Spring Series 4 - Long Distance. FarrOut first.

Easter sunday saw the long distance race of the YCW spring series. As we got to the boat the wind was peaking at 20 knots from the north with the potential to die from there. And so it was in a fickle breeze that we beat up to H off the seafront, reach off to O at the end of the pleasure pier and what should have been a nice ayso reach at 90 degrees over to R at Ringstead just kept going forward. We held the touareg at 60 degs as long as we could but we knew we had to go to white sail in order to launch the symmetrical kite for the run over to G off Grove Point on Portland. The crew of FarrOut kept working and kept us moving the right way. We chased the two Sigmas down to the beach, every time it went light we gained and as soon as they had a puff they went away again. As we reached H to turn for the line we managed to get in front of Snow Goose but they soon overtook again as we blundered a pressured kite hoist.

We'd stayed with the fleet and over almost 3 hours our rating was enough to give us the win.  this puts ourselves, Scoline and Sapphire all on six point as we come into the final two races of the series next sunday. We could do this......it would be a great way to start the season, but I won't pretend it's not going to be difficult.

Iain Jones took some photos from Spindrift, this one as we were coming up to G.

Race 2 and 3. Light Airs Drifting

A gorgeous sunny day but no wind to speak of. My team talk on the mooring went something like this "We have to be on the money at the start or we've already lost. Today will all be about how tall your rig is and we've got the shortest one in the fleet!".

Race 2 was a decent start which put us to windward of the fleet, we were the first boat to tack to the right which I think paid for us, a couple of ayso reaches and a beat back to the line and it's all over. Third on corrected time.

Race 3 we had a lovely start at the commitee boat, the pin end bias sent the rest of the fleet that way keeping our air clear. The wind had filled just for this first beat but once we were around the corner it was difficult to keep the kite full. This time we were chasing Scoline who went deep looking for mark C and initially we followed although the GPS told us they were going the wrong way. We corrected and gybed back which probably gave us a better angle into the mark (if we'd have had the Touareg up and not the red symmetrical). Scoline had her big genoa and the next leg went close reach/fetch/beat as we went back to finish at the windward mark. This was the time in light airs when dropping the genoa from our sail inventory was a bad move....It was painful upto the line at sub 2 knots of boat speed. Forth on corrected time.

Not bad results, FarrOut now has 9 points with half of the 6 race series complete and 2 discards allowable.

Next week is the long distance race, so if we can stay up there then the longer the time racing then the more our rating can help us. Let's start praying for wind now. The beer locker is nice and full though!

YCW Spring Series - Race 1. You can't get closer!

A gorgeous sunny day with a light NE airflow was predicted to give us problems being the slowest boat in the IRC fleet and a dying breeze meaning that the faster boats would finish with more wind than we had. Luckily the wind died from the start so it was a problem for everyone.

Our starting tactics were good but backfired being shut out by Spindrift and subsequently by Wildfire. This meant that we were last over the line but it got better from there as we sailed directly to the windward mark. The windshift and lack of wind troubled our pre-start asymmetric kite choice but as there was no wind it didn't really matter, the well considered gybe however put us on a tight reach upto mark H - perfect. The next, and final, leg was white sail and Darren called our tack perfectly to lay the line. Farr Out was 2nd by one second corrected time to Scoline.

A good start to the series and well done especially to Dave for his first time on the boat and a good job in the pit and Taz for his first time on the bow.

Link to results: http://www.weysailclub.org.uk/race-results

FarrOut hits the Water

Saturday evening saw a smooth launch for FarrOut and Sole Bay in advance of the planned sunday morning launch. All went very well apart from the rubber from the cradle pads sticking to the anti-foul a little but we had some time to paint over these.

She looks nice sitting on her new mooring in the cove at Weymouth Harbour. I'm hoping that this mooring is going to make parking short handed really easy.

Sunday 10th April is the start of the YCW spring series and we're entered into the IRC class. Better get all the sails and stuff back on board then!