Bonxie - IRC win

A great race for FarrOut on friday night. The Bonxie trophy is WSC's annual night race to Arish Mell buoy and back. Not a bad turnout with 5 boats on the line at 2100, 3 of which were IRC rated.

The light wind off the line reinforced as the sun dropped and went forward making the Sponge Bob assymmetric spinnaker the right sail choice. By the turning mark we were thundering along at 9 knots boat speed, even overtaking Effusion the Elan 295. Alice's arms trimming the kite were dropping off.

The fetch back from the mark was quite good for us and we managed to hold Effusion underneath us for a long time before she overtook. Coming into the finish line was light and shifty tacks.

Well done everyone. First place IRC and 2nd in PY to Effusion.

Thursday race - encouraging

After a couple of cancelled races and the Olympic circus rapidly descending on us, boats and crews were eager to get out for the thursday evening race 7th in the series. FarrOut was fully crewed with the usual suspects and leaping for the 10 odd knots of breeze and no rain.

Pre-race Darren had actually asked me if we were still going racing as it wasn't raining or blowing a gale.

So we were a little late on the start and had to duck one boat and tack away from another port/starboard on the first beat. The boat that we ducked, we were able to get on the next tack and then slam dunked them, clever but not very clever in a Laser 28 which won't point for toffee. This all meant that a gap had opened up and us playing follow my leader.

The next leg was a shy reach, perfect for the "Sponge Bob" ayso but sailing underneath the 4ksb boats of the V class limited our catch up potential.

The run on the next leg involved a move worthy of having 6 crew who knew what they were doing:

1. Headsail up stbd tack.
2. Ayso leeward drop. Helmsman heads up.
3. Spinnaker gear round for port pole. clip on to sym kite. Tack line off prod, becoming pole downhaul.
4. Gybe at mark.
5. Pole up port side. Tweeker down. Pre-feed guy.
6. Hoist. Two bags back. Away we go....phew.

The new longer pole and the S2 kite were powerful for us in these conditions and we were gaining on all of the fleet. Encouraging point No. 1

A slick drop and heading up at the leeward mark saw us chasing Folio (MGC27) to the line, ready to go around again. It was not to be as the race officer was going to finish us just when we'd stepped up to the game. On this last beat though we were catching Folio so I think the bit more pre-bend I put in the rig and the weight on the rail did us favours. With some breeze calling and luffing for height thrown in. Encouraging point No. 2

We weren't ready to go and tie up just yet so we went for a little ayso ride and some gybing practice with Darren timing the gybes. We got them down to under 10 seconds. Encouraging point No. 3

Upwind back to port we played with the headsail car positions. Reckon that we sailed the whole race with the top of the sail twisted out, not good in moderate airs! Car position marked so we won't do that again. Encouraging point No. 4

Fifth in PY and 2nd under IRC tandem score.

Tour de France a Voile

That's the stuff. Pic of an Archambault M34 sailing in the Tour de France a voile at the moment. Tronking.

Weymouth Regatta 2012

Our regatta this year was down to two days saturday and sunday. What we got was one day as saturday was the biggest downpour, it honestly did not stop raining all day and that coupled with a SSE wind of anywhere between 6 kts and 40 kts meant that the bay was lumpy and horrible. The PRO Adrian Patterson did right in eventually canning the entire day.

Sunday was an all together different day with sunshine and a moderate breexe which built in the late afternoon. The race commitee wer able to squeeze in three races.
FarrOut had four aboard for sunday, we could have done with one more in the end, the short courses meant a lot of sail handling and it was all a bit busy.

The results show that there were three sigma 33s in our class, a half tonner, an Elan 333 and evidently a J80 although I thought this was in PY1!

The first race is probably best forgotten, I was driving and had a nightmare. Race 2 Stephen drove and I guess we got into our groove a bit better. A nice windshift meant that we could lay the windward mark in one tack and a start in the right place meant that we were second to get there after the Elan. High Hopes the half tonner was being much more close winded than us and underneath and kept pointing into us, so much so that they hit us to a hail of "protest" from me - you don't hear that very much. I get a bit angry if you hit FarrOut!

Unfortunately we couldn't keep our lead on the Sigmas, we were just not good enough upwind in what was the longest race of the day. There's probably a number of reasons for this but I fancy we have less pre-bend in the mast than last year and I'm going to put some more in. Steve was beating himself up about it though.

The third race was a decent showing from us even if the starboard primary winch stopped working just as we crossed the start line. Steve did a great job of cross winching us through the race. But...it's another broken bit. Doesn't seem to stop recently.

Great fun races for us though. Full team and more pre-bend next year.

140th out of 457 finishers. I'll settle for that.

This weekend was the annual J P Morgan Round the Island race where 1600 odd boats race round the Isle of Wight. Quite a good showing from Weymouth boats this year and the Lifeboat pub in East Cowes on firday night seemed to be mostly Weymouth Sailing Club and Castle Cove Sailing Club.

A nice quick delivery trip upto Cowes on friday with a sprightly breeze behind us. Unfortunately the "Touareg" assymmetric spinnaker died about half a mile out of Weymouth.

The race itself was another breezy one, with the best start we've ever had in an RTI. We short tacked down the island side to cheat the foul tide and kept a good eye on the numbers. When we got to the needles the decision had to be made and I'd already said, half meaning it, that we were going inside the Varvassi wreck this year. With an aerial photograph on deck we followed a quarter tonner through the slot between Goose Rock and the wreck to look up at the lighthouse towering above us. Exhilirating...

The next SB3 kite got launched and we flew off after our chase at 11 knots boat speed. Red Fox is an RF290 from Dartmouth which is essentially a Laser 28. We were just catching her when "puff", we blew another kite. Jib up, reef out, and we rounded St Catherine's. As it happens the wind had gone forward so white sail was the right call anyway.

We saw Crewcut from CCSC just before the next kite hoist to power us up to Bembridge Ledge buoy. Our new Ullman S2 spinnaker went up and we powered off on a lovely downwind sail surfing down the waves. A difficult gybe meant the inevitable broach and we damaged our new kite! Tears - but we still had one left so the red and white spinnaker went up as seen in the previous post.

Round Bembridge ledge we set off on the fetch becoming a beat upto Ryde. The wind was strong now and we were probably a little overpowered. The short tacking along Ryde sands to stay out of tide is always a worrying time and we did bump bottom once as we straightened up in the tack back out.

With no further issues other than some fluky wind off Osborne house we broke the finish line. We never could catch Red Fox but there were a lot of faster boats behind us.

Our finish was 15th in IRC division 3C, 140th overall out of 457 IRC finishers and an elapsed time of 08:12:34 - 20 minutes faster than last year. I'm happy.

Thanks to all the FarrOut crew who did a great job. The level of silence on the boat as we pushed her downwind was impressive. As I started to struggle on the helm, they'd already anticipated and the mainsheet eased, the kicker eased, and the spi trim eased - all to gently go back on once she was back on the rails. All in absolute silence, everyone knowing their job. Brilliant.

Sunday's delivery back to Weymouth upwind in 30 knots with big seas is best erased from our minds. Hideous.

Check out the battle flag at the top!

FarrOut crew: Alice Perrett, Jack Baker, Adam Greaves, Darren Aston, Stephen HB, Jez Rees

Round the Island Photo

Report to come today hopefully....