Farr Out - Laser 28

Sprit Fixing

2012-01-14T20:30:00.000Z

A day of maintenance on board FarrOut. Last week we had to remove the pulpit to feed a new wire for the bow light, it seemed a good idea to also remove the stainless bow fitting. Luckily a good fabricator friend of mine quickly turned around a fierce fixed bowsprit construction:

The extra out the bow should make those asymmetric gybes slicker and get the luff tighter for reaching. Hopefully the added projection will enable us to float the kite deeper.

Great stuff, now to declare it to IRC......we now check out with a longer STL, still shorter than the class pole though.

Boxing Day Photos

2012-01-03T11:00:00.000Z

Rattler broaches on hoist

Rounding D

FarrOut hoist

Tacking down the harbour

Thanks to Phil Samways for the long lens photos.

Delayed Post

2012-01-01T19:19:00.000Z

Apologies for not posting much recently, the Christmas season has been especially busy this year. FarrOut had a great Boxing Day race for which we invited Darren to have a go at driving her. The most notable part was the general recall of the all-in crusier class start. I'm sure it was caused by my saying to the crew that if we were over the line they couldn't have seen us on the committee boat due to the amount of yachts bunched there and the size of them.

We were certain that our second start was not goint to be as good as the first but sure enough we were on the front row again; there's been nothing wrong with our starts in recent series.

The results (on PY) weren't of much interest to us as we were probably stuffed beating up the river in a dying breeze. That coupled with a poor deep run where we were stuffed by the white sailing Seaquest 32 "Spindrift".

On wednesday 28th FarrOut came out of the water to sit for a while on her cradle, not for long this year, we just gotta try to get all the work done. The most remarkable thing about the haul out was the state of the anti-foul, we just had a light covering of slime and this was easily pressure washered off. We weren't expecting this and immediately rushed out and bought another tin of Seajet Emporer in white!

As we're out of the water we once again missed the New Year's Day race, which was a shame but you have to stop at one point. Sam and I went to watch from the stone pier and Weymouth Sailing Club though.

Draig takes line honours in NYD race

Winter Series Race 5 - there is no justice.

2011-12-12T13:26:00.000Z

After the disappointing race last week it was good to get the bit back between our teeth and put in what we thought was a decent performance.

Our start was down the pin end keeping out of the way of the big boats and our air clear. Draig rolled over the top of us and the boat speed was down but we kept left as I was convinced that this was the only way to go. This was proved when we rounded the windward mark on the transom of Rattler and leaving the two sigmas behind us, a very rare occurrence.

The course was a triangle sausage with the first leg being deemed too shy for a kite hoist in the squally 30 odd knots of the low pressure system, the next leg was a little free-er but the following seas made us take the discretionary white sail route with only 5 on board and some lumpy following seas. We still got quite a few surfs though.

I guess we lost it on the upwind sections as punching back into these seas was a mistake but we followed the fleet in the poor visibiliy due to the rain. We soon realised and tacked back in but perhaps the damage had been done.

The downwing leg from D - J was pure joy. We had the touareg ayso plugged in so thought that we could get pretty deep on it in that wind. A steady 10 knots of boat speed was achieved with "turbo" boosts from the following squall. We were going so fast that we nearly overshot the mark and had to semi-mexican the takedown as I couldn't wait to gybe any longer. It actually was a very slick takedown when it really mattered.

We'd overtaken Snowgoose but not actually in the direction of the mark. She beat us over the line but not by enough. A shame to lose to Rattler by about 30 seconds corrected because we deserved better. The race was only about an hour though and we sailed back in into the teeth of a rain storm. Big winds coming our way this week so I hope FarrOut is tucked in on her mooring safe enough!

Dreadful Race

2011-12-05T15:56:00.001Z

This week's race was horrible for us, we just could not seem to get her to go upwind. This was combined with me pushing my luck downwind sailing by the lee which ended in a massive chinese gybe. So that's another spinnaker sheet at the bottom of Weymouth bay. Last. Miserable.

Silly Achilles

2011-11-28T13:34:00.003Z

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!

Winter Series 2

2011-11-24T09:16:00.002Z

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....:

Winter Series 1 and a very big crash

2011-11-13T19:51:00.000Z

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.

Autumn 6 of 6. RIP white kite!

2011-11-06T19:53:00.001Z

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.

Fastnet 1979 on board Condor

2011-11-04T09:08:00.001Z

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...

autumn series race 4 - surf's up

2011-10-24T16:09:00.002+01:00

Library photo. I wasn't getting my phone out in those conditions!

The forecast was getting worrying and the bay delivered. 30 knot gusts and upto 36 knots at one point. The southerly wind gave us some big waves and FarrOut loves to play in big waves.

When we left the mooring we could already see that it was rough out there so we had the number 4 on the deck and screwed a reef in as we hoisted the mainsail. You could see the wind coming over the stone pier and we were ready for it as RWH and then Draig were clattered by big gusts.

Sailing around pre-start was hard work in itself and there were more boats out there than actually made it to the start line. The Corby 29 Foxed 2 went back in with set-up issues, Draig ripped their mainsail taking a reef amongst others.

One that made the line was the X99 Excalibur and with no reefing points in the main, they didn't have that option. Up by the windward mark (F) they were knocked down by a big wave and it was incredible to see their keel right out of the water. After this I think the gybes down wind might have been a little too much and they headed back in.

FarrOut was loving it though and we surfed downwind (12.7 knots top speed). I'd had the forethought to de-rig the spinnaker gear so it didn't get in the way and so we wouldn't be tempted....only a fool would have hoisted in those conditions ;)

We were short this week, just Steve, Adam, Alice and I so we got Alice to do mainsheet which I think was an experience for her.

Our last beat was dreadful and I was whinging at Steve who was driving, we didn't realise until near the end that the port side rub rail was hanging off in the water, a proper sea anchor! By the end of the race it was completely detached and lashed to the side.

So a couple of things to fix but an exhilirating ride and well done to Andy Gaunt and his team for setting an achievable course in a southerly gale and staying out there on the commitee boat!

We were fourth... Rattler was joint second with Scoline. I loved see Rattler surfing off after Crystal Voyager and overtaking at speed, brilliant.

Autumn Series Race 3

2011-10-18T10:38:00.000+01:00

The forecast was for very light airs for this race so we went with five crew rather than our usual six. As it happened the breeze wasn't as bad as we thought and although light in places we were able to sail quite well.

Another "on the money" start for FarrOut. That's two consecutive weeks of good starts in a fleet where as the slowest boat that should be more difficult, this week with only Draig threatening us to leeward.

The RO had set a triangle sausage course with a laid wing mark. Unfortunately the shifted breeze in between laying this mark and us getting to the windward mark made it too deep for the asymmetric kite choice meaning that we had to sail angles to get there. This probably lost us places in the end, however on the "by the lee" sausage leg we were gaining ground quite nicely on the two Sigma 33s Scoline and Snowgoose.

Again an acceptable performance from FarrOut in this Autumn series IRC fleet. Kind of weird that there's some really fast boats sailing in the PY fleet due to a lack of IRC certs. Hopefully this will be amended for the spring series.

Autumn Series Race 2 - Plenty of wind

2011-10-11T13:52:00.000+01:00

Really enjoyed the race on sunday, especially the 10.1 knots of boat speed as we planed our way to Overcombe. FarrOut was fifth but they were well sailed boats (and a lot of money!) in front of us. You can only do what you can do....one of the best starts of the season, we were off the line in front - it didn't last long though.

Nice to have Darren back after his back injury, only to have Adam damage his back and not be able to make the race.

Frustratingly No Wind

2011-10-04T13:55:00.000+01:00

Alice, Stephen and Adam in the sunshine

God I hate no wind days. Some people might relish the opportunity to test how good a sailor they are by spotting little whisps of air in the distance and perfecting sail trim, me I'm too grumpy for that and just hate it, I just wanna thrash around at high speed.

But that was sunday's start to the YCW autumn series, no wind accompanied by a searing sun. Our start was pretty good and we knew which way to go but the lack of a genoa in our sail inventory as well as going hunting for wind that didn't appear was the death knell for the short, fat laser 28. All the boat trim, not using the rudder and twisted sails couldn't make up for the malaise both physically and spititually that we were in as we watched all the faster boats in the IRC fleet and even the PY fleet sail away from us.

You could say that we should concentrate harder on our light airs performance.....I say go fishing or water skiing on a day like sunday, that was no weather for sailors!.....yeah we were last.

3rd of the Sunday Series - another 2nd place

2011-09-19T11:14:00.000+01:00

Just back in from a lovely week on holiday in southern Brittany, it was a short sleep and down to the boat for the 3rd race of the WSC sunday series. It was raining off and on and blowing quite hard so it was disappointing that there were only three of us, Stephen, Adam and myself. I elected to do the middle of the boat bit with Adam up front hopefully being able to stand up more due to the new "Kiwi Grip" which Stephen has applied.

The course was three rounds of a triangular course with only one leg spinnakerable with a a white sail reaching leg. Bit of a dodgy course maybe but suited us as we could sail the kite leg at about 120 degrees apparent wind with the asymmetric kite which was stable and powerful in the breezy (25 kts+) and gusty conditions under the raining clouds. Our first beat was pretty dreadful but the sailplan that always seems to be fast for us these days (No. 4 and a reef) plus the powerful kite legs gave us a second place on handicap. There's no catching Draig in this series with straight bullets. We'll try and be better opposition next week with more crew, Scoline were double handed this week and Rocket were struggling with getting their ayso to fly..

3 Lasers in Weymouth

2011-09-02T11:28:00.000+01:00

Hopefully Moondog won't mind me nicking their photo from the JOG Weymouth in July...

Moondog, Blazer and FarrOut the other side of the harbour.

Melges 24 Spi on a Laser 28 / Autumn Long Distance.

2011-08-30T11:44:00.001+01:00

The bank holiday monday finally gave us the opportunity to get down to the boat and mess around with bits of timber. We had been given an old Melges asymmetric at the start of the summer which is bigger than our current SB3 kite. A bit of pythagoras told us that we needed a bowsprit of around 1.25m to fly it.

I searched the yard and found an old bit of mahogany off the marina pontoons and Darren got to work with his saw and drill. We removed all of our constructions before the Autumn long distance race but had some time afterwards to play.

Can you hear banjos? The 1m long sprit

Flying like a dream!

This is the life


The inevitable.

So the result was that the kite flew beautifully in the gentle 10 or so knots, we were really fast. We carried out a series of gybes which were really easy. The prod we made was actually 1m long but 1.25m would be better I think. Eventually it snapped.

Great stuff, but after the test we concluded the following:

In a lot of breeze we wouldn't have enough keel or rudder to hold it.
The permanent bowsprit would probably need to be about 75mm diameter to take the load.
It would never be worth the rating hit.
If you want to fly a big ayso. Sell the Laser and buy a J!

We handed the spinnaker on to Daddsie to try flying it on his boat. We'll stick with the Touareg.

Autumn Long Distance

We were late over the line for this race, mostly due to titting around with bits of wood. We selected right hand side of the beat which was the lifting tack. By the second mark we'd overtaken Rocket and were chasing Draig. A disastrous kite call from me saw us lose some ground, however at W mark at Hamm beach Darren pulled off a lovely bow launch whilst holding all the kite in his arms.

A shifty beat back over to B saw us do quite well, one big shift putting us right on the money. We didn't see any results, definately not a win but I'd hope we were up there.

The Last Thursday

2011-08-26T10:03:00.001+01:00

Well that's it, the last thursday night race of the season, how quickly it comes around. We can now concentrate on Sunday mornings until lift out time.

Stephen drove for this one which was the last of the August series scored under PY. We had a blustery southerly that backed during the starts giving a pin end bias that we quite rightly port tacked. The good thing was that we were a few seconds late over the line meaning that we could take the transoms of all the boats coming in on starboard. If we'd have been on time it would have been a mess.

This same shift made the offwind legs unbalanced and it was far too shy for our ayso at 60 degrees apparent wind angle. Never mind it was up and putting someone on the foredeck to enable the drop would have resulted in a massive broach and anyway we needed it after the gybe! Stephen did a magnificient job of gaining the height everytime we rounded up and then driving down a little wave with the kite full. We squeaked the gybe mark, it was slow but we made it and really good experience for everyone.

Not an oustanding performance from team FarrOut but we weren't bad either.

931 handicap on a First 31.7? 913 more like........

Thursday 18th in the Snake Pit

2011-08-19T09:18:00.000+01:00

We were back in the groove for the August series at Weymouth Sailing Club. A guest appearance from Stuart back from Australia meant I was back in the pit.

A shifty 15 knot northerly under overcast skies saw the RO set a triangle sausage course, the shiftyness pre-start causing an unequal angle on the kite reaches making the starboard gybe leg pretty shy on the second time around.

It was quite short legs but everyone was on their game for the boat handling, though it was kind of hectic for me in the pit with no time to get cleared up. Resulting in the snake pit that we were left with at the end of the race:

The first three places were seperated by one second each on corrected time (Scoline, Crazeology, Phoebe) and we were 30 seconds off on corrected time and in forth place. This is encouraging because we lost more than this when the spinnaker halyard released from the top of the kite and we had to trawl it back in, the clip then was caught on the mainsail and we had to carefully gybe to release it and not rip the sail. Without that it was a win I'm sure.

For a sleep deprived new father it was a real workout! Team was:

Stuart Riches - Helm
Stephen HB - Main
Jez Rees - Pit/trim
Darren Aston - Spi Trim / tactics
Adam Greaves - Mast
Jack Baker - Bow

Well done to Draig O'r Mor for their 23rd placing in IRC4 in the Fastnet which they finished this morning. Probably still in the RORC bar now!

Still Waiting

2011-07-29T10:05:00.001+01:00

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!

That's what you call a mark rounding!

2011-07-26T13:33:00.000+01:00

Thursday 2, Race 4

2011-07-15T08:51:00.000+01:00

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

Weymouth Regatta 2011 - I'm exhausted!

2011-07-11T09:07:00.001+01:00

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/

Henri Lloyd Weymouth Regatta

2011-07-06T14:22:00.002+01:00

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?

Well that was the Round the Island....

2011-06-27T14:23:00.001+01:00

What a great weekend. Friday's delivery to Cowes was a blast; Rattler, Manana and FarrOut left Weymouth together and the two MG335s Tumbarumba and Crewcut were just in front. We had a lovely sail with a powered up dead deep kite run across Christchurch bay and plenty of surfs. When we turned the corner at the needles in about 23 kts and big waves the inevitable happened in the gybe and FarrOut had a little laydown, well quite a big lay down really. It's even more exciting when you've got spiky rocks just on your right hand side. We thundered down the Solent, and as we dropped the sails outside the entrance to the Medina river at Cowes I made the mistake of not checking that we didn't have any lines in the water whilst the engine on. So, once more I've been swimming in my pants in the Medina.....after I cut the rope away we were fine.

FarrOut on her berth in East Cowes

The race on Saturday was a classic. It was blowing 30 kts from the south west so the beat to the needles was hard on everybody. I was driving so didn't get so wet but I was glad to get off the line as the start sequence was crazy, we were reaching backwards and forwards pre-start at 8 knots with hundreds of other boats. Our start was good and it took until Newtown river at least before Rattler caught up with us. We waved at the other Laser 28 entered in our class, Nemesis, only to watch as 20 seconds later she was T-boned by an Impala I think. Horrible.

By the needles, Harry the extra crewman was quite seasick but God bless him stayed on the rail. We turned the corner and hoisted the ayso for a charging blast down to St. Cats. Darren recorded the best boatspeed ever record of 13.8 kts. At St. Catherine's we had 3 being sick out the transom and so we didn't go for the symmetrical spinnaker in the deeper run. We kept it safe but still at about 9-10 knots and didn't break anything or anybody. FarrOut needed to go faster though and so I was pleased when the gybe location arrived and we could put the ayso back up for another scream up to Bembridge Ledge bouy.

We were discussing later on why it is that in a race like this big cruising boats close the distance with boats like ourselves and Rattler who are clearly on the edge of control all the time? Racing rules aside, I'd be keeping out the bl**dy way! But we didn't hit anything although we saw a lot of carnage, especially in the multi-hull fleet who seemed to be readily turning upside down.

Another beat along the top of the island balancing the fine line of cheating tide and not going aground and it was a successful race over. Hopefully Stephen has got some video footage.

Sunday's delivery back was fun as the dense fog and no wind meant that all your yachtmaster training had to come out. It's always different around the corner and as we rounded St Aldhelm's head back into Weymouth bay the fog started clearing and the breeze kicked in and we spinnakered back home. Exhausted but exhilirated.

Darren and Stephen toast another 10 knot surf

So down to the numbers...there were 3 Laser28s in the race Zorra in the ISCRS class and ourselves and Nemesis in IRC. I'm gutted that they could be taken out of the race like that, it could so easily happen when there's so many boats racing and I expect that they had a long delivery just to get to the start line. Anyway:

	FarrOut	Zorra

Elapsed Time	08:31:46	08:38:18
Corrected Time	07:38:33	08:33:38

We were 16/32 finishers in class IRC 3C, Zorra 16/42 finishers.

Overall results IRC:

FarrOut   197/465
Rattler     222/465

Overall results ISCRS:

Zorra       272/664
Manana 242/664

The different rating systems don't make the result credible and Mark from Zorra said that they were 11 minutes late for the start....The most interesting thing is the closeness of the elapsed time to go around the Island. The hulls must be pretty similar but the boats are set-up very differently. We also had totally different sail plans for the weather Zorra with 2 reefs in the mainsail and us with full main and No. 4 headsail.

Great Stuff, oh and well done to Snow Goose the Sigma 33 as well who were in our class and beat us. I think we can be proud, the boats ahead of us in class were mostly Sigmas which are great boats and hard to beat, and the very hot quarter tonners who are also incredibly well sailed.

Round The Island Race this Saturday

2011-06-21T20:01:00.001+01:00

The annual pilgrimage to the J P Morgan Round the Island Race happens this weekend. FarrOut will be going across to Cowes this friday ready for an 0700 start in class IRC 3 on saturday morning for the anti-clockwise tour of the Isle of Wight.

Forecast isn't looking too bad at the moment. Downwind there, fairly breezy race and downwind back. Can't get better than that for us but we'll see what happens.

There are 1908 boats entered this year which is a record and a reported 16,000 sailors. I guess we'll just try not to hit anyone else and rock hop around the bottom of the island to try and stay out of foul tide.

FarrOut is going with four of us this year Stevo, Darren, Disco Dave and myself. Could probably have done with one more but maybe we'll pick up one along the way!

Two other L28s are entered, Nemesis in our class and Zorra in the ISC class.

It's always a special day so looking forward to it.

Mrs Mitchell's Salver - Victory

2011-06-17T08:31:00.001+01:00

The first ladies race of the season gave us some problems, with Tracy on the other side of the world the natural choice was Celia for the helm position being a regular crew member. Trouble was that she wanted to sail her 420 instead, after a week of trying to organise an alternative helmswoman God intervened and made it blow fairly hard. This meant Celia was able to drive FarrOut and I would be able to put my 100kg on the rail!

As it was we ended up with 8 crew, 4 of whom were under 21. This may seem a lot to fit on the side of a Laser 28 but we were sailing under PY and it turned out to be perfect. Stephen rigged a mini video camera to the boom so hopefully there will be some footage to post but it may just be dead after the dunking it got in a massive broach.

Paul Barford was race officer and set us a triangular course. Of course we had the balls to hoist the Touareg bringing on what must be the ride of the season so far. Boat speed topped out at something over 11 knots as FarrOut lifted her bow and planed in pursuit of Rattler taking lumps out. This was exactly the kind of weather you need in an L28, flat seas and 25 kts+ and everyone sitting at the back trying damn hard to keep the rudder dug in.

There's now a trophy for Celia to pick up at the prizegiving. Well done to her and everyone.

Thurs 6/6 - Rattler wins it. Scoline gets series.

2011-06-10T08:25:00.001+01:00

A nice bit of wind here in Weymouth at the moment the olympic hopefuls in the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta have been having a marvellous time in our bay.

We had a bit of trouble pre-start when the No. 3 luff came out of the tuff-luff and was stuck during a change down to No. 4, we did well to get the course and get to the line. Ended up OCS and had to dip back, Scoline doing to us what we did to them last week.

Stephen drove and did a good job around the square course set by the dinghy class Captain Tim Bowden. We had an issue though...a lazy spinnaker sheet managed to get itself stuck between the rudder and the hull meaning that we couldn't gybe and had to white sail one leg which effectively lost us the race. All we knew though was that there was rope stuck underneath at the stern so we daren't turn the engine on. Taz tacked us back up the harbour and we sailed onto our mooring. All fixed now.

Rattler sailed well to take the win but managed to break a few bits on the way round. Didn't get the series though as Scoline had done enough.

Next thursday is a ladies race so hopefully Darren's wife Kerry will be our helm, monday will see some more dinghy sailing for me in the club OK. I really was into it last monday - might have to get me one of them!

Thurs 5/6 - training

2011-06-03T08:37:00.000+01:00

As the series is out of our grasp, we decided last week to have a bit of a change around in order to ready ourselves for the next big challenge of the Round the Island race as due to the length it pays to change the helms around. Taz was off rock climbing so Jack got to experience the foredeck in the light winds, Celia helping and flying the kite, Me in the pit, Steve on mainsheet and Darren driving.
Our start was good with Darren pushing Scoline off the line and OCS to a cheer from Rattler. We then went alright until a patch of no wind opened up on us and we saw Rattler and Crazeology sail away from us. Next thing we know we were sailing too high and too slow and Scoline got in front. Still that's training for you. Next week it's Stephen's drive...

WSC members win trophy in double handed Figaro.

2011-05-31T10:38:00.000+01:00

Us and Rattler on arrival

The prestigious RDYC class 1 offshore race to Cherbourg was won by WSC members Richard Veale and Jez Rees sailing the Figaro Solo offshore race boat Groupe Partouche....... Sounds good doesn't it, you can dream....well that's what Rattler used to be called and Richard and I were really looking forward to a double handed race to Cherbourg, trouble is we couldn't find what was going on, there was some talk of the race happening on saturday but the weather was best on the advertised date of friday and we'd taken a day off work anyway.

In all the years that Rich and I have been sailing together we've never raced offshore with just the two of us, usually an adjudicator has been required in the past. Only the night before we'd been adversaries as he sailed Rattler fully crewed in the thursday evening IRC series against us on FarrOut.

We managed to get a start at 0830 along with RDYC boats “Wahinee Waves” and “Brown Eyed Girl”, Rattler shot off under the old Groupe Partouche spinnaker and we successfully gybed as we crossed the bay on our 152deg rhum line to Fort de l'ouest Cherbourg. The wind was high and the seas were flat, Rattler loved it, we loved it. We had an unplanned spinnaker take-down as a clip popped but the recovery was successful and we used a little bit of white sail time to make some westing in our course. The spinnaker then went up again and was only dropped at the finish line with around four broaches along the way. The boat is so well behaved though she just comes back up again, I guess this is what you want if you're a sleep deprived French single hander...

We finished in 8 hours 45 mins with all smiles. Gareth of the Royal Dorset was pleased to inform us that we had won class 1.. The Glory, The Glory!

A pleasant couple of nights in Cherbourg with a visit to the Fort de la Roule and a cracking sail back on sunday with winds in the high twenties and up and some nice waves to surf down. We tied up on her mooring near “big wellies” after another 8 ¾ hour sail! Bring on the next time.

Lunch Figaro style

Thursday 3. Bad 1st beat. IRC trophy

2011-05-20T08:18:00.001+01:00

So Rattler beat us by 27 seconds last week and 26 seconds this week, we must be improving! Truth is our first beat was horrible, we went right and the rest of 'em left, that always kind of worries you. They must have had a decent lift because we rounded the windward mark in a definitive last place, the Melges 24 was in front of us and they were about 3 minutes late for the start.

Only 5 of us this week and the new guys Jack and Taz did a sterling job whilst they are on their fast learning curve, with the jobs of pit/trim and bow respectively they are certainly kept busy.

We were presented with our trophy for the IRC spring series win, the nice thing was that it was full of Thatcher's Gold cider!

Monday night double-handed

2011-05-17T08:19:00.001+01:00

It was blowing a little last night, about 26 knots at the top I think. Steve and I were due to continue our monday night dinghy escapades by taking an RS Feva out each, but we thought it best to both not break the kids' boats and possibly get wet.

So FarrOut was dragged out with Steve driving and me running around. No kite flying for us that night although it was perfectly possible as it turned out. We had a great time and learned some more stuff about the boat with no bodies on the rail.

We were pleased to get a fourth place on corrected time in PY. Scoline did a good job of winning, Folio in 2nd and Sole Bay in 3rd.

The French Olympic team have moved into Weymouth Sailing Club in force, great to see them and I think they'll enjoy their training week in our bay in advance of the olympics next year. The forecast is for decent wind until the middle/end of the week and light shifty stuff after that so that should be perfect for them.

Thursday 1 - fun with Rattler

2011-05-06T11:02:00.000+01:00

The first thursday night race at WSC only had 4 boats in the IRC class which was a disappointment but I guess 2 entrants were taken out of the game by Sunday's collision I just hope that the same was not the case for Snow Goose (still smarting over that one).

We were up against the Melges Crazeology, Scoline and (ta da da) the Figaro 1 Rattler! In all the years that I've been friends with Richard this is the first time that we'd sailed against each other helming our own boats. As you can imagine this made the race pretty special, particularly at the first windward mark as we crossed in front of their bows. They were coming in on the starboard lay line and we flopped on top of them in tight cover only to pull ahead to the mark, hoist the Touareg ayso and away. A short lived lead as they're a faster boat and soon got in front. Not far(r) enough though and we were pleased to beat Rattler on corrected time and with a 2nd place to Crazeology who were miles ahead by the end of the two laps of triangle sausage course.

Really pleased to see Rattler out on the race course and I think that they all enjoyed themselves. They'll probably whoop our backsides next week.......

Vice Commodore's Cup

2011-05-03T10:01:00.000+01:00

Bank Holiday Monday afternoon and it's the Vice Commodore's Cup, an early season cup race at WSC. After a morning re-gelcoating the dink on the bow after Sunday's mishap and tinkering with the engine I sat in the club out of the rain as a thunderstorm came through. The storm had the effect of tempering the crazy wind to something more manageable if not too light in the big seas, but still the turnout was poor for the race.

We had no chance of winning an all in PY race as the squibs will take care of that but we entered a short-handed crew of Stephen, Steve Dadd and myself. We were all quite busy in the short course with two laps sailed finally. Lovely work with the Touareg kite though including the best gybe we've ever done with it I think!

Fun times.

Bash, Crash, Crunch - Spring Series Finale....

2011-05-01T19:23:00.000+01:00

A muscely 20knots+ from the east greeted race 5 and 6 of the YCW spring series and brought with it some sizeable seas. For some reason Farr Out loves this kind of weather. Bashing to weather in the smallest boat in the fleet didn't seem to be a problem and once again we were able to do a good job at keeping with the fleet just to turn round marks to surf away and make gains on the bigger boats.

We were gunning for the title and Scoline and Sapphire were our rivals. Scoline unfortunately only had two of them to crew the boat so couldn't properly compete which was a great shame. We then had the sickening sight of Sapphire laying right over on being T-boned by the other, and first time out, Dehler 33 Rocket after a port/starboard bear away that didn't quite work. Nasty damaging stuff.

Farr Out didn't escape, as late in the second race after some great tussling with Snow Goose after they shut us out at the start and we caught up, we were surfing past to leeward of them and a following wave spun the boat out and we broached in a long curve which ended with a damaged stantion, lifeline and rail for Snow Goose and a crunch on the bow for Farr Out. Horrible, first time I've hit another boat and don't fancy repeating it.

At the end of all this exhilirating racing, and a top boat speed today for us of 10.3 knots, I'm pleased to report that Farr Out has won the YCW Spring Series 2011. We worked hard and our happiness would be complete if we hadn't have had that crunch at the end.

Bring on the rest of the season - evening racing starts this thursday.

Spring Series 4 - Long Distance. FarrOut first.

2011-04-25T19:53:00.000+01:00

Easter sunday saw the long distance race of the YCW spring series. As we got to the boat the wind was peaking at 20 knots from the north with the potential to die from there. And so it was in a fickle breeze that we beat up to H off the seafront, reach off to O at the end of the pleasure pier and what should have been a nice ayso reach at 90 degrees over to R at Ringstead just kept going forward. We held the touareg at 60 degs as long as we could but we knew we had to go to white sail in order to launch the symmetrical kite for the run over to G off Grove Point on Portland. The crew of FarrOut kept working and kept us moving the right way. We chased the two Sigmas down to the beach, every time it went light we gained and as soon as they had a puff they went away again. As we reached H to turn for the line we managed to get in front of Snow Goose but they soon overtook again as we blundered a pressured kite hoist.

We'd stayed with the fleet and over almost 3 hours our rating was enough to give us the win. this puts ourselves, Scoline and Sapphire all on six point as we come into the final two races of the series next sunday. We could do this......it would be a great way to start the season, but I won't pretend it's not going to be difficult.

Iain Jones took some photos from Spindrift, this one as we were coming up to G.

Race 2 and 3. Light Airs Drifting

2011-04-18T08:27:00.001+01:00

A gorgeous sunny day but no wind to speak of. My team talk on the mooring went something like this "We have to be on the money at the start or we've already lost. Today will all be about how tall your rig is and we've got the shortest one in the fleet!".

Race 2 was a decent start which put us to windward of the fleet, we were the first boat to tack to the right which I think paid for us, a couple of ayso reaches and a beat back to the line and it's all over. Third on corrected time.

Race 3 we had a lovely start at the commitee boat, the pin end bias sent the rest of the fleet that way keeping our air clear. The wind had filled just for this first beat but once we were around the corner it was difficult to keep the kite full. This time we were chasing Scoline who went deep looking for mark C and initially we followed although the GPS told us they were going the wrong way. We corrected and gybed back which probably gave us a better angle into the mark (if we'd have had the Touareg up and not the red symmetrical). Scoline had her big genoa and the next leg went close reach/fetch/beat as we went back to finish at the windward mark. This was the time in light airs when dropping the genoa from our sail inventory was a bad move....It was painful upto the line at sub 2 knots of boat speed. Forth on corrected time.

Not bad results, FarrOut now has 9 points with half of the 6 race series complete and 2 discards allowable.

Next week is the long distance race, so if we can stay up there then the longer the time racing then the more our rating can help us. Let's start praying for wind now. The beer locker is nice and full though!

YCW Spring Series - Race 1. You can't get closer!

2011-04-10T19:58:00.000+01:00

A gorgeous sunny day with a light NE airflow was predicted to give us problems being the slowest boat in the IRC fleet and a dying breeze meaning that the faster boats would finish with more wind than we had. Luckily the wind died from the start so it was a problem for everyone.

Our starting tactics were good but backfired being shut out by Spindrift and subsequently by Wildfire. This meant that we were last over the line but it got better from there as we sailed directly to the windward mark. The windshift and lack of wind troubled our pre-start asymmetric kite choice but as there was no wind it didn't really matter, the well considered gybe however put us on a tight reach upto mark H - perfect. The next, and final, leg was white sail and Darren called our tack perfectly to lay the line. Farr Out was 2nd by one second corrected time to Scoline.

A good start to the series and well done especially to Dave for his first time on the boat and a good job in the pit and Taz for his first time on the bow.

Link to results: http://www.weysailclub.org.uk/race-results

FarrOut hits the Water

2011-04-04T16:46:00.000+01:00

Saturday evening saw a smooth launch for FarrOut and Sole Bay in advance of the planned sunday morning launch. All went very well apart from the rubber from the cradle pads sticking to the anti-foul a little but we had some time to paint over these.

She looks nice sitting on her new mooring in the cove at Weymouth Harbour. I'm hoping that this mooring is going to make parking short handed really easy.

Sunday 10th April is the start of the YCW spring series and we're entered into the IRC class. Better get all the sails and stuff back on board then!

It looks nice but does it work?

2011-03-13T20:01:00.000Z

The most recent maintenance task has been applying the new anti-foul to FarrOut. We've gone for SeaJet Emperor 034 which is a self polishing type. It's white in colour and is supposed to stay that way as it's copper free. It certainly looks nice when applied so I just hope that it's successful and keeping the weed, slime and critters off the hull and makes us nice and fast.

And for those that don't believe it (Iain!) that's Stephen working on his boat....

Past Glory

2011-02-24T14:27:00.001Z

On my Blogger list is the Scoline blog which is kind of static at the moment so there's not a lot of posts to view, however my eye was caught by Dave's post about one of the monday night races last august:

"Behind us we watched FarrOut hoist the 'Touareg', their SB3 spinnaker, as we watched it flogging, and pulling them sideways we laughed out loud.....we had visions of them pulling that thing back in in shreds! Next time we look over our shoulder they had halved the gap, the wind had dropped by nearly 10kts and we were massively underpowered, FarrOut was on a sleigh ride and easily passed us just before B, they had managed to bank enough height to go very wide around us, which was a wise choice, if they came in close I think we would have taken them to the Spyglass for a pint!! Given the drop in wind we had no choice but to hoist the kite for the leg from B to M, but there was no chance of us passing Farr Out with that Assy. We would have to wait until the upwind leg.

We had height and speed over Farr Out on the slug back up to the finish line, but Sapphire had height and speed on us, forcing us into a tack to avoid getting squeezed out to the port layline. A few nice close tacks between us, Sapphire and Farr Out followed, with positions changing all the way up to the finish line, we just got the advantage crossed the line ahead of both of them, and watched Farr Out sail an extra 300yds or so to cross the line at the pin end, however, they had done enough, having the kahunas to hoist the assy in 25+kts of breeze made up for it and they took an easy and well deserved win ahead of RWH (who we didn't even see after the start!) and us in 3rd. "

Stuff like that makes me enthusiatic for the new season! It's a lovely sunny day here in Weymouth today and you can really feel springtime.

February Update

2011-02-07T12:08:00.000Z

It's a quiet time for FarrOut as she sits on her cradle sheltered from the gales that are around. Over the past few weeks there has been some tinkering and gradually it is all coming together ready for launch day on 3rd April.

Steve and I have just spent the weekend on an ISAF/RYA sea survival course jumping in and out of liferafts in fully oilies. I'm pleased to say that the "visitors" lifejackets that we used both inflated perfectly with their 2003 vintage gas bottles. They will now be serviced ready for the new season. It was a good course run by Poole Harbour Sea Survival and you always learn a bit more even though it's my second time of doing it.

It's regrettable that the team seems to have broken up with Stu away to Australia with work and Dave deciding to try some other boats to see if he can find some more and different shouting. Still, a new season with new opportunities we'll see how it develops.

Fun Video - you don't wanna go on the foredeck to get that jib down..

2011-01-18T15:14:00.000Z

New Year 2011

2011-01-06T13:19:00.001Z

We missed the new year's day race being already out of the water but it looked like they were having fun out there even though there wasn't much wind. I took some pictures on my phone, some not bad ones of Draig as they were coming down the harbour:

FarrOut is booked with a berth in Cowes for the J P Morgan Round the Island Race on 25th June. Regular crew please keep this date free!

Boxing Day Race - Haul Out

2010-12-28T17:16:00.002Z

A hectic couple of days for FarrOut post Christmas. We participated in the annual WSC boxing day race after being towed out into the bay by Rumrunner having started the engine in the sub zero temperatures, but presumably wiped out the impeller of the raw water cooling pump due to it being frozen. We also had to wash down the decks to clear them of ice but the seawater had nowhere to go, the scuppers being just solid ice plugs:

It was a good race with some Argie-bargy on the start line when all the other boats decided to mess with our planned port tack flier. Our lateness for the start meant that we hadn't had time to work on our angles and so selected the symmetric kite. We didn't do too badly and the fleet was really bunched with Rumrunner being up there as well with her brand new sails. They got past us but didn't deal with the massive shift which I must say we played perfectly dropping the kite and just trimming on the white sail as it hit us. The guys up front did brilliantly in switching to the asymmetric for the next leg and we flew up the rankings. If the race had finished at "X" we would have been right up there but the lack of wind on the beat up the harbour to the traditional finish outside the club had us scuppered. Well done to Sapphire for winning.

Fun was had by all for the last race of the season for us and the next day we hauled the old girl out of the water for a few months of pampering ready for more glory and disappointment next spring!

WSC winter series race 5

2010-12-13T14:00:00.001Z

With Dave and Darren indisposed this sunday we were down to the three owners, so it was great when Steve Dadd's crew from Rumrunner / Spindrift were similarly down to three and joined us underachievers on FarrOut. Our Steve and Daddsie had carried out similar training the night (morning?) before the race and so were both match fit.

A sunny and fresh morning started off nudging the 20 knots mark but tailed away during the race and 6 largish guys and a dirty hull is definately not what we wanted by the end of the race. Paul Elson was thrown right in at the deep end with the combined pit/trimming role and he coped superbly as it's quite busy in there. I volunteered to do the honours at the pointy bit in Dave's absence and was nothing but civil to the numerous skippers I had sitting behind me. My problem with the foredeck on a Laser 28 has always been going around the front of the mast during the tacks, the triangle formed by the jib sheets is quite small and the deck slopes away making it quite precarious. I favour the laying on your back with your feet in the anchor well approach. Once I'd cleared that up I'd say it went quite well with quite a few gybes and no wraps, thanks to our new friend Neil on "human guy". We felt sorry for Scoline when their gybe didn't go as well....

The start was good but we really could have punched a hole in the side of Excaliber who should have gone up and OCS, ho hum probably have done the same thing myself but if you're reading this Joel the next transgression will be ours.

Nice to see a new boat out there John Stevens with a J80, interesting that it didn't really get away from us upwind - we'll see what happens when they get more used to it. We were very closely thinking about buying one of those before buying the Laser.

Anyway, not a bad performance considering our many handicaps and we managed to beat a couple of other boats on rating even though we were last over the water after Scoline retired.

Winter Series - no hope

2010-12-06T14:29:00.001Z

There was snow on the decks when I went to the boat to repair the broken bits from the last race. Luckily all this was gone by sunday racing, which was relatively warm for the time of year and nice sunshine.

We went well for the start of the race, but as I've said before I think that we have to treat the rest of the season as training because the state of FarrOut's hull is beyond racing spec! This showed when the wind died and we lost all the ground which we had gained and as the slowest boat in the fleet we're always going to pay when the wind dies and everyone else is so much further round the course.

The race was won by Excalibur again, they couldn't be caught by Draig in those conditions and the length of the race with the wind dying kind of gifted it to them and so the series. A deserved series win with only one blip to their otherwise straight bullets.

FarrOut will return in the new season with a painted and faired bottom and we can start again! Oh hang on, we've got a few more races yet.

Nice mini footage

2010-12-02T19:34:00.001Z

Thought I'd share this footage of a mini sailing with it's spi. Not a bad tune either, quite relaxing with all this cold weather around.

Race 3, Snow on the hills.

2010-11-29T08:25:00.000Z

In minus temperatures and with snow on the hills we braved it out in the bay for the third race of the winter series. The race officer gave us a hut start and a course change that we only saw within the five minute pre-start period meaning that we weren't as prepared as we usually would be. We were slightly late on the start but had a good first beat that meant we were back in it.

Unfortunately we were a bit short handed and got into trouble after the gybe mark when it was clear that we wouldn't carry the kite up the next leg even though some broaches were fun. The low temperatures must have had an effect on the gear because we had some breakages which meant that we didn't have twinning lines or a starboard jib turning block after a while. We lost time up the next beat fixing gear and changing to asymmetric kite. It was all lost after the second gybe on the ayso with a wrap from which there is no way back and we overshot the gybe mark sorting it out.

A retirement was fitting in the circumstances. No serious damage but some bits to sort out......

Winter Series race 2 - a stable northerly?

2010-11-22T09:32:00.000Z

A funny old wind for race 2 of the winter series at WSC, a strong northerly topping out at about 24 knots but without the real gusts and swings that you expect from that direction. FarrOut ended up with a 7th on corrected time, not a bad race, the course set was a "triangle sausage" meaning that we could use the asymmetric spinnaker on the first two spinnaker legs and the symmetric spinnaker on the deep leg. This last leg we sailed particularly well, sailing by the lee and keeping 7.5 - 8.3 knots downwind to cut the corner on some other boats only to lose some of the ground on the next beat.

The race was won by the X99 Excalibur, I wonder if they can straight bullet the series?

J'ai franchi la ligne!

2010-11-18T13:41:00.000Z

Nearly There - Guadaloupe that is.

2010-11-18T08:17:00.001Z

I can almost smell the Rhum blanc Agricole, and man you can smell that stuff from a distance. Been doing well recently in the Virtual Route du Rhum steering the Monococque FarrOutGBR814WeySC from a starting position of 37,000 odd to the 18,000s. Should finish this morning.

Winter Series Starts

2010-11-15T10:36:00.000Z

Joel and the crew of excaliber showed us the way for the first race of the winter series at Weymouth Sailing Club. It was nice to see Richard's old boat doing so well, she always was a fast boat.

There wasn't a great deal of wind for the race and we didn't have a bad one on FarrOut, finishing sixth out of nine boats. The triangular course suited our choice of assymetric spinnaker even though it was quite deep to start off with. I thought Scoline did really well, they were off like a shot and up there with the faster boats.

Rainy and cold for the first of the winter series

Route du Rhum - Cammas Wins

2010-11-10T08:45:00.000Z

There's so much going on in the Route du Rhum that it's hard to keep track. Franck Cammas has crossed in the fastest time on Groupama 3, followed in second by IDEC Francis Joyon, Thomas Coville on Sodebo is just on his way in now. In the IMOCA class my money is still on Armel Le Cleac'h.

Perhaps the most interesting is the class 40. It's worth having a read of Pete Goss' blog: http://www.petegoss.com/routedurhum/blog.php . He's really showing that he's still got it and it's great to see a Brit out there in the top flight even though by his own admission he doesn't know his boat as well as some of the other racers. Come on Pete!!!!

It's a long slog in the virtual race, I'm managing to stay ahead of Pete Jackson on Albran by taking a bit more southerly option but may run out of wind any day now!

End of Autumn Series - Race 6

2010-11-07T20:44:00.001Z

FarrOut ended up tied with Scoline in fifth place for today's race. So there were more boats behind us on points than in front of us, and we beat a couple of boats over the water, we can be really happy about that! I think that we sailed a good race and were pretty fast, especially on the beat.

Good fun and all smiles. Congratulations to Joel and the crew of X99 Excalibur for the overall series win. And I think congratulations are also due to Weymouth Sailing Club where the IRC series has been well attended and given some excellent close racing. The results have shown how well IRC has worked in the mixed fleet.

Bring on the Winter Series.

http://www.weysailclub.org.uk/content/view/298/151/

Virtual Regatta - Route du Rhum

2010-11-05T08:09:00.000Z

For some mad reason I signed up for the virtual Route du Rhum, however I haven't been paying much attention to my boat. I was abroad with work this week so didn't panic about changing course. I don't seem to be doing too badly though. I'm kind of demotivated as this is the first virtual regatta when I haven't been given the "pro" sails for free. In fact if you want sails and pilot and stuff like that you end up paying €20.
Not feeling flush I think we will just lazily steer the boat for free, it'll be a more chilled way of doing the race with no getting up in the night. Could the fact that I'm currently reading "The long way" by Bernard Moitessier be anything to do with my attitude?

At bl**dy Last!

2010-11-01T08:29:00.001Z

Young Sam's bath-time sticky letters spell it out.....after so long with little success, the crew of FarrOut can celebrate a convincing win in the WSC sunday morning IRC series.

The race went well from the start with only ourselves and the Figaro 2 "Milan" seeing the pin bias on the line so that we could both bang a port tack flyer and cross in front of the fleet. Up a lumpy beat to M and we were third to the windward mark with only the Figaro and the Melges 24 in front of us. We held on and kept it safe, keeping her going the right way in big seas and deep runs.

Let's see more of it.

A Figaro 1 wins Solent Series!

2010-10-27T08:43:00.000+01:00

http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/?article=154492

Well done to Black Diamond for doing so well in a Figaro. Hopefully this will encourage Richard and Simon who own Rattler. It's true that the IRC rating at 0.974 has been much better this year but I'd say that it's still a difficult boat to win in, and as us lot on Rattler managed to just pip Black Diamond in this year's Round the Island race I reckon it's about time they did some more round the cans racing (without nicking the FarrOut crew that is!).

Rattler in her Le Havre "Groupe Partouche" days.

Autumn Series Race 4

2010-10-25T09:18:00.000+01:00

Hooray, we've got our boat speed back! This sunday's race was a cracker with a 10 boat IRC fleet. We only had four people on board but the boat was flying with her newly scrubbed bottom. The highlight was overtaking an X332 zooming along with the Tuareg ayso, unfortunately we found ourselves to leeward of Iduna and wasn't able to overtake because of their wind shadow and it took a while before we could make the move to go above her. It was quite breezy and if I headed up all I could see happening was accellerating and driving up their transom!

It all went wrong on the gybe as Dave was missing from the bow this week. Stephen's stirling effort couldn't save us from the wrap and we ended up losing a spinnaker sheet. The temporary replacement wasn't ready in time for the downwind part of the course so we goose-winged.

Top boat speed of the day 9.3 knots. Although we had a nightmare after the first reach, we did OK in the fleet and without the problems I'd like to think that we'd be up there. Roll on next week and great to see Darren back on the boat.

Filthy Bottom

2010-10-23T09:48:00.000+01:00

I really hope that this is the reason that we've been doing so badly recently. That International VC Offshore really hasn't done the business for us in Weymouth harbour. I think that we'll try Nautix T speed next year.

We had sea squirts, worms, barnacles and everything on the bottom and to be honest the bottom is still horrible after we sprayed it all off. The worm casts had to be scraped off with a plastic scraper!

Route du Rhum 2010

2010-10-21T12:56:00.000+01:00

I'm started to get excited about the Route du Rhum. Of course I'll support Safran in the Open 60s as ever but I have an idea that Armel Le Cleac'h (BritAir) can beat Mich Desj (Foncia), although the prof has got a new boat....it will be interesting to watch, I wouldn't bet any money on it though!

The Categorie Ultime multihulls are going to be amazing with these massive 100' + machines lined up against each other; Thomas Coville (Sodebo) vs. Frank Cammas (Groupama). 46 classe 40s....in fact 87 boats signed up at the moment.

Not long now.

http://www.routedurhum-labanquepostale.com/en/s01_home/s01p01_home.php

Autumn Race 3 - Max Points!

2010-10-18T13:45:00.000+01:00

Another maximum point performance from FarrOut this sunday morning. We were doomed from the start being the slowest boat in the fleet and a forecast dying breeze. Sure enough the wind died off a lot but I think the filthy hull was a big problem to us. A lift out this friday should sort this out but I really haven't been happy with the performance of our anti-fouling this year.

All smiles on FarrOut though, as we used the tail end of the race to work on our boat speed and think that we have got an improvement there. There's nothing worse than working your butts off to go as fast as possible and then some flash git zooming past you, I stumbled on a YouTube video that indicates this quite well.....let's make sure we're the overtaker and not the overtaken. Enjoy.

Beneteau First 30, Juan K - Mich Desj

2010-10-13T13:55:00.000+01:00

The FarrOut boys were disappointed by the new Beneteau First 30 when we had a poke around at the Southampton boat show. We were expecting to be entranced but instead were numbed by the poor level of finishing, it maybe that the test boats were rushed out to the boat shows but personally I'd have had someone fairing that keel bulb overnight seeing as though it was directly in the eyes of the public. Stepping from the First 30 onto a J97 turned frowns to smiles; a totter down the pontoon to an Archambault A31 and the smiles turned to leers.

The excellent Swedish blog Blur.se got to have a test sail on the First 30 and have published some polars and a test IRC cert. Worth having a look, click the translate button if your Swedish is rusty: http://www.blur.se/2010/10/12/first-30-polar-irc/#comments

Can we forgive the poor finish quality and stumpy looking mast if it goes like a train and wipes out bigger competition under IRC yet still satisfies the "sell it to the wife as a child friendly cruiser" test?

Still think Steve and Richard preferred the old salty cruiser boat at the boat show, they worry me......

Autumn Series Race 2

2010-10-11T08:59:00.000+01:00

It was a very rusty and hung over FarrOut crew that made it out of Weymouth harbour on sunday morning. It was blowing quite hard from the east and our broken engine couldn't deliver us enough power meaning that we had to short tack out of the harbour causing a bit of drama first thing and a desperate scrabble to get the headsail up.

We went for a conservative sail plan of No. 4 headsail and full main, which maybe left us underpowered at times but not on our ears at others.....ho hum always a difficult choice. It was blowing at least 20 and with some seas that tended to keep our speed down to windward. With an excellent turnout in the IRC class (9 boats) and a poor turnout in PY, only 1 boat so Rumrunner opted to sail around behind us. We were deemed OCS and dipped back and then touched a mark so did a penalty turn, this as well as having a nasty kite wrap caused us to pick-up 9 points!

With lighter airs forecast next week we might do better.

WSC autumn series 1 - blown out

2010-10-04T11:24:00.000+01:00

The expected southerly gale put the mockers on this sunday's racing. I haven't been sailing for about 4 weeks, incredible.

We're looking forward to racing against the new boat in the fleet, a guest appearance for the winter from the Capo30 Santana. Bob has jumped ship to join them, so we have a vacant space in the middle of the boat which I think one of us owners will fill.

Mast down and up day.

2010-09-28T16:17:00.000+01:00

FarrOut's wobbly masthead tricolour finally shook itself off of the top of the mast. We couldn't sail the boat with it like that so we had to foresake racing this sunday and sort it out.

Clearly a mast climb was not going to be the best way to sort it out, plus none of us feel light enough to go up there. As sunday morning was high water springs we were able to get alongside the new WSC crane and drop the rig. This transpired into a drop on sunday and a raising on monday morning which gave us more time to do the bits needed and tune the rig.

All back up and just as well we dropped it as a bolt was also missing from our expensive Raymarine wind instrument. Unfortunately I forgot to measure the forestay to make sure we had the exact length required. We'll have to see how she goes...

Start of Sunday Series 05 Sept - Big Seas

2010-09-06T08:16:00.000+01:00

An easterly in Weymouth Bay is lumpy so it's not a great surprise that not many boats were out for the Sunday series, 2 in PY and 3 boats in IRC. It was blowing early twenties and a great day not to have Dave our usual foredeck man with us. I was voted in for the job so got wet and have now got ripped oilys.

There's a bit of a mess up on the results so I can't tell you where we came just yet but we had some broaches and avoided a couple of chinese gybes. All kind of frenetic.

Artemis wins overall in Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race

2010-09-02T16:41:00.001+01:00

Big congratulations to Jonny Malbon and the crew of Artemis Ocean Racing in their overall victory of the Sevenstar RBI race, this on top of them beating the Imoca 60 record for the course.

It's about time they had some real success in that team, they deserve the win.

Autumn Long Distance

2010-08-31T08:46:00.001+01:00

Not such a long distance but at least out to W over by Hamm beach in Portland Harbour. It was about the right length of race given the fickle light northerly.

Pre-start we managed to sail a bit up the beat to B deciding that the left side was the lifting tack, trouble was that this may have been true but was quickly changed to a header due to the shifts, there were many tacks on shifts up the beat with boat positions changing as well.

We didn't end up badly at the windward mark and hoisted a symmetrical kite, though having to gybe when we got stuck under the Mustang 30 Neigh Chance. We had a lot of gybes before the northern entrance to Portland harbour but I think the tactic played out quite well for us. Without the big masthead kite of Scoline or Rumrunner we weren't going to flop downwind in no air and with Dave on the foredeck being quite slick with the gybes we could keep our air clear and the speed on.

The race was lost but we did our best on the upwind section back from W with the cobwebs blown off of the genoa, which we were suprisingly quite happy with, we may see a resurgence of that sail!

So a nice sunny day on the water, with some lessons learnt about our light airs performance:

1. The genoa may not be all bad.
2. Neigh chance will luff you if you go over the top, and you won't get underneath so gybe away. You might just get the benefit of a shift.
3. If we have three people in the cockpit in light airs we will sit our flat backside in the water. Fore and aft trim might be our problem.

Congratulations to Scoline on their win.

A smiling Robert, pleased to see the genoa again.

Last of the August Series - oops, last.

2010-08-27T10:01:00.000+01:00

A disappointing sail for race 6 of the WSC august series. Really light airs meant that we struggled to get the boat going and it was one of the few times that we probably needed a genoa. We're slow in the light both up and down wind, we need to work on this.

Anyway, we finished the series in second place with RWH winning and Scoline on equal points in third place.

Bring on the sunday series......and some wind.

August Race 5

2010-08-24T08:34:00.000+01:00

A win for FarrOut in monday evening's race as part of the Weymouth Sailing Club August Series. We managed to pip RWH by 20 seconds corrected time in the PY handicap division.

The race started in a lot of wind, we saw 32-35 knots according to the instruments which meant that we started with a reef in the mainsail and the No. 4 jib. Sigma 33 Scoline had a great start with a port tack flyer at the pin end - hang on isn't that our tactic? Fortunately flying the ayso spinnaker meant that we overtook them on the first spinnaker leg which they quite rightly white sailed.

The rapidly shortening evenings mean that we only got one triangle in which was fortunately enough but we would have preferred the sausage leg as well.

The series sits in the balance with RWH having it at the moment on 4 points whilst we have 7. Thursday is the last in the series and the weather may decide it for us. For once I'll be hoping for some deep-down runs!

Stuart (left) was helm for this race and Stephen (right) on mainsheet:

August series race 4 - Tragic abandon

2010-08-20T13:54:00.000+01:00

Our race was abandoned last night as the Race Officer Malcolm Terry collapsed aboard Viking 2, the commitee boat, during the start sequences. He was airlifted by the SAR helicopter but didn't recover. A shocking period for everyone and our condolences to his family on his passing.

Congratulations Armel!

2010-08-19T10:39:00.001+01:00

Armel Le Cleac'h has won the Figaro for the second time. An unstoppable performance with 3 out of 4 leg wins put him at the highest point of the podium. He is a worthy challenger to Michel Desjoyeaux for the title of best solo sailor in the game.

I've "supported" him for a number of years after that great picture from the AG2R in, I think, 2004:

Whooohooo........

August Series Race 3

2010-08-17T11:01:00.001+01:00

Stuart drove a great start putting us on the pin end of the line with pin bias as the horn went. We kept the left side whereas the rest of the fleet went right for some reason that I couldn't fathom, I think the two MGC27s came with us though. We'd already established on thursday, if not before!*!, that the left hand side was the lifting tack in this NNW breeze. This put us first to the windward mark.

The race officer had set a course with a 140 apparent, gybe, 170 apparent course so that stuffed our asymmetric schenanigans. On questioning he said that he'd been told to do that....

My investigations recently show that we are lacking 20m2 of spinnaker downwind compared to the class kite, however I think that this maybe down to measuring a kite as a rectangle in PHRF in US/Canada rather than the way IRC measures. Even so we seem to be missing some cloth and lack speed in light and medium airs at these angles and the boats with big masthead kites can get away from us. We had the wrong kite clipped in anyway.

Just about then we forget about the favoured left side on the beat as we see Sapphire headed in front of us, go right and get stuffed. Then we end up loose covered by Hooligan, we carry on out to the starboard layline but, wrong, wrong, wrong we needed to break cover and go left.

At least I suppose if we can identify where we went wrong we can try not to do it in the future! 7th out of 12 boats in PY.

August Series Race 2 - Weymouth Sailing Club

2010-08-13T09:12:00.001+01:00

Helm Stephen applauds Sigma 33 Scoline in the distance after another exhilirating race last night. Another reach to reach course gave JS9000 RWH the win again and Sigma 33 Snow Goose sailed impeccably well to get the 2nd and first in IRC. We were 4th in PY but again we only had four on board.

Rattler came past our 1st kite leg on the way into Weymouth harbour so hopefully they've got a nice "Touareg" photo for us!

The Rolex Commodore's cup starts this weekend with GBR being the current holders but against some very strong competition, the french have four teams whereas we've got three which don't include any Archambault boats but do include a Farr 45, I don't know that much about it but that worries me, let's hope beneteaus and superior sailing is enough! Link here
Edit 18th Aug: oh yeah, I get it now about the Farr 45 thing, very clever....Alice II beat the tidal gates in the offshore race to win class 1 by a country mile! I should be more supportive of Farr designs.

The last stage of the Figaro sets off from Kinsale on monday with Armel "The Jackal" Le Cleac'h sure of an overall win. Link here

Omnivore's 100

2010-08-10T10:57:00.001+01:00

A list of things that you should've tried in your life according to a food blogger. I did this ages ago, but I'll have another go. 79/100 Can anyone beat me?

Bold items are what I've eaten. Ashamed to have missed out on the "tasting menu at a Michelin three starred restaurant" need to sort that one out.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Start of August Series - Mon 9th

2010-08-10T08:41:00.000+01:00

FarrOut was 2nd last night, beaten narrowly by the JS9000 RWH which was miles in front. I guess the first triangle in breeze (about 20 knots) favoured them as an asymmetric boat, as it did us with the Touareg up creaming through the fleet. Great fun.
On the downwind sausage leg we got a wine glass wrap on the gybe, Stuart dealt with it by getting "aggressive" with the foot of the kite. However it probably cost us the win. Can't complain though, it was a good start to the series.

the1851cup.com

2010-08-03T18:43:00.002+01:00

Well I'm not a big fan of the America's Cup, the last edition was kind of fun because of BMW Oracle's massive wing sail but that was it. However, the 1851 cup action this afternoon in the Solent was superlative, not just for the scoreline (2-0 to Team Origin) but the coverage online was great. When there wasn't live coverage there was a great Kiwi computer graphics representation that meant that you could follow the match race better than the tons of ribs that were following the boats.

Commentary I thought was pitched pretty well so that the non-sailor could have it explained to them without the patronising tone that might be used if the sport was pitched at people who frankly aren't gonna be watching. For those of us that have a better idea of what's going on it wasn't annoying and kept the excitement throughout. This bodes well for Olympic sailing coverage in Weymouth in 2012, I hope they're watching!

Ben Ainslie is a deserved hero to any British boat racer, as is Ian Percy, so how great to see them and the rest of the team beat the America's cup holders BMW Oracle. It's only day one but I can't wait for the rest of it. And while it's going on there's a load of Open 60s flying past - why am I not in Cowes....?

By the way, the Figaro took off again today from Gijon to Brest, it's really tight this year give it a look. Malbon's in 12th at the 1900 classement!

Double Handed at WSC Sat 31st July

2010-08-02T10:28:00.001+01:00

Richard and myself went out for a pleasant sail on FarrOut in the double handed series. Although it was quite busy I think we made a good show of ourselves and we would have won if we hadn't have gone the wrong way. This meant a diversion back to "B" mark when we were almost at "M". We caught up Chloe II (the eventual winner) at "M" and sailed underneath them with Rich sitting on the rail, me tidying up string and Mich' Desj' (the autohelm) steering - fun stuff.

We saw about 20 kts of wind and the no. 4 and full main was the right choice meaning that we could bring on mainsail as we could handle it. The tight spinnaker runs were fun with no weight on the rail, but we only had one round up which we managed to get back on the rails.

Ladies Race @ WSC, Tracy helms.

2010-07-30T08:35:00.000+01:00

Our star helm for the ladies race was Tracy. Despite only having helmed a boat for a few hours before and being seriously limited in her tacking and gybing experience, she did really well with the minimum of guidance / shouting from us.

The closest thing was a near coming together with X99 Excalibur but that was caused by their lady helm and not ours!

We had a little bit of trouble when the middle of the boat called for the asymmetric, the front of the boat (me) rigged a sheet wrong and then the back of the boat gybed way too early. It all got sorted out but did mean an up the mast inspection later on!

All in all good fun. Unfortunately the single handed race next week has been cancelled, something about bar takings! So we can look forward to an all-in start average lap race - what's the betting that's going to be on a dying breeze?

La Solitaire Le Figaro

2010-07-28T09:59:00.000+01:00

For those of you that might have missed it the Figaro started yesterday from Le Havre.

http://www.lasolitaire.com
It's probably my favourite yacht race of the year, and worth following if you have the time. No Nigel King this year but let's hope that he can get back in the mix next year after his encouraging performance last year. The sole hope of the Rosbifs this year is Jonny Malbon on Artemis, who I have to say is looking more confident after the training that he has received at "Figaro School"in La Grande Motte. 17th in the prologue race out of 45 skippers and currently mid fleet. That is an incredible placing for an englishman in the Figaro fleet. Good luck Jonny keep it up.
http://www.artemisoceanracing.com/

With Artemis committed to starting a Figaro school in the UK there's hope yet. I wonder if I can sign Sam up, or do you think two is a little young for training?

I'm lining up for my first single handed round the cans on FarrOut this thursday. Gonna train with a double handed with Richard on Saturday. I wish I'd had some of that Figaro training.......

Monday Night Race Officers

2010-07-27T08:33:00.000+01:00

It's always a worry doing our yearly race officer duty. There's so little time for preparation and you're concious about getting it right and giving everyone a good race. We were quite lucky as we had a fairly decent breeze that appeared to be in for the evening which enabled us to put some distance in the courses.

Quite enjoyable but it's a lot easier racing and moaning about the course that's been set for you. One new thing for us this year is the large amount of dingies at Weymouth Sailing Club, they're average lap racing so you really have to keep a tally on them as well as the three other classes you've got out on the water.

This thursday is a ladies' race, so Tracy will be driving. She's been practicing this weekend so we're expecting great things.

Check this out

2010-07-21T13:50:00.001+01:00

Another Thursday Cancelled at WSC

2010-07-16T13:46:00.000+01:00

We were the only IRC boat to venture out into the bay last night, I guess everyone else had cancelled on the forecast. Probably the right call but there were some encouraging signs in the late afternoon. As it was it was good practice to handle the boat in some seas and wind, we only saw about 27 knots before we turned and went back in. Respect to Iain Jones and Nick Frampton who went out in a squib and put a kite up.

We like a bit of wind on FarrOut but that 1986 rig is always a concern when the main just flogs! I guess the race officers were glad that no other boats came out because it gusted over 41knots at 2020!

Henri Lloyd Weymouth Regatta 2010

2010-07-12T10:42:00.000+01:00

The arrival of codename "Touareg" secret weapon coincided well with this year's regatta. Our entry into the PY1 class was a mistake as we got handicapped badly against the MGc27s which are to me a very similar speed boat in any weather until we can get planing. The long distance race on friday wasn't good for us, we just still seem to struggle to make the boat go in light airs.

As it was the IRC3 class, the class we should have entered, had the same start so we could have sailed against the MGs but have done a lot better in class, apart from we probably couldn't have flown our new sail......

Saturday and sunday were two races each day and in excellent conditions. The courses were also very well set by the race committee. Top boat speed for the weekend about 9.5knots under the ayso with a lot of whooping from us.

An all round excellent regatta even with the disappointing results. But that's life with FarrOut sine waves of brilliance and disappointment.

A catch up for this week.

2010-07-06T13:57:00.000+01:00

I've not got around to making any posts for a while, just kind of busy. The final Rear Admiral's Cup race was a light airs affair (how I'm sick of those!) but I think we did alright and hopefully enough between Sole Bay and us to lift the cup, but once again we didn't make three boats representing Weymouth Sailing Club. It's OK though because I think no-one will be doing it next year!

Following that was a very disappointing thursday race, once again in fairly light airs, we probably had too many people on board and the dying evening breeze really scuppered us. I was quite down afterwards, wondering if my driving was rubbish or what it was. It's so depressing to see those Sigmas get away so easily. I think it was a lot of things that gave us a poor result but the major reason has to be Farr Out's bottom. I dived the boat on friday and found the bottom filthy with grass growing on port side. Now nicely scrubbed but I guess all the bright sunshine we've had over the last three weeks had really ramped up the weed growth, which kind of corresponds with the poor performances in light airs (I hope!). Maybe VC Offshore is not the antifoul to use in the location we're moored, I think we'll try something else next year.

So with a newly shiny bottom I'm looking forward to this weekend's Henri Lloyd Weymouth Regatta, where we've opted to enter the PY1 class so that we can play with MGC27s. You never know we might be able to use our new secret weapon.........

Bad news, Good news, Good news

2010-06-25T08:37:00.001+01:00

Ok, bad news we were at the back of the field in the IRC class again last night. Another bad start put us there and we couldn't make it back on the dying breeze. Nuff said - the last RAC race is on sunday and we will be in the front rank on the start or OCS no matter what.

The first good news is that probably over a dozen dolphins were out to play with us while we were racing; jumping, tail standing and cackling. Really beautiful, and we're so lucky to have them so happy in our bay.

The real good news yesterday is the announcement by Artemis that they are creating an offshore school of excellence both at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy and at La Grande Motte in the med in the winter. Sailing wise, I don't think it's necessary to have a warm winter venue other than to experience med conditions and terrain and of course to make sure the condidates can speak french. I'll let you read the announcement for yourselves at http://www.artemisoceanracing.com/news/view/artemis_investment_management_continues_commitment_to_british_sailing/

I haven't really been that bothered about the WPNSA, the olympic sailing and RYA programmes, as they seemed to have little relevance to the club racing and offshore scenes that we're involved in. However, my attitude has changed and it's great to see the kids that are learning to sail here on our doorstep and the Offshore school has got to be the right way for Britannia to rule the waves in solo and short handed sailing. Well done Artemis. We'll have Samuel enrolled in a few years time!

Round the Island Race

2010-06-21T11:49:00.001+01:00

I'm glad I changed my mind and decided to race, we had an amazing time on Rattler.
It started well with the feeder race from Weymouth with 10 boats on the start line, unfortunately it was so light in the bay that we had the engine on for 35 minutes until we found some wind. It was a shame to retire but really it was all about the delivery to Cowes.
The race around the Isle of Wight itself was a classic and probably one of the better ones I've done. There was plenty of wind allowing a circumnavigation in just under 8 1/4 hours, which after the 0600 start (or was it 0601 for us!) meant that we were back in the marina at a very reasonable time.
Highlight has to be the tussle we had with the other Figaro 1 entered - Black Diamond around the top of the island. We got to the finish line in front of them but not by much. Really good to sail against another Figaro. I think it's probably quite a while since Groupe Partouche (Rattler) and Assiwa (Black Diamond) have sailed against each other.
We were so exhilarated that we even danced later...or maybe that was the Red Bull?
A photo of Richard a la barre, he drove really well:

Coutts Quarter Ton Cup

2010-06-15T20:50:00.003+01:00

I'm very enthusiastic about the quarter tonners at the moment, it seems to me that this class is the kind of Grand Prix yacht racing that penniless can thrashers like myself can aspire to. I've just watched the video of race 1 on the unofficial Quarter Ton Blog http://quartertonners.wordpress.com/

We could have entered when we had the GK24 but it's not really the ship to use, and we couldn't afford the brand new North sails that everyone seems to be sporting. Saying that, there's alot of hard work put in by the owners to restore these fine machines of yesteryear and with multiple ownership I guess it all becomes a bit more possible to race at what appears to me a very high level. It's also a class and type of sailing that has UK sailors out front and that's where we should be.

I'd never sell FarrOut but perhaps we can find an old quarter behind somebody's shed. But after sailing a Laser 28 it might have to be a Farr......chances of finding one of those? Where's Nenufarr?

Post Script: A disparaging remark on Sailing Anarchy this morning related to a quarter tonner laying flat after a broach. Maybe they think the fun of sailing is all about doing well....they obviously don't appreciate a good high speed crash like we do on FarrOut!

Family Trip to Lulworth

2010-06-14T08:28:00.001+01:00

FarrOut and Rattler enjoyed a day out to Lulworth Cove on sunday with the girls and kids. Fun was had by all and the conditions were sunny and a lovely breeze. Kite to Lulworth and close hauled back. Samuel enjoyed life at 45 degrees on the way home:

No race

2010-06-11T14:01:00.000+01:00

Howling wind from the NE caused the race to be cancelled this thursday. So here's a nice photo of the jamon that we eat at Stuart's house instead.

Rear Admiral's Cup 2 - Hugh Rose Trophy

2010-06-07T14:17:00.000+01:00

We battled on saturday to actually finish the race, but there was no wind to be had quite soon after we'd rounded the windward mark at Arish Mell in third place. In fact there were only two finishers of the race Snow Goose and a half tonner from the RNSA called High Hopes which looked like a good fast boat.

Darren and Kerry had gone on Manana as we had too many people and Mickey didn't have enough in the light airs. It was fun trading tacks with them and watching them hoist all the headsails that they had including the drifter and the blooper. Manana's offshore track seemed better than our inshore when the wind shut off!

Still a nice day out on the water but no results for WSC boats in this race. Let's hope we have good breeze for the third and final race on 27th. I'm absolutely determined that the cup is coming to our club this year!

End of thursday 1 series.

2010-06-04T13:20:00.000+01:00

So no cup for FarrOut at the end of the thursday one series. What can I say: we were forced right on the first beat, everyone else went left. The breeze filled from the left, game over.

A new thursday series starting next week.....

YCW Cherbourg_2010_Rattler.mpg

2010-05-31T21:40:00.000+01:00

Cherbourg for the weekend

2010-05-31T21:36:00.001+01:00

We had a great race on Rattler to Cherbourg on friday - second over the water and on handicap but not by much. Draig won.

We came back on sunday upwind neck and neck with Draig. Some video above.

Mitchell Trophy - sat 22nd May

2010-05-25T10:04:00.001+01:00

Stuart and I entered this race double handed (well three handed if you count Mich' Desj' the autohelm). A real struggle to the windward mark saw us round in third, but standing on way past the layline helped in the fickle southerly zephyrs. We fetched into the mark with good speed. Unfortunately the breeze died to nothing and we slipped into a race on the tide with Folio, them waddling dead down with no air in the kite - and us gybing zig zagging trying to keep the kite full. They won - something to remember.

We thought it was more gracious to retire and have a beer. In fact there were only two finishers - RWH and Foxed Again. We towed some squibs back in, which was our good deed for the day!

Loads of nice boats were in Weymouth from Royal Southampton for their double race. Moondog (Laser28) stormed their class both ways - brilliant. See their report here: http://www.gbr7076.biz/m/index.html

Rear Admiral's Cup - Race 1

2010-05-15T19:11:00.000+01:00

The Rear Admiral's Cup is for teams of three boats from the local sailing clubs: Castle Cove (CCSC), Royal Dorset (RDYC), Royal Naval Sailing Association (RNSA) and Weymouth Sailing Club (WSC). Today was the first race of a series of three and the WSC team was Sole Bay, Folio and FarrOut. We had an excellent afternoon scoring first, fifth and second.

Again a good showing from the FarrOut crew finishing second over the water to Iduna (X332), and our new sails were fantastic.

Perfect Conditions - Thurs 1/3

2010-05-14T09:09:00.001+01:00

Well the third race of the thursday evening IRC series and we were third, narrowly having beaten Scoline by 3 seconds corrected time.

We had a great 12-15knot breeze from about 240 degrees with a windward mark of "D" and a laid leeward mark. The race officer sent the PY class around this mark to starboard and the IRC class to port - entertaining. Down the first run we had a fine tussle with Scoline as she flew her kite stbd pole and we were port pole.

We had all 6 of the regular crew onboard and it's such a delight when everyone knows the boat and does their level best to get her as fast as possible.

Shiny Sails

2010-05-12T08:22:00.001+01:00

Last thursday's race - Weymouth Sailing Club's IRC series Thurs 1/2, was the first chance we had of flying our new mainsail. We didn't do well in the race mainly due to using the No. 1 headsail when I think the No.3 would have got us higher and faster (plus that's brand new as well).
The new sails are from Hyde and built in Dimension Polyant's X10 and X15 aramid cloth.
The new main fitted perfectly and thanks to Wooderz of Hyde Sails for that. Hopefully try the new No. 3 out this thursday.
We're also racing on saturday this week representing WSC in this year's Rear Admiral's Cup series. Hopefully we can take that cup from the Royal Dorset!

Thursday 1/1 - IRC series

2010-04-30T08:18:00.000+01:00

Farr Out scored a victory last night in light and patchy breeze. We managed to beat Draig O'r Mor (Dehler 36db) and Sapphire (Dehler 33) as well as the two Sigma 33s Scoline and Snow Goose. We came third over the line and clinched it by 39 seconds corrected. We had a good start on port, tacking onto starboard into the rest of the boats. A good start to the summer racing and an example of the focus that the team are putting in now. Stuart drove, Bob trimming, Dave foredeck and I did mainsheet and guy.