Autumn Series Race 4

A glorious 4th place for FarrOut in this sunday's race. A lovely brisk breeze saw us overpowered towards the end of the race. The start was good and we didn't really let the faster boats get away from us too much. Draig was third by 12 seconds corrected and Crazeology, the Melges 24, 8 seconds behind. Winner was Wildfire and second was Foxed 2. Not bad for a 28' cruiser built in 1986!

This looks fun!

Coastal 2012 Crusader 35 from Nick Bastow on Vimeo.

I like the sail tie to keep the leeward runner from flopping around. That could go wrong in the gybe!

Autumn Series 21st October

Let's face it we've been struggling for a few weeks now. We haven't got the boat going and two of our regular crew have been missing. I've been short on motivation the kind of yacht racing demotivation which is only cured by winning!

Then Darren jumps ship to Draig. These things happen. We had to clean her bottom because surely this was the major issue. Good job we did:

As we drove away from the crane she verily slipped through the water. So lacking crew and with something to prove the only option was for me to relinquish the helm. I'll have to admit it I'm better placed running the middle of the boat than helming. All I had to find was someone who was better at helming than in the snake pit...enter Nick Sharp.

Nick made a re-appearance on FarrOut on sunday and I was pretty pleased that he could. Not bad seeing the last boat that he'd driven was a TP52!

Results below:

Now if you consider that we had two kite hoists in the race and had problems on both of them, to do with clips opening, also that we had one newbee crew and one sea sick, then I'm happy with that. Alright it's third but look at the ratings and type of boats:

1.Beneteau First 36.7
2.Dehler 36 db
3.Little Laser 28
4.Sigma 33
5.Corby29
6.X99
7.Dehler 33

Everybody has got their best team out there at this time of year, so should we. That may mean that not everyone is going to get a ride every week for this and the next series but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Yeah I done that!

Cheech and chong for the title.

WSC Autumn Series - Race 1

With 3 of our regular 6 out this week for various reasons and an easterly airflow and predicted sunshine, this race was probably over for us before it started. As the slowest boat in the IRC fleet the predicted happened and the thermal killed the gradient breeze and we finished in very little breeze.

The start had been delayed as the race officer failed to hoist the IRC start and plenty of the fleet had started on the PY start. Bit of a mess and the rib was sent to call boats back.

Our start was a little slow because we were trying to control the pin end. We ended up at the back and we struggled to make our way through the PY tail enders as the breeze dropped.

As we were so far back we missed the pile up at the leeward mark. Effusion, Draig, Excalibur and others will be visiting a protest room sometime soon where no doubt the ins and outs of rule 18.2 will be discussed! Prang.

Sunday Series 3

Some great racing for us on sunday morning, a mid fleet result but I think you need to temper that with a financial touch, we are one of the cheapest teams out there of the IRC boats. Props to Scoline though who did very well on I guess a similar budget!

The start was nailed with a port tack approach, only trouble is the helm decided to vary from the agreed tactic until the rest of the crew shouted at him! Upwind is where we lose it on our boat but the tight triangle sausage played to our strengths of sail handling by a practiced crew and ayso and running kite options.

We had some argie-bargy with Effusion and got the red flag out for a bit. Rules stuff, keeping clear, overlapped boats all that stuff. Good that we're in those issues with much faster boats underneath, shows we're doing something right.

Figaro Surfs

Cool transat AG2R footage 2010, first bit is Sam and Romain on Saveol. Guess he'll be home looking after the bairn during the Vendee Globe.




BTW - can't wait for the Vendee (10th November start. I'm even considering doing the virtual race again, hope I can persuade the boss to buy some smart phones before that. Anyway my forecast is J P Dick for the win. Of course I'll be supporting Safran as usual, or the Jackal? You've got to follow Sam and Alex as well being a Brit I suppose. Anyway, it's exciting. I don't know why I couldn't care less about the Volvo or the America's cup but Open 60s, Figaros even class 40s and I'm there!

Sunday Series Race 2 - Girl Overboard!

The M to B kite leg didn't happen. The MOB did!

A short lived race this week with an enforced retirement after Alice decided to throw herself over the side.

Some idiot cancelled the IRC start so it was a busy line to negotiate with an all-in W class. This was done with a nice, fast 40 deg apparent stbd fetch into the line underneath the reaching in fleet giving us a front row start and good control. The natural gap between shall I say "Q" class boats and the rest let us flop over and take the right. Also plenty of gap to take the port lay line procession into the windward mark (I). There'd been a big shift right pre-start and we'd expected this to continue as the sea breeze established. All good.

Here comes the hoist. Ayso up and filled, jib down. Bit deeper than we'd have liked. I gave Alice the sheet for trimming. Darren calls "Ease" as she'd strapped it. Steve drives down anyway. I call "Trim" as the kite collapses and Alice braces her body to trim on. Trouble was the impatient bloke in the pit (me!) had already trimmed on so Alice pulled against nothing and went straight over the side.

She didn't bob round for very long. A pretty decent MOB recovery and you really see the value of the Laser 28's lovely boarding ladder. If you're going to go swimming in the bay in your jeans then this time of year is probably the best time to do it!

Damp Alice

Dead phone for Alice, a retirement for Farr Out but no real harm done. I think we'll take that as our discard. Thanks to the race officer for laughing when we reported our retirement and MOB recovery.

What a class this would be at WSC

I like to share enthusiasm, when I feel enthusiastic. I'd like to win some lottery money and get one of these for a laugh. In fact I'd like to see a whole fleet of them lined up on Hooker's Dock and craned in for dry sailing.



One can dream. Looks a lot more fun than an SB20.

Last Evening Race - Glorious 3rd

We competed in the last evening race of the season, we now move onto sunday mornings.

Missing Stephen but the rest of the crew were there and it was a beautiful evening with sunshine and about 20 knots from the North.

After a great start in the front row on a short and congested line we did well up the first beat losing a couple of places at the mark and with an ayso hoist which was perhaps too shy. after reaching the first wing mark we found the next leg very deep and we had enough puff behind us to sail the ayso "wing on wing" which was fast. We could have got away with the next reach but were back up the fleet so kept it simple and white sailed it.

A great race but again beaten by the level rating Folio who always seem to overtake us. There can be only one of two reasons: 1, they're better than us 2, Folio is faster than FarrOut. I offered to swap boats for a race to find out. Chris declined politely...hmmm

August Series - Thursday 23rd

For various reasons we've missed all of the preceding August series so no hope of a trophy in this one. But it was great to get back out there with a full crew even if it was a little light.

We had a little swap around putting Jack on the bow and Adam in the pit. A bit of an eye opener for Adam I think but we didn't shout too much at him. It all went well really but a big wrap allowed Folio to catch up and overtake. This was great from them as they'd had to pull a 720 after alot of Committee boat end barging from the W class. The Commodore watching from his Merlin Rocket later described it as "appalling".

FarrOut wasn't involved with this business, our start was the new PTF/lee bow tack the fleet which is cracking when you get your timings right. Got this from a dodgy 80s lecture on YouTube. Worth a watch.



Too busy to take photos, so here's one of Stephen and Corrie from last weekend:

Nowhere Island Race - Nice Pics

Thanks to Alan and Deo McDine for a great photo of FarrOut in control whilst Rocket is in trouble in the recent Nowhere Island circumnavigation.

Also another nice one from Joan Whyte:

Bonxie - IRC win

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

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

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

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

Thursday race - encouraging

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fifth in PY and 2nd under IRC tandem score.

Tour de France a Voile

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