellent turnout in the IRC class (9 boats) and a poor turnout in PY, only 1 boat so Rumrunner opted to sail around behind us. We were deemed OCS and dipped back and then touched a mark so did a penalty turn, this as well as having a nasty kite wrap caused us to pick-up 9 points!

With lighter airs forecast next week we might do better.

WSC autumn series 1 - blown out

The expected southerly gale put the mockers on this sunday's racing. I haven't been sailing for about 4 weeks, incredible.

We're looking forward to racing against the new boat in the fleet, a guest appearance for the winter from the Capo30 Santana. Bob has jumped ship to join them, so we have a vacant space in the middle of the boat which I think one of us owners will fill.

Mast down and up day.

FarrOut's wobbly masthead tricolour finally shook itself off of the top of the mast. We couldn't sail the boat with it like that so we had to foresake racing this sunday and sort it out.

Clearly a mast climb was not going to be the best way to sort it out, plus none of us feel light enough to go up there. As sunday morning was high water springs we were able to get alongside the new WSC crane and drop the rig. This transpired into a drop on sunday and a raising on monday morning which gave us more time to do the bits needed and tune the rig.

All back up and just as well we dropped it as a bolt was also missing from our expensive Raymarine wind instrument. Unfortunately I forgot to measure the forestay to make sure we had the exact length required. We'll have to see how she goes...

Start of Sunday Series 05 Sept - Big Seas

An easterly in Weymouth Bay is lumpy so it's not a great surprise that not many boats were out for the Sunday series, 2 in PY and 3 boats in IRC. It was blowing early twenties and a great day not to have Dave our usual foredeck man with us. I was voted in for the job so got wet and have now got ripped oilys.

There's a bit of a mess up on the results so I can't tell you where we came just yet but we had some broaches and avoided a couple of chinese gybes. All kind of frenetic.

Artemis wins overall in Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race

Big congratulations to Jonny Malbon and the crew of Artemis Ocean Racing in their overall victory of the Sevenstar RBI race, this on top of them beating the Imoca 60 record for the course.

It's about time they had some real success in that team, they deserve the win.

Autumn Long Distance

Not such a long distance but at least out to W over by Hamm beach in Portland Harbour. It was about the right length of race given the fickle light northerly.

Pre-start we managed to sail a bit up the beat to B deciding that the left side was the lifting tack, trouble was that this may have been true but was quickly changed to a header due to the shifts, there were many tacks on shifts up the beat with boat positions changing as well.

We didn't end up badly at the windward mark and hoisted a symmetrical kite, though having to gybe when we got stuck under the Mustang 30 Neigh Chance. We had a lot of gybes before the northern entrance to Portland harbour but I think the tactic played out quite well for us. Without the big masthead kite of Scoline or Rumrunner we weren't going to flop downwind in no air and with Dave on the foredeck being quite slick with the gybes we could keep our air clear and the speed on.

The race was lost but we did our best on the upwind section back from W with the cobwebs blown off of the genoa, which we were suprisingly quite happy with, we may see a resurgence of that sail!

So a nice sunny day on the water, with some lessons learnt about our light airs performance:

1. The genoa may not be all bad.
2. Neigh chance will luff you if you go over the top, and you won't get underneath so gybe away. You might just get the benefit of a shift.
3. If we have three people in the cockpit in light airs we will sit our flat backside in the water. Fore and aft trim might be our problem.

Congratulations to Scoline on their win.

 A smiling Robert, pleased to see the genoa again.

Last of the August Series - oops, last.

A disappointing sail for race 6 of the WSC august series. Really light airs meant that we struggled to get the boat going and it was one of the few times that we probably needed a genoa. We're slow in the light both up and down wind, we need to work on this.

Anyway, we finished the series in second place with RWH winning and Scoline on equal points in third place.

Bring on the sunday series......and some wind.

August Race 5

A win for FarrOut in monday evening's race as part of the Weymouth Sailing Club August Series. We managed to pip RWH by 20 seconds corrected time in the PY handicap division.

The race started in a lot of wind, we saw 32-35 knots according to the instruments which meant that we started with a reef in the mainsail and the No. 4 jib. Sigma 33 Scoline had a great start with a port tack flyer at the pin end - hang on isn't that our tactic? Fortunately flying the ayso spinnaker meant that we overtook them on the first spinnaker leg which they quite rightly white sailed.

The rapidly shortening evenings mean that we only got one triangle in which was fortunately enough but we would have preferred the sausage leg as well.

The series sits in the balance with RWH having it at the moment on 4 points whilst we have 7. Thursday is the last in the series and the weather may decide it for us. For once I'll be hoping for some deep-down runs!

Stuart (left) was helm for this race and Stephen (right) on mainsheet:

August series race 4 - Tragic abandon

Our race was abandoned last night as the Race Officer Malcolm Terry collapsed aboard Viking 2, the commitee boat, during the start sequences. He was airlifted by the SAR helicopter but didn't recover. A shocking period for everyone and our condolences to his family on his passing.

Congratulations Armel!

Armel Le Cleac'h has won the Figaro for the second time. An unstoppable performance with 3 out of 4 leg wins put him at the highest point of the podium. He is a worthy challenger to Michel Desjoyeaux for the title of  best solo sailor in the game.

I've "supported" him for a number of years after that great picture from the AG2R in, I think, 2004:

Whooohooo........

August Series Race 3

Stuart drove a great start putting us on the pin end of the line with pin bias as the horn went. We kept the left side whereas the rest of the fleet went right for some reason that I couldn't fathom, I think the two MGC27s came with us though. We'd already established on thursday, if not before!*!, that the left hand side was the lifting tack in this NNW breeze. This put us first to the windward mark.

The race officer had set a course with a 140 apparent, gybe, 170 apparent course so that stuffed our asymmetric schenanigans. On questioning he said that he'd been told to do that....

My investigations recently show that we are lacking 20m2 of spinnaker downwind compared to the class kite, however I think that this maybe down to measuring a kite as a rectangle in PHRF in US/Canada rather than the way IRC measures. Even so we seem to be missing some cloth and lack speed in light and medium airs at these angles and the boats with big masthead kites can get away from us. We had the wrong kite clipped in anyway.

Just about then we forget about the favoured left side on the beat as we see Sapphire headed in front of us, go right and get stuffed. Then we end up loose covered by Hooligan, we carry on out to the starboard layline but, wrong, wrong, wrong we needed to break cover and go left.

At least I suppose if we can identify where we went wrong we can try not to do it in the future! 7th out of 12 boats in PY.

August Series Race 2 - Weymouth Sailing Club

Helm Stephen applauds Sigma 33 Scoline in the distance after another exhilirating race last night. Another reach to reach course gave JS9000 RWH the win again and Sigma 33 Snow Goose sailed impeccably well to get the 2nd and first in IRC. We were 4th in PY but again we only had four on board.

Rattler came past our 1st kite leg on the way into Weymouth harbour so hopefully they've got a nice "Touareg" photo for us!


The Rolex Commodore's cup starts this weekend with GBR being the current holders but against some very strong competition, the french have four teams whereas we've got three which don't include any Archambault boats but do include a Farr 45, I don't know that much about it but that worries me, let's hope beneteaus and superior sailing is enough! Link here
Edit 18th Aug: oh yeah, I get it now about the Farr 45 thing, very clever....Alice II beat the tidal gates in the offshore race to win class 1 by a country mile! I should be more supportive of Farr designs.

The last stage of the Figaro sets off from Kinsale on monday with Armel "The Jackal" Le Cleac'h sure of an overall win. Link here 

Omnivore's 100

A  list of things that you should've tried in your life according to a food blogger. I did this ages ago, but I'll have another go. 79/100 Can anyone beat me?

 Bold items are what I've eaten. Ashamed to have missed out on the "tasting menu at a Michelin three starred restaurant" need to sort that one out.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Start of August Series - Mon 9th

FarrOut was 2nd last night, beaten narrowly by the JS9000 RWH which was miles in front. I guess the first triangle in breeze (about 20 knots) favoured them as an asymmetric boat, as it did us with the Touareg up creaming through the fleet. Great fun.
On the downwind sausage leg we got a wine glass wrap on the gybe, Stuart dealt with it by getting "aggressive" with the foot of the kite. However it probably cost us the win. Can't complain though, it was a good start to the series.

the1851cup.com

Well I'm not a big fan of the America's Cup, the last edition was kind of fun because of BMW Oracle's massive wing sail but that was it. However, the 1851 cup action this afternoon in the Solent was superlative, not just for the scoreline (2-0 to Team Origin) but the coverage online was great. When there wasn't live coverage there was a great Kiwi computer graphics representation that meant that you could follow the match race better than the tons of ribs that were following the boats.

Commentary I thought was pitched pretty well so that the non-sailor could have it explained to them without the patronising tone that might be used if the sport was pitched at people who frankly aren't gonna be watching. For those of us that have a better idea of what's going on it wasn't annoying and kept the excitement throughout. This bodes well for Olympic sailing coverage in Weymouth in 2012, I hope they're watching!

Ben Ainslie is a deserved hero to any British boat racer, as is Ian Percy, so how great to see them and the rest of the team beat the America's cup holders BMW Oracle. It's only day one but I can't wait for the rest of it. And while it's going on there's a load of Open 60s flying past - why am I not in Cowes....?

By the way, the Figaro took off again today from Gijon to Brest, it's really tight this year give it a look. Malbon's in 12th at the 1900 classement!

Double Handed at WSC Sat 31st July

Richard and myself went out for a pleasant sail on FarrOut in the double handed series. Although it was quite busy I think we made a good show of ourselves and we would have won if we hadn't have gone the wrong way. This meant a diversion back to "B" mark when we were almost at "M". We caught up Chloe II (the eventual winner) at "M" and sailed underneath them with Rich sitting on the rail, me tidying up string and Mich' Desj' (the autohelm) steering - fun stuff.

We saw about 20 kts of wind and the no. 4 and full main was the right choice meaning that we could bring on mainsail as we could handle it. The tight spinnaker runs were fun with no weight on the rail, but we only had one round up which we managed to get back on the rails.

Ladies Race @ WSC, Tracy helms.

Our star helm for the ladies race was Tracy. Despite only having helmed a boat for a few hours before and being seriously limited in her tacking and gybing experience, she did really well with the minimum of guidance / shouting from us.

The closest thing was a near coming together with X99 Excalibur but that was caused by their lady helm and not ours!

We had a little bit of trouble when the middle of the boat called for the asymmetric, the front of the boat (me) rigged a sheet wrong and then the back of the boat gybed way too early. It all got sorted out but did mean an up the mast inspection later on!

All in all good fun. Unfortunately the single handed race next week has been cancelled, something about bar takings! So we can look forward to an all-in start average lap race - what's the betting that's going to be on a dying breeze?

La Solitaire Le Figaro

For those of you that might have missed it the Figaro started yesterday from Le Havre.

http://www.lasolitaire.com
It's probably my favourite yacht race of the year, and worth following if you have the time. No Nigel King this year but let's hope that he can get back in the mix next year after his encouraging performance last year. The sole hope of the Rosbifs this year is Jonny Malbon on Artemis, who I have to say is looking more confident after the training that he has received at "Figaro School"in La Grande Motte. 17th in the prologue race out of 45 skippers and currently mid fleet. That is an incredible placing for an englishman in the Figaro fleet. Good luck Jonny keep it up.
http://www.artemisoceanracing.com/

With Artemis committed to starting a Figaro school in the UK there's hope yet. I wonder if I can sign Sam up, or do you think two is a little young for training?

I'm lining up for my first single handed round the cans on FarrOut this thursday. Gonna train with a double handed with Richard on Saturday. I wish I'd had some of that Figaro training.......

Monday Night Race Officers

It's always a worry doing our yearly race officer duty. There's so little time for preparation and you're concious about getting it right and giving everyone a good race. We were quite lucky as we had a fairly decent breeze that appeared to be in for the evening which enabled us to put some distance in the courses.

Quite enjoyable but it's a lot easier racing and moaning about the course that's been set for you. One new thing for us this year is the large amount of dingies at Weymouth Sailing Club, they're average lap racing so you really have to keep a tally on them as well as the three other classes you've got out on the water.

This thursday is a ladies' race, so Tracy will be driving. She's been practicing this weekend so we're expecting great things.

Check this out

Another Thursday Cancelled at WSC

We were the only IRC boat to venture out into the bay last night, I guess everyone else had cancelled on the forecast. Probably the right call but there were some encouraging signs in the late afternoon. As it was it was good practice to handle the boat in some seas and wind, we only saw about 27 knots before we turned and went back in. Respect to Iain Jones and Nick Frampton who went out in a squib and put a kite up.

We like a bit of wind on FarrOut but that 1986 rig is always a concern when the main just flogs! I guess the race officers were glad that no other boats came out because it gusted over 41knots at 2020!

Henri Lloyd Weymouth Regatta 2010

The arrival of codename "Touareg" secret weapon coincided well with this year's regatta. Our entry into the PY1 class was a mistake as we got handicapped badly against the MGc27s which are to me a very similar speed boat in any weather until we can get planing. The long distance race on friday wasn't good for us, we just still seem to struggle to make the boat go in light airs.

As it was the IRC3 class, the class we should have entered, had the same start so we could have sailed against the MGs but have done a lot better in class, apart from we probably couldn't have flown our new sail......

Saturday and sunday were two races each day and in excellent conditions. The courses were also very well set by the race committee. Top boat speed for the weekend about 9.5knots under the ayso with a lot of whooping from us.

An all round excellent regatta even with the disappointing results. But that's life with FarrOut sine waves of brilliance and disappointment.

A catch up for this week.

I've not got around to making any posts for a while, just kind of busy. The final Rear Admiral's Cup race was a light airs affair (how I'm sick of those!) but I think we did alright and hopefully enough between Sole Bay and us to lift the cup, but once again we didn't make three boats representing Weymouth Sailing Club. It's OK though because I think no-one will be doing it next year!

Following that was a very disappointing thursday race, once again in fairly light airs, we probably had too many people on board and the dying evening breeze really scuppered us. I was quite down afterwards, wondering if my driving was rubbish or what it was. It's so depressing to see those Sigmas get away so easily. I think it was a lot of things that gave us a poor result but the major reason has to be Farr Out's bottom. I dived the boat on friday and found the bottom filthy with grass growing on port side. Now nicely scrubbed but I guess all the bright sunshine we've had over the last three weeks had really ramped up the weed growth, which kind of corresponds with the poor performances in light airs (I hope!). Maybe VC Offshore is not the antifoul to use in the location we're moored, I think we'll try something else next year.

So with a newly shiny bottom I'm looking forward to this weekend's Henri Lloyd Weymouth Regatta, where we've opted to enter the PY1 class so that we can play with MGC27s. You never know we might be able to use our new secret weapon.........

Bad news, Good news, Good news

Ok, bad news we were at the back of the field in the IRC class again last night. Another bad start put us there and we couldn't make it back on the dying breeze. Nuff said - the last RAC race is on sunday and we will be in the front rank on the start or OCS no matter what.

The first good news is that probably over a dozen dolphins were out to play with us while we were racing; jumping, tail standing and cackling. Really beautiful, and we're so lucky to have them so happy in our bay.

The real good news yesterday is the announcement by Artemis that they are creating an offshore school of excellence both at the Weymouth and Portland  National Sailing Academy and at La Grande Motte in the med in the winter. Sailing wise, I don't think it's necessary to have a warm winter venue other than to experience med conditions and terrain and of course to make sure the condidates can speak french. I'll let you read the announcement for yourselves at http://www.artemisoceanracing.com/news/view/artemis_investment_management_continues_commitment_to_british_sailing/

I haven't really been that bothered about the  WPNSA, the olympic sailing and RYA programmes, as they seemed to have little relevance to the club racing and offshore scenes that we're involved in. However, my attitude has changed and it's great to see the kids that are learning to sail here on our doorstep and the Offshore school has got to be the right way for Britannia to rule the waves in solo and short handed sailing. Well done Artemis. We'll have Samuel enrolled in a few years time!

Round the Island Race

I'm glad I changed my mind and decided to race, we had an amazing time on Rattler.
It started well with the feeder race from Weymouth with 10 boats on the start line, unfortunately it was so light in the bay that we had the engine on for 35 minutes until we found some wind. It was a shame to retire but really it was all about the delivery to Cowes.
The race around the Isle of Wight  itself was a classic and probably one of the better ones I've done. There was plenty of wind allowing a circumnavigation in just under 8 1/4 hours, which after the 0600 start (or was it 0601 for us!) meant that we were back in the marina at a very reasonable time.
Highlight has to be the tussle we had with the other Figaro 1 entered - Black Diamond around the top of the island. We got to the finish line in front of them but not by much. Really good to sail against another Figaro. I think it's probably quite a while since Groupe Partouche (Rattler) and Assiwa (Black Diamond) have sailed against each other.
We were so exhilarated that we even danced later...or maybe that was the Red Bull?
A photo of Richard a la barre, he drove really well:

Coutts Quarter Ton Cup

I'm very enthusiastic about the quarter tonners at the moment, it seems to me that this class is the kind of Grand Prix yacht racing that penniless can thrashers like myself can aspire to. I've just watched the video of race 1 on the unofficial Quarter Ton Blog http://quartertonners.wordpress.com/

We could have entered when we had the GK24 but it's not really the ship to use, and we couldn't afford the brand new North sails that everyone seems to be sporting. Saying that, there's alot of hard work put in by the owners to restore these fine machines of yesteryear and with multiple ownership I guess it all becomes a bit more possible to race at what appears to me a very high level. It's also a class and type of sailing that has UK sailors out front and that's where we should be.

I'd never sell FarrOut but perhaps we can find an old quarter behind somebody's shed. But after sailing a Laser 28 it might have to be a Farr......chances of finding one of those? Where's Nenufarr?

Post Script: A disparaging remark on Sailing Anarchy this morning related to a quarter tonner laying flat after a broach. Maybe they think the fun of sailing is all about doing well....they obviously don't appreciate a good high speed crash like we do on FarrOut!

Family Trip to Lulworth

FarrOut and Rattler enjoyed a day out to Lulworth Cove on sunday with the girls and kids. Fun was had by all and the conditions were sunny and a lovely breeze. Kite to Lulworth and close hauled back. Samuel enjoyed life at 45 degrees on the way home:

No race

Howling wind from the NE caused the race to be cancelled this thursday. So here's a nice photo of the jamon that we eat at Stuart's house instead.

Rear Admiral's Cup 2 - Hugh Rose Trophy

We battled on saturday to actually finish the race, but there was no wind to be had quite soon after we'd rounded the windward mark at Arish Mell in third place. In fact there were only two finishers of the race Snow Goose and a half tonner from the RNSA called High Hopes which looked like a good fast boat.

Darren and Kerry had gone on Manana as we had too many people and Mickey didn't have enough in the light airs. It was fun trading tacks with them and watching them hoist all the headsails that they had including the drifter and the blooper. Manana's offshore track seemed better than our inshore when the wind shut off!

Still a nice day out on the water but no results for WSC boats in this race. Let's hope we have good breeze for the third and final race on 27th. I'm absolutely determined that the cup is coming to our club this year!

End of thursday 1 series.

So no cup for FarrOut at the end of the thursday one series. What can I say: we were forced right on the first beat, everyone else went left. The breeze filled from the left, game over.

A new thursday series starting next week.....

YCW Cherbourg_2010_Rattler.mpg

Cherbourg for the weekend

We had a great race on Rattler to Cherbourg on friday - second over the water and on handicap but not by much. Draig won.

We came back on sunday upwind neck and neck with Draig. Some video above.

Mitchell Trophy - sat 22nd May

Stuart and I entered this race double handed (well three handed if you count Mich' Desj' the autohelm). A real struggle to the windward mark saw us round in third, but standing on way past the layline helped in the fickle southerly zephyrs. We fetched into the mark with good speed. Unfortunately the breeze died to nothing and we slipped into a race on the tide with Folio, them waddling dead down with no air in the kite - and us gybing zig zagging trying to keep the kite full. They won - something to remember.

We thought it was more gracious to retire and have a beer. In fact there were only two finishers - RWH and Foxed Again. We towed some squibs back in, which was our good deed for the day!

Loads of nice boats were in Weymouth from Royal Southampton for their double race. Moondog (Laser28) stormed their class both ways - brilliant. See their report here: http://www.gbr7076.biz/m/index.html

Rear Admiral's Cup - Race 1

The Rear Admiral's Cup is for teams of three boats from the local sailing clubs: Castle Cove (CCSC), Royal Dorset (RDYC), Royal Naval Sailing Association (RNSA) and Weymouth Sailing Club (WSC). Today was the first race of a series of three and the WSC team was Sole Bay, Folio and FarrOut. We had an excellent afternoon scoring first, fifth and second.

Again a good showing from the FarrOut crew finishing second over the water to Iduna (X332), and our new sails were fantastic.

Perfect Conditions - Thurs 1/3

Well the third race of the thursday evening IRC series and we were third, narrowly having beaten Scoline by 3 seconds corrected time.

We had a great 12-15knot breeze from about 240 degrees with a windward mark of "D" and a laid leeward mark. The race officer sent the PY class around this mark to starboard and the IRC class to port - entertaining. Down the first run we had a fine tussle with Scoline as she flew her kite stbd pole and we were port pole.

We had all 6 of the regular crew onboard and it's such a delight when everyone knows the boat and does their level best to get her as fast as possible.

Shiny Sails

Last thursday's race - Weymouth Sailing Club's IRC series Thurs 1/2, was the first chance we had of flying our new mainsail. We didn't do well in the race mainly due to using the No. 1 headsail when I think the No.3 would have got us higher and faster (plus that's brand new as well).
The new sails are from Hyde and built in Dimension Polyant's X10 and X15 aramid cloth.
The new main fitted perfectly and thanks to Wooderz of Hyde Sails for that. Hopefully try the new No. 3 out this thursday.
We're also racing on saturday this week representing WSC in this year's Rear Admiral's Cup series. Hopefully we can take that cup from the Royal Dorset!

Thursday 1/1 - IRC series

Farr Out scored a victory last night in light and patchy breeze. We managed to beat Draig O'r Mor (Dehler 36db) and Sapphire (Dehler 33) as well as the two Sigma 33s Scoline and Snow Goose. We came third over the line and clinched it by 39 seconds corrected. We had a good start on port, tacking onto starboard into the rest of the boats. A good start to the summer racing and an example of the focus that the team are putting in now. Stuart drove, Bob trimming, Dave foredeck and I did mainsheet and guy.

YCW Spring Series - overall

Sunday's racing was brilliant. Two races were carried out in near perfect conditions with three starts for the two races, the first start for the IRC fleet getting a general recall. The racing was really competitive and I think FarrOut showed well with a 5th and a 3rd.

So we finished the series around mid table, so considering the dreadful first race we had  and then the wind dying and not being able to finish in race 3, not bad at all.

Thursday evening racing starts this week, with the Q class being carried out under IRC rating this year. I'm hoping that it will be as good as this sunday.

Sunburn and shouting

We're having some gorgeous weather here in Weymouth at the moment, everybody loves it though us sailors are a bit peeved at the lack of wind on a sunday morning. The breeze was patchy yesterday for race 3 of the Yacht Clubs of Weymouth spring series. We didn't have a right lot of speed on the boat when we arrived at the start line as the gun went....so we ended up in a lot of trouble with boat on boat incidents. Hopefully we didn't upset people too much but sometimes you're in a situation you'd rather not be in...

After the procession of a race last week, it was a welcome change to have a bit of other boat interaction.  Roll on next week.

YCW Spring series 2 - Long Race, DNF

Farr Out got recorded DNF (did not finish) yesterday. We were forced to retire when the wind totally shut off around 1430. The race had started just before 1100 when it was pretty windy.

A great shame because I think we were looking at a top three position before we run out of wind. The boat went well and the crew all did well, I don't think we made a lot of mistakes and our start was pretty good.

There's always next week....

Tough Little Laser

You may have seen reports on Sailing Anarchy etc. about the carnage in the Southern Straits race in Canada last weekend. One boat sank and her six crew rescued, and it's worth watching some of the fantastic surfing video from the boats on YouTube.

There was at least one Laser 28 out there; Voila owned by Frank Fletcher. He tells his story on the Laser 28 forum: http://www.laser28.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=379&SID=84d74f343bb141c35c14cb85db43dcf8

57 knots across the deck!

YCW Spring Series - Race 1

After all the rain we've been having, the first race of the season on easter sunday was comparitively warm with mid teens wind gusting to early twenties.

What can I say? There were 5 boats in the IRC class and we were fifth! In hindsight our port start put us on the right in clear wind (all the other boats were faster than us), but maybe we should have stayed with the fleet.

Our first gybe of the season saw the first broach. All a bit rusty and I suppose there was a fair amount of wind. Good times though. Need those new sails, No. 3 seems to be disintegrating!

New Sails Ordered.

Farr Out is to have a new mainsail and no. 3 jib for the 2010 season. They were ordered yesterday from Hyde Sails and should be with us by the end of april. The sails are both aramid laminates.

Sad News

Sad to hear that Alan Glover, Rumrunner's bowman has had a heart attack and passed away. Dreadful news, he was a great bloke.

START of the new season

Getting ready for the new season, let's recap on some of the things that were good about last season:
1. Crew. We have a great crew and some solid reliability.
2. Boat speed. Concentrating on boat speed rather than trying to point as high as the others.
3. Going the right way. We're starting to really spot the breeze and anticipating what will happen in our bay.
4. Boat trim. You have to sail Farr Out flat, it is the main trimmer's responsibility to make up for the lack of keel.
5. Starts. Being on the money, maybe, see the video below. Great when everyone's line shy. But we can't expect this in Q class, fighting for the commitee boat end on starboard tack isn't gonna cut it. More brave port starts. Starting below and faster than the sigmas i.e steaming in at full speed and tacking away if the right is favoured.

Work in Progress

If owning a boat is standing in the shower ripping up tenners, we're getting pretty clean at the moment. As always there's loads of work to be done on a boat during the winter lay up period and what initially doesn't look like a lot of work or expense ends up being so. How is it that every marine piece of plastic seems to be priced the wrong  side of £100?

Well at least we've got a shiny new propeller, and I'm in the process of fitting new double height deck organisers. Previously someone had fitted two sheave Barton organisers, so we've been sailing with two lines going through each sheave which has not sat well with either the organisers or the rope. Also a bit of gelcoat repairing going on.

Stephen spent saturday polishing the hull, so she looks nice and shiny now.

The spring series commences on sunday 4th April, so we shall be back in the water and raring to go.

Stag Weekend in Bristol.

A big thank-you to everyone that made my stag weekend so excellent.
It's the big wedding this weekend and it's scary. I was cheered up this morning by our new IRC rating, 0.903  - brilliant news.

Here's a nice picture of Farr Out bowman Dave smoking the shisha on saturday night. Dubi melon if I recall:

Farr Out takes to the Yard

Farr Out came out of the water on Saturday in slashing rain. There she will stay until late march or early april, with a bit of work to be done but not a great deal. It was a lot of work on saturday though, we also managed to get all the sails off and got them measured.

Trophies!

We collected a couple of trophies at the Weymouth Sailing Club presentation evening on Saturday: Spring Long Distance Q class and "Irish Distillers" which was for overall non-IRC sunday series. Great Stuff.

New Year's Day - Win

The Farr Out team started off the New Year well with a first place in the New Year's Day race.

This race was invented last year by Kay Stibbs of Draig, and it was great to see the turnout today. It started off very chilly but Farr Out went well in the 15-20 knots of wind.

Farr Out crew for the race were (L-R) Bob Horton, Dave Evans, Jez Rees, Darren Aston, Tom Lewis (not pictured). Pictured receiving the Champagne donated by Kay and Kev Stibbs from WSC Commodore Mark Bugler.