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

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

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

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!