Monday 28 November 2011

Silly Achilles

That's the way

Oh how we smiled, we had dragged another into our web of ayso lunacy. Winter series race 3 was sailed in a dropping force 6 and once again we made a decent show of it. Stuart and Tracy had come back from Australia for a bit so Stuart was able to drive his own boat for a change.

The highlight for the race for me was overtaking the Achilles 9m "Rumrunner" flying the Touareg asymmetric and watching as they were scrabbling around on deck rigging a kite to hoist. We thought that Daddsie had been so upset by us zooming past that he was forcing a kite hoist in high winds at a shy angle. It was only as we went around the gybe mark, having dropped to white sail that we saw the full glory as they hoisted the Melges 24 spinnaker followed by shrieking as it filled and propelled them forward.

I look forward to more of those schenanigans. Daddsie told me later that they'd broken the spinnaker pole on their first hoist and had no choice other than to go for the ayso. Looked to me as though it fitted nicely although I think the drop was quite interesting without a proper tack line!

Thursday 24 November 2011

Winter Series 2

Great race last sunday and again seconds in it proving IRC is definately working for Weymouth's fleet racing. We were OCS and had to go back but other than that an exemplary race even though we were short of Darren. Scoline got into lots of trouble on the deep run and we were able to cut the corner on them by sailing right by the lee as they struggled to sort it out, Adam pulled a slick pole gybe out of the bag. Upwind speed good again in the moderate air.
Chuffed with the performance that gave us a sixth out of eight boats, might have been forth if we hadn't have been over the line. There's no bad teams out there in this series though - the least experience is probably on FarrOut!

You know I was talking about the big crash last week? Well it was a bit like the one at 0.56s in the video below, only we were probably going a bit slower! Still, next boat eh....:

Sunday 13 November 2011

Winter Series 1 and a very big crash

A late start for the first of the Winter series at Weymouth Sailing Club. Sunday was Remembrance Day and we no longer sail about in the bay observing a two minute silence. IRC start was at 1340 from a replacement committee boat.

Once again we were on the money at the start and long may it continue! We then set about dealing with the large seas that an easterly brings and an average of twenty knots. We chose a sailplan that seemed to give us plenty of drive through the big waves.

Yet again the asymmetric spinnaker stayed in the bag, the runs being deep and a 100 degree reach that had to be a white sail in those conditions. The first hoist was delayed by a trapped halyard but once the kite was up we were flying.

The next spinnaker leg was even deeper and with the large following seas, we screamed past Snow Goose at 10.4 knots only to get caught by a wave and chinese gybe in the most spectacular way, being held down for a long time. Once we got her back going the right way Darren's call suprised even me when we simply gybed back and carried on refilling the spinnaker and shooting off again.

A great performance by the little laser today awarded us a 4th with Excaliber (X99) winning it, followed by Foxed2 (Corby 29) and Wildfire (Beneteau First 36). We weren't far away though and I thought that our speed both upwind and downwind was excellent.

Sunday 6 November 2011

Autumn 6 of 6. RIP white kite!

A blustery 20+ northerly for the finale of the WSC autumn series. Once again the lovely North Sails No. 4 headsail was out of the bag and we were trying to put the reef in pre-start when I decided that we didn't haven't time to do it and went back to full main, probably the right call at the end of the day.

Another decent start and not bad beats, we could have done with one more on the rail. Things improved on the first spinnaker leg when our 9.5-10 knots of boat speed fairly hunted down the white sailing Sigma 33s. Unfortunately neither Sigma finished the race so we were left plugging away at the back of the fleet, trying to catch Rocket and Rattler.

A long deep run across the bay from B to I with a following sea did us lots of favours, but FarrOut was hard to hang onto! On the next spinnaker leg the flogging as we tried to get the old Owen Sails white kite under control in 30 knots put paid to our ambitions as we were left with edge tapes and an empty triangle as the old campaigner burst dying the noble death of a well used race sail. So much more fitting than mouldering in a shed covered in patches. Ho hum - time to get one of those mouldy, patched spinnakers out the shed for next week then...

So a 5th today and 6th overall in the series, finishing just half a point behind Scoline. We have been the only boat to sail all races without a retirement, our young crew are getting better all the time and when you look at the quality of the boats ahead of us I don't think it's been a bad show. It's been a fun series, looking forward to the winter series starting next week.

Friday 4 November 2011

Fastnet 1979 on board Condor

Just read a really exciting story on the swedish blog Blur.se. Thought I'd share:
http://www.blur.se/2008/03/09/fastnet-1979-ombord-pa-condor/
Especially like it when they get the kite up in 45 knots, oh what a surprise...