Considering the Laser 28 Keel Shape.

You have to say that the foils on a Laser 28 are what makes her a great boat to sail. The distinct lack of keel means that she flies off the wind and will plane given enough puff. A perceived shortness in the rudder will give you a problem of it stalling out and the boat crashes, exhilirating but not fast. One boat (Leda I think) has a Mumm 30 rudder.

The key to upwind performance is keeping her flat and getting that bit of lead to dig in. Don't do it and you've got leeway and you'll never point. As you build speed then your ability to point will increase you can then "feather" up into the wind to gain height in the gusts whilst not letting the speed drop. This is the kind of thing that makes her interesting and challenging to sail but it also means you'll need 5 or more bulky mates on a breezy day and you might be asking them to stay in the bar in the light stuff.

So...rewind to the Round the Island Race last summer. There we all are with a proper race crew and we're chasing down the RF290 "Red Fox". The RF was built from the Laser 28 moulds and is to all intents and purposes a Laser 28, apart from it doesn't have a keel stub and the keel fits into a socket. This particular boat is sailed by people who know what they're doing so no surprises that they could stay in front of the likes of us; but...they did not seem to be exhibiting the heel with the lack of people they had on the rail. This started my mind whirring.

It's an old story but the only time we made gains on them (in about 25 knots of breeze) was a close reach as they had white sail, genoa and we had an old SB3 asymmetric kite up - until we blew the kite to pieces.

As we returned from the race, we short tacked along the beautiful Dorset jurassic coast whilst Red Fox were inshore gunning the hell out of their little engine heading west. They must have bailed out because she was later alongside in the cove at Weymouth. I considered having a dive to have a look underneath, but you see I'd spent a long time on that freezing, soaking rail considering it: they'd stayed in front and we'd had a lot of spinnaker time round the back of the Island. This had to mean that there wasn't a bulb under the keel, surely the drag from one of those would have meant that we'd have walked all over them (broaches aside!)? It had to be something else, was it the Mark Mills keel? Was this the same shape as could be seen on Shasa from Jersey (now Encore)when she was sold?

When we look at the difference between that and FarrOut's standard (Bruce Farr) keel
So off to the Sailing Anarchy forums and I find a photo of the Mark Mills keel Surely this is Shasa parked in the same place in a previous year?
Well it looked like a nice solution to the upwind = weight on the rail vs downwind = lots of smiles connundrum should you sail in a place where you've got some water depth (we do!). I asked Mark Mills, who replied pretty quickly giving me the email of the guy who had the keel changed on Red Fox. He was very helpful and told me that it had been produced by Iron Brothers foundry so they would have the designs, he also confirmed that the Shasa photo was the type of keel he put on Red Fox . I tried an email enquiry to Iron Brothers to work out how much they would charge for a new keel. They were good enough not to answer...really if we're looking at changing the keel on our lovely 26 year old boat perhaps we should be looking for a different boat! Maybe not just the Farr 30 rudder but the rest of the boat as well.

But it looks as if Red Fox does have a Mills keel unless it's been changed back. I'm kinda guessing it hasn't! If only I'd taken that swim...

140th out of 457 finishers. I'll settle for that.

This weekend was the annual J P Morgan Round the Island race where 1600 odd boats race round the Isle of Wight. Quite a good showing from Weymouth boats this year and the Lifeboat pub in East Cowes on firday night seemed to be mostly Weymouth Sailing Club and Castle Cove Sailing Club.

A nice quick delivery trip upto Cowes on friday with a sprightly breeze behind us. Unfortunately the "Touareg" assymmetric spinnaker died about half a mile out of Weymouth.

The race itself was another breezy one, with the best start we've ever had in an RTI. We short tacked down the island side to cheat the foul tide and kept a good eye on the numbers. When we got to the needles the decision had to be made and I'd already said, half meaning it, that we were going inside the Varvassi wreck this year. With an aerial photograph on deck we followed a quarter tonner through the slot between Goose Rock and the wreck to look up at the lighthouse towering above us. Exhilirating...

The next SB3 kite got launched and we flew off after our chase at 11 knots boat speed. Red Fox is an RF290 from Dartmouth which is essentially a Laser 28. We were just catching her when "puff", we blew another kite. Jib up, reef out, and we rounded St Catherine's. As it happens the wind had gone forward so white sail was the right call anyway.

We saw Crewcut from CCSC just before the next kite hoist to power us up to Bembridge Ledge buoy. Our new Ullman S2 spinnaker went up and we powered off on a lovely downwind sail surfing down the waves. A difficult gybe meant the inevitable broach and we damaged our new kite! Tears - but we still had one left so the red and white spinnaker went up as seen in the previous post.

Round Bembridge ledge we set off on the fetch becoming a beat upto Ryde. The wind was strong now and we were probably a little overpowered. The short tacking along Ryde sands to stay out of tide is always a worrying time and we did bump bottom once as we straightened up in the tack back out.

With no further issues other than some fluky wind off Osborne house we broke the finish line. We never could catch Red Fox but there were a lot of faster boats behind us.

Our finish was 15th in IRC division 3C, 140th overall out of 457 IRC finishers and an elapsed time of 08:12:34 - 20 minutes faster than last year. I'm happy.

Thanks to all the FarrOut crew who did a great job. The level of silence on the boat as we pushed her downwind was impressive. As I started to struggle on the helm, they'd already anticipated and the mainsheet eased, the kicker eased, and the spi trim eased - all to gently go back on once she was back on the rails. All in absolute silence, everyone knowing their job. Brilliant.

Sunday's delivery back to Weymouth upwind in 30 knots with big seas is best erased from our minds. Hideous.

Check out the battle flag at the top!

FarrOut crew: Alice Perrett, Jack Baker, Adam Greaves, Darren Aston, Stephen HB, Jez Rees

Ready for the 2012 J P Morgan Round the Island Race

Foregoing racing last night we put some final preparations together before next weekend's race. Steve and I dived the boat in the lovely warm waters of Weymouth Bay and polished her bottom nicely. I was surprised by the amount of barnacles on there.

We then went for a sail and launched the new kite held out there with the new pole. All very satifactory. The crispness and slipperyness really help out in those gybes. Seemed fast but I guess we need to line up with some other boats with it.




Delivery to Cowes on friday is looking a wet and windy affair at the moment. Joy.

IRC division 3C - not a division I'd want to be in given the choice. With the Quarter Ton Cup running this week in Cowes all the quarter tonners are in this division. We will have to be happy with our IRC overall position, because we stand little chance of getting enough distance between us and those rocket ships with pop star crews!

Well that was the Round the Island....

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

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: