Monday 30 April 2012
Wednesday 25 April 2012
Instructional
On board video sems to be getting more prevalent as the technology allows it. There's been some great stuff coming out of Spi Ouest 2012, with the J111 team Blur from Sweden getting video out before the professionals.
This one below is from Noel Racine's JPK 10.10 Foggy Dew, a regular in RORC racing. Anyway it's great to be onboard a well sailed fast boat, you can always learn stuff.
Check out 1.45, sacrificing height for speed; 4.02 nice windward drop; 5.00 driving away from dirty air, speed up and tack away; 7.00 wide mark rounding and sharp cut in for the inside line.
This one below is from Noel Racine's JPK 10.10 Foggy Dew, a regular in RORC racing. Anyway it's great to be onboard a well sailed fast boat, you can always learn stuff.
Check out 1.45, sacrificing height for speed; 4.02 nice windward drop; 5.00 driving away from dirty air, speed up and tack away; 7.00 wide mark rounding and sharp cut in for the inside line.
Monday 23 April 2012
Spring Series 2 and 3. Close
On a blustery, rainy sunday morning the second and third races of the YCW spring series were held. Again, a disappointing show in IRC with just ourseleves and Wildfire the 36.7 turning out.
We had a bit of an issue as Adam was unavailable to do the bow, and try as I might I just couldn't get more people to join us. So Alice, Steve and myself were joined by Ben who was really thrown into the deep-end on the foredeck. Because of this we decided that we would only use the asymmetric and gybe downwind if we had to. Whilst practicing before the race we had the kite wrap of all wraps and went so far downwind that we were late over the start line. It all went better after that in race 2 but the downwind leg probably lost it for us, although we did judge the gybe angle perfectly and that's something that isn't as easy as it would appear. Second by about 2 mins corrected.
The second race of the day started with some controvosy as we had a tussle with Echo at the pin end, after the gun and them probably closer winded than we are. We soon drove over the top and were away. The triangle leg was good for us as we tronked along at 8.5-9.0 knots. The run on the sausage leg was deemed so deep pre-start that we had no other option than to rig a symmetrical kite. We did well down here with the wind swinging to put us on the mark without having to gybe, phew! We lost to Wildfire by 3 seconds corrected. Happy about that as they've got new sails and a full pop-star crew, and sailed well enough to deserve it -especially after the slightly dodgy result last week.
Upwind we sometimes had issues and we didn't really have enough weight on the rail. Ben and Alice both did exceptional jobs. Good fun even though it rained.
We had a bit of an issue as Adam was unavailable to do the bow, and try as I might I just couldn't get more people to join us. So Alice, Steve and myself were joined by Ben who was really thrown into the deep-end on the foredeck. Because of this we decided that we would only use the asymmetric and gybe downwind if we had to. Whilst practicing before the race we had the kite wrap of all wraps and went so far downwind that we were late over the start line. It all went better after that in race 2 but the downwind leg probably lost it for us, although we did judge the gybe angle perfectly and that's something that isn't as easy as it would appear. Second by about 2 mins corrected.
The second race of the day started with some controvosy as we had a tussle with Echo at the pin end, after the gun and them probably closer winded than we are. We soon drove over the top and were away. The triangle leg was good for us as we tronked along at 8.5-9.0 knots. The run on the sausage leg was deemed so deep pre-start that we had no other option than to rig a symmetrical kite. We did well down here with the wind swinging to put us on the mark without having to gybe, phew! We lost to Wildfire by 3 seconds corrected. Happy about that as they've got new sails and a full pop-star crew, and sailed well enough to deserve it -especially after the slightly dodgy result last week.
Upwind we sometimes had issues and we didn't really have enough weight on the rail. Ben and Alice both did exceptional jobs. Good fun even though it rained.
Wednesday 18 April 2012
Monday 16 April 2012
YCW Spring Series Race 1 - Victory
Victory in our first race of the season, albeit somewhat hollow as there were only two IRC boats coming to the line; us and Wildfire the Beneteau 36.7. The upshot was that we won by over two minutes. Hooray, but not much of a confort as we definately would have lost to Effusion the Elan 295 if they'd had an IRC cert. Got to be in it to win it I suppose.
It was an all in IRC/PY start.The race started well for FarrOut with a perfectly timed pin end start, keeping our air clear and diving to the favoured left. When Wildfire tacked back in after rolling over us, we went as well to stay with the race rather than banging the left corner which was definately a lifting tack. This meant that Orion the Achilles 9m got to the windward mark before us, though by the wing mark we'd caught up and they messed around on the gybe and we were able to cut inside and overtake.
Wildfire and Effusion romped away, but we knew that the race was not with the other PY boats. It was on the deep run that it all went wrong for us with a horrible spi/headsail wrap. We impeded Orion's progress and let them through as we sorted ourselves out and got back in the groove.
Not a faultless showing from us, but enough for a win. You have to presume that Wildfire had issues and were messing up as well in order not to win. But I guess on short course racing with lots of sail handling and in a fair amount of wind it's difficult for the bigger boat to beat a Laser 28.....well sailed or not!
Thanks to Iain Jones and the race team for an exhilirating race to start the season off for us. Glad to see that Steve Dadd, sailing on Orion, is back fighting fit after receiving a blow to the head and getting carted off to hospital.
It was an all in IRC/PY start.The race started well for FarrOut with a perfectly timed pin end start, keeping our air clear and diving to the favoured left. When Wildfire tacked back in after rolling over us, we went as well to stay with the race rather than banging the left corner which was definately a lifting tack. This meant that Orion the Achilles 9m got to the windward mark before us, though by the wing mark we'd caught up and they messed around on the gybe and we were able to cut inside and overtake.
Wildfire and Effusion romped away, but we knew that the race was not with the other PY boats. It was on the deep run that it all went wrong for us with a horrible spi/headsail wrap. We impeded Orion's progress and let them through as we sorted ourselves out and got back in the groove.
Not a faultless showing from us, but enough for a win. You have to presume that Wildfire had issues and were messing up as well in order not to win. But I guess on short course racing with lots of sail handling and in a fair amount of wind it's difficult for the bigger boat to beat a Laser 28.....well sailed or not!
Thanks to Iain Jones and the race team for an exhilirating race to start the season off for us. Glad to see that Steve Dadd, sailing on Orion, is back fighting fit after receiving a blow to the head and getting carted off to hospital.
Wednesday 11 April 2012
Spring Series starts this weekend.
We managed to drag a full crew out onto the water last sunday for a bit of pre-season training. Yes, we were very rusty and it was a worthwhile exercise. I think we all felt much better after about 50 gybes!
The start of the Weymouth Sailing Club season is this weekend with the Tony Bennett trophy - a pursuit race which will be won by a Squib or a Merlin Rocket. For us bigger boats it would have been a useful practice but we'll keep our powder dry for the YCW spring series which commences on sunday 15th.
Just to get us into the mood, here's some nice video from last weekend's Spi Ouest, check out 0.45s!
The start of the Weymouth Sailing Club season is this weekend with the Tony Bennett trophy - a pursuit race which will be won by a Squib or a Merlin Rocket. For us bigger boats it would have been a useful practice but we'll keep our powder dry for the YCW spring series which commences on sunday 15th.
Just to get us into the mood, here's some nice video from last weekend's Spi Ouest, check out 0.45s!
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