Dirty Bottom

Thanks for your comment Anonymous Stibbs!

I dived the bottom on sunday morning. The rear section and rudder were really hard to scrub off with a lot of green weed growing - that anti-foul is not going to last until January.

Next goal for us is Weymouth Regatta. Four days is quite a long time but we're doing alright for crew at the moment I think which is always the problem.
http://www.weymouth-regatta.org/

Thursday 2/2

Fourth last night in fickle winds. We had a great start but were too concerned about getting covered by Hooligan and Draig that we probably sacrificied too much speed for height. Triangular course T,D,H - good hoist and clean air down the run with a nice gybe at D using the human pole and dip pole method which can tend to avoid wrap problems in the light stuff.

I need to clean her bottom again because it looks fouled up again maybe from sitting in the medina for a few days. This light stuff does make you think about how old our mainsail is.......

Days of Yore

I've got a number of old pictures of Farr Out, some that came with the boat and some that are trawled from the interweb. Perhaps my favourite is the Falmouth Regatta poster:

Round the Island 2009

The culmination of our cruise was the J P Morgan Round the Island Race. We arrived early in Cowes and had some time to chill before the big race.

Let's look at our previous performance in this race:
2008 - didn't compete. We'd only just got Farr Out and my son was just being born.
2007 - dismasted about 20 mins from the finish. Chuckles Too, GK24.
2006 - run out of wind and time after the cock-up of sending slow boats against foul tide at Hurst. We finished around 0400 on sunday with less than a pint of diesel. Chuckles again.
2005 - 126th overall in ISC division. Chuckles.
2004 - 1st in IRC2, Marionette. Well that was only me doing mast but I'll quote a first when I can!

So as you can see it's pretty good for us just to get round. We didn't really have a race crew (no main trim, no nav, not too much on the rail). Even so I'm disappointed that we made some mistakes which our previous experiences should have warned us of. That said we had a cracking run from Ventnor to Bembridge around 140 degrees apparant with a bit of puff behind and some surfs. We seemed to be creaming through the fleet.

Ho Hum...there's always next year!

Summer Cruise

Farr Out went on her first summer cruise last week. We took her to Cherbourg on monday, around to St Vaast on tuesday and then went over to Cowes wed night/thursday morning. Good fun had by all with an exhilirating channel crossing in 25+ knots and some seas on the way back.

All over so quickly though!

Crew Race - Fanfare Trophy

Darren drove for the crew race last night. I quite enjoyed sitting on the rail and dragging myself over the cabin top. Results show us as 4th but I think the wrong handicaps were used. Fifth over the water with the two Sigma 33s, a JS9000 and Sapphire ahead of us.

Getting ready for the cruise next week and the Round the Island race on saturday 20th.

RDYC midsummer regatta

Well we put on a good show in 20-25 knots of breeze today. Overall third I think posting a second in the morning and a third in the afternoon. Only seconds in it though and Farr Out was flying recording 11.7 knots on one surf!

Crew: Dave Evans (foredeck), Steve HB (mast), Darren Aston (pit), Rich Veale (main), me (helm).

A great sail for us, but a poorly attended regatta , well two races, with a lot of retirements. Sapphire held a big broach in front of us which was actually caused by the tiller extension snapping off.

We were really happy with her heavy weather performance especially upwind where we were keeping pace well.

Thursday 1 series - what a mess!

Farr Out failed to finish last night in a dying breeze after being third to the windward mark and probably first on handicap. As it was we were scored DNC (did not compete) rather than DNF (did not finish) or as it should be RTD (retired).

Anyway with a southerly direction in the breeze and a windward mark of I against the north arm of Portland Harbour our considered tactic of a port tack pin end start and taking the right side on the beat paid off. We need to remember this for similar conditions.

Afterwards I had a grump with the Cruiser class captain, much as I hate to be an embittered handicap racer - I guess it's just unavoidable but the fact remains that at least 3 of the 6 races in the series had been marred by a dying breeze and as the slowest boat in the fleet it made no sense that the larger and faster boats were generally finishing before the breeze died. As Folio (MGC27) is sailing in the class below and gives us time under WSC PY handicap it might be an idea if we sail in that class next series, but then that would probably upset some people there. Predictably people are starting to notice our handicap anyway.........

Looking forward to the RDYC regatta on saturday where we're sailing in the IRC class, so we can escape from the PY mess.

Nick Sharp's Grand Soleil

A short video of Nick's boat from saturday:

Second by 9 seconds.

Remembered the video camera for the Hugh Rose Trophy out to St Aldhelm's and back. It was a long beat short tacking up the beautiful jurassic coast. Started of with the lapper and tack changed to the genoa just before the Arish Mell buoy. Bear away set at the St Aldhelm's ledge buoy and a gybe somewhere inshore. Had a horrible wrap on the gybe (my fault) but managed to get out of it by pinging the guy clip and bringing the spi back to the deck before re-hoisting. Top boat speed about 7.8 knots I think.

Lovely weather and a good race. We sorted out that squeak on the tiller!

Thursday 5/6

Damn, forgot to take any photos again! Short handed for the race; Dave, Steve and I to start off with but we got Neil transferred from Sapphire as they had 9 - nice of them and he was really good. A nice race in light airs and lovely weather but the dying breeze got us as Sapphire and the two Sigmas finished in stronger breeze.

Port tack start and a beat up the right hand side to "O" saw us cross in front of Sapphire - brilliant! Kept getting caught up with Folio - but that's another story.

I'll try and get some photos and video footage tomorrow on the race down to St Aldhelm's head.

A pot at last!

After two years of receiving the Alacrity (!) Cup at the WSC prizegiving and nothing last year, I'm pleased to say that Farr Out won the Spring long distance race yesterday. Something to collect in January is really going to be great, you never know we might collect some others along the way.

It was just Stu, Tracy and myself with Stu driving in a very light airs race that at one time saw us in irons after failing to complete a tack. Dogged persistance worked for us though and we managed to catch the new breeze to catch up with the boats in front: the MGC27 Folio and the Dufour 34 Foxed Again. Handicap gave us the win.

I scrubbed the bottom of the boat by diving on the mooring just prior to the race in brilliant sunshine. The water wasn't very cold at all and the mullet had done a good job of cleaning the keel already.

A great sail and kinda made up for not being able to go offshore for the bank holiday weekend.

Thursday 4/6 - third but not a lot in it

No Stephen for this thursday evening race. A nice 14-17 knots from about 230. Flew the Owen Sails Medium No. 1 with full main and the all-white kite. All the crew seemed to be taking it in turns to convince Darren to store the pole on the boom, it worked..

We got spun out by Sapphire on the start which I thought was a bit much but I suppose that's the game and maybe we're more of a threat than we were. Steve Fraser was driving - we'd have been better to port tack start in a fleet of 5 boats and get clear air on the right because that was the favoured side of the beat.

Anyway 3rd WSC handicap and 3rd IRC. Still in second in the series.

A photo of Steve and Stu on the day we went to see Farr Out in Ardrossan marina.

Southerly Gale

I'd been looking forward to the YCW Shambles race all week. The race is out to the east Shambles buoy over to Arish Mell and back again, we were representing WSC in the Rear Admirals's cup series and all in all it deserved some effort.

However the God's were not kind and the race was canned due to the southerly blow that we were having on Saturday. It galls me not to continue racing because of some wind, after all yachts need wind to go fast, but I suppose it's better to sit on your backside in the club than loose the rig and put everybody in danger.

Some of the competitors took a drive to Portland Bill and evidently the seas were pretty huge. I think the gusts topped out at 40.7 knots, strong enough but the sea state is also pretty bad usually in that direction.

Steve and I took the opportunity to finish fitting the jackstays and one of the safety eyes as well as fitting the correct cleats for the kicker now that they'd arrived.

Another Drifter - Thursday 1 series race 3

Last night's race was again in no wind. A good start at the pin end with Hooligan OCS above us. Windward mark was I with no wind from about 230. We stayed left even when Snow Goose had tacked in. The zephyrs we were chasing disappeared with breeze filling in from the right (!) towards the end of the race at the windward mark after about 40 mins. Second on handicap. Happy enough with the result and really, really, love our new Raymarine analogue wind instrument.

Team Farr Out are going to name sponsor one of WSC's new optimists http://www.weysailclub.org.uk/, getting it ready for Millie and then Sam. We're gonna call her "Giggles Too" after our last boat the GK24 Chuckles Too and her comedy tender Giggles. Nice name for a kids' boat we think