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.