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.........