August Series - Monday 12th - Doesn't get much more fun than this.

So impressed with FarrOut and her crew at the moment. We came out for this race in 15-20 knots with a clean bottom and a very strong crew. Talking about our start issues we identified that we'd want front row committee boat, doesn't everybody? The thing is how to get it.... We knew that the Sigma 33 "Scoline" would beat in to the committee boat shutting the door on everyone above the layline. So we knew that we had to be to leeward of them to take control, there was enough wind to have speed to take control.

What ensued was an exiting match race start which commenced during the squib start 10 minutes before ours. We tried to keep below and on their quarter. It was successful and we caused enough trouble that we were clear on the start and they were out of position. In fact we were able to gybe away last minute and push up "Effusion" on the line getting us away clear.

A great race with very little error by us other than handing it to the Beneteau 31.7 "Crystal Voyager", or Crystal Meth to you and I. They haven't got an IRC cert so we don't really care. They have got brand new Sanders D4 sails though so we'll let them have the 15 seconds corrected that they beat us by on PY.

Well done to everyone for a great sail. Anybody have any ideas where we could have got that 15 seconds back? I know I do. Just great to be out on the water on a night like that and so sad to be missing Weymouth Regatta in our current form.

August Series at WSC

We might have had some glorious weather in the UK for a few weeks there but the combination of high pressure and a lot of sun meant that we had evening racing with zero breeze. This started to become very frustrating for sailors though not understood by the majority population. I was very glum for a while back there!

Fortunately we seem to be having a period now of lovely moderate breezes and these have coincided with the August series which started on Monday. The first race was eventful as we were missing some key crew members meaning that people were out of their normal positions. We also did the classic of doing so well on the start and first beat that we were first at the windward mark and then started sailing to the wrong mark, a quick gybe and we were back going where we should!

Monday's breeze was very shifty out of the NW and the windward mark was a horrible place to be, this combined with poor driving by me and some other issues meant we ended up in irons the second time we got there. Very poor and ended up with a coming together with another boat. Out of this and an RS600 decided to capsize at the mark. Race over for us really.

Thursday's race looked much more promising as the 240 deg direction at 13-15 kts is perfect for stability in our bay. We were a little early for our port tack start so pulled a 360 turn and tacked over to starboard to lee bow the fleet. Stayed in clean air and what do you know...the Race Officer set a ridiculous asymmetric course. Lovely, only problem was that we'd ended up with 8 people on board which was too many and as it's all about who's got the cleanest hull at this time of year, we were too slow on the beats.

A great enjoyable evening resulting in a 4th place, we didn't manage to get in front of Scoline but it's great battling with them. It has to be said that they had 9 on board!

Here's a video of Magnum 3 from Poole pulling a gybe peel for all fans of the foredeck: