Friday 29 July 2011

Still Waiting

We didn't go out racing this Thursday as people are away and I'm waiting for child No. 2 to arrive. Rattler weren't there either as they're down at Falmouth for JOG week.

Darren went dinghy sailing in the club 420 "Milo". I've been hanging around all week expecting the baby to come at anytime so decided that I'd pop down to the club anyway. It was such a nice evening with around a 10 knot breeze that I thought it would be fun to take FarrOut for a sail single handed.

A great night for it as it's Lifeboat week so there was the big orange boat in the bay as well as the ILB and the WSC safety rib etc.. Plenty of people to pick me up / stop the boat if I went over the side!

No spinnaker work this time, we'll have a go at that next time. I'm getting used to sailing her under the tiller pilot. You just think that you want to sail off into the distance though. Coming back onto the mooring is the hardest and where you have the potential to get into the most trouble, I got away with it but it wasn't pretty!

Friday 15 July 2011

Thursday 2, Race 4

Following last weekends regatta, I got to the boat early to see if we could do anything about the rig settings. We now have more of a banana mast and it seems to have improved our upwind angles.


It was a lovely night for sailing with a 10-15 knot breeze and warm sunshine. Jack had brought along Adam and Ben so we had six on board FarrOut. The start was great with all boats positioned well but in the kind of way that 6 inches either way would have meant collisions. I'm pleased to say that with the new rig settings and the weight on the rail we were fast off the line.

We managed to stay pretty much up with the fleet all the way around but once again, much to our annoyance, Scoline were on top form and comfortably winning all the way round.

A nice triangle sausage course was set by Bill Barker meaning two ayso legs with a slick outside gybe, followed by a deep symmetrical kite run with a gybe in the middle there.

Fourth on corrected time for this race - we beat Rattler though!


10 Years Ago......

I found a post on the net mentioning FarrOut in the Oban regatta in 2001. Good to see that she once went at 14.4 knots:

http://www.petestack.com/sailing/reports/2001/oban.html

Monday 11 July 2011

Weymouth Regatta 2011 - I'm exhausted!

It was a hard regatta on FarrOut, try as we might we were really struggling for crew especially in lots of wind on friday (upto 35 knots) and just a little bit less on saturday. Sunday started a little light and then developed into a lovely breeze and we had the correct five on board. It was the kind of breeze where Stephen on main trim could rest his arm muscles and concentrate more on the shape of the sail.

Sunday afternoon gave us our best result in IRC3 with a second to Scoline, it was fun to do a windward/leeward course and we didn't really make any mistakes.

I think after the weekend we need to check our rig tensions because we don't seem to be as fast upwind as we used to be.

Friday's long distance race was especially tough for Stephen and I double handed. The "death or glory" spinnaker hoist in that kind of wind made us lay down for a while...generally with the size of the seas and the screaming wind it was survival mode on the little lake racer!

Disaster of the weekend was ripping the clew out of the "Touareg" spinnaker. Not terminal, it will be back.

By the way... 2011 Quarter Ton Cup starts today, if they can find any wind. Check it out at  http://quartertonners.wordpress.com/

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Henri Lloyd Weymouth Regatta

This weekend brings our annual town regatta. Entries are down this year with only four boats entered in IRC3. Such a shame as it's always enjoyable and a well run regatta.

We'll always enter, but I wonder if it's the entry prices that put people off. We have so much "free" racing in the borough with the various club races and under the YCW banner that it comes hard for people to pay for a good weekend - something that is usual in the Solent and elsewhere. But, it's only because people volunteer that the "free" racing is available. For the keelboat regatta to survive whilst the dinghy regatta thrives it needs people to consider it their duty to enter.

It's only by offering large fleet racing that we can encourage visiting boats to take part. We have the best sailing waters in Northern Europe, we can't keep it all to ourselves can we?