WSC PY Autumn 4. WooooHooooo!

What more can you ask for? Sunshine, flat sea in the bay and 25-30 knots of breeze; just the stuff. Top boat speed of 10.3 knots today, really enjoyable. We spectacularly wiped out on the first gybe which the commitee boat got on camera so hopefully I can post some pictures soon.

What with another issue of getting the spi halyard caught on a mainsail batten, we only managed a third. The Achilles 24 of Paul Barford and Achilles 9m of Steve Dadd both like a bit of wind and sailed to a corrected finish in front of us although we were first over the water.

Really enjoyed the sail though, Farr Out positively gurgles and lifts her bow out of the water when you've got enough wind behind her. Must remember to keep the weight to a minimum on the bow during the gybe in heavy weather - you got to do it on your own Dave!

Check back for the cool broach photos.

Autumn 3 - struggle to finish

Got a first on this sunday morning race. I think we were the only ones to finish, which we did in about 1hr 10mins but the race was taken from the first time through the finish line (about 33 mins for us) and so the other boats in class got a finish as well.
Fair I suppose, but we played the conditions of no wind at all very well searching out bits of pressure and even used the incense sticks.

Autumn 2 - They come in threes....

I was apprehensive as we left the mooring for the 2nd race of the WSC autumn series. We'd had two breakages already: a lifting point on the inflatable tender and the main halyard shackle had given up the ghost. We all know that these things come in threes, what was next?

In the twenty knot gust conditions we were flying, boat speed of 9 knots at one point. Luckily the third thing to break was the pole downhaul block shackle and Dave on the bow sorted this by keeping his foot on it while we were doing around 8 knots, he then fixed it in enough time for the gybe.

A second place to Sole Bay on corrected, but we were out front all the way round and maybe lost a bit of time on a trapped spi halyard problem, resolved by Rich Veale by hoisting on gen 2.

All in all a good sail and great to see that we still have the boat up to speed even with me driving!

Great Start

Iain Jones was race officer last sunday and took video of our start.Cheers Iain.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXBVdkllX_8

WSC Autumn Series - Race 1

I managed to prise the tiller from Stuart's hands for the first race of the autumn series, or to be more correct Stephen let me do it because by rights it should have been his turn. I really liked getting back on the helm but made sure to learn from Stuart's techniques for getting the boat going fast - I think I read somewhere about Laser 28s "first go fast then point".

Still sailing in PY class which means we're the fastest boat in class, it makes a change from being the slowest boat in the IRC class. This meant that we were first over the water by a pretty good margin and eventually coming third on handicap to boats behind. Ho hum, we had a patch of very light air that maybe they didn't get. We sailed a good race with moments of brilliance, for me the best bit was an inside overlap leeward mark rounding with a windward spinnaker drop which took out Foxed Again and Snow Goose (even though they weren't in the same class!). Great crew work from everyone.

Looking forward to next week.....

Sunshine Day

A nice bit of video as we set out across Weymouth Bay for Cowes on Friday on Rattler.

JOG Cherbourg 25th Sept 09 - Sunday series 4/4

An action packed weekend this weekend with the finale of the sunday series for Farr Out with a serious depletion in crew numbers due to Bob, Dave and myself all going offshore with Rattler for the final JOG race of the season Cowes-Cherbourg.

When I phoned Stuart on sunday evening, the boys seemed to have had a pretty good race with Paul from Stuart's work pulled in as a reinforcement for him and Steve, but only three up. A spinnaker wrap cost them the series with Manana winning the last race by 36 seconds corrected. Well done to them and I look forward to getting back into it for the autumn series starting next week.

On Rattler we had an excellent race, starting in class 5 instead of class 4 although this was changed in the results. The initial beat down the solent had us up at the front by the needles and the kite hoist that would stay up all the way to the finish. We had Whistler and Xara with us and we were pleased to see Xara's masthead tricolour change from white to green as we slid past.

There were a lot of ships to deal with in the northern shipping lane and we gybed in the middle to keep in favourable tide and scooted on down towards Cap Levy keeping east expecting the breeze to die and to ride the tide down into Cherbourg. We lost a lot of ground just outside the Grand Rade but all in all a cracking race. Crew pictured at the Jog drinks reception at the Yacht Club de Cherbourg:


I had a chat with the guys from the Laser 28 Moondog they'd done very well double handed. Let's get Farr Out doing some offshore racing next year.....

Patchy wind on sunday

I've missed the first two sunday series races. The rest of the guys got a 2nd and then a 1st. So I was keen to get back on the boat and enjoy some of these winning ways.
So for the third race of the series, I climb on the boat to sit in the middle and do "tactics".....ho,ho,ho. We drove into so many holes and went the wrong way almost every time so that we were last! Perhaps it's just an elaborate plan to get back the helm.

End of August Series - no more evening races!

As the nights draw in and we start our autumn and winter sunday mornings, we finished the series with a first. There were only three boats in class with Folio retiring leaving us and Scoline to slug it out. We kept them in touch all race and towards the end just reeled them in as they were carrying too much canvas in the 25-30 knots of breeze. And as we are starting to realise, Farr Out loves a lot of wind and you sail her like a big dinghy.

Great fun, and it's so nice to win!.......

August Series - going well

We're really enjoying the WSC August series at the moment (sailed on monday and thursday evenings). Although we've no chance of winning it, we're snapping at the heels of those that can.

Last night was gusting 30+ knots and we were the only boat in Q class to fly a kite, exhilirating! Chapeau to La Salmo in W class for doing the same. I know we keep saying it but keeping to white sails downwind on Farr Out just can't happen; for one it wrecks the upwind sails when you wrap them around the forestay and we certainly need a lot of wind to get her planing - that's when the fun is.

Due to the beer deficit on board at the moment, we finally managed to clear the Pimms pre-mix left over from the Round the Island.

Ringstead with Kids

An enjoyable day on sunday (apart from bumping the reef!) taking the girls and kids out to Ringstead for the WSC squib barbeque.

A highlight for me was seeing Richard Tolkein's "Orca" Classe 40 right behind us and gybing just on our starboard bow on the way out there:

Another thursday in a dying wind

With her shiny new bottom Farr Out was gliding along on rails last night. The result was academic as once again the faster boats could finish in more breeze and it all but shut off for us. We had some nice sail handling although the race was marred on the start by Scoline who protested us. It was the same old thing of shutting us out at the committee boat end, we had Hooligan above us and could do nothing about it apart from protest Hooligan. We tend to spin out the way when this happens, they did it to us in the Rear Admiral's Cup last year and we were in the same team!

To protest or not to protest......some might say that you need to protest to enforce the rules and overturn the disadvantage that someone has thrown at you. Me, I think it's sad on a thursday night race in the bay and I have no enthusiasm for turning up on a tuesday four weeks hence to listen to somebody whinge to a disinterested protest committe. We don't even have a protest flag on board! (although we could fashion one from an ensign quickly, if you care to bring it on).

Ho hum, I think we'll carry on just having a word when feeling aggrieved - if it doesn't win us a match race against Mathieu Richard or James Spithill then never mind!

Draig are still going for it in the fastnet - overtaking stuff past Bishop Rock I hope.

Fastnet / Figaro

Mostly spending my time watching the Figaro and the Fastnet races on the PC.

Draig O'r Mor, my friends Kev and Kay are competing in the Fastnet so I'm trying to keep tabs on their progress at the hourly scheds. Darren has also gone with them as well as Micky Carter. Good luck to all of them, I'd have loved to have gone with them.

Also watching the Open 60 class with interest - nice to see Sam doing well on Artemis 2, does this mean that the boat has the potential that it was supposed to have? What's going on with Hugo Boss, does she not like going upwind?

Talking of Figaros, last night I went out for the test sail of Rattler's new sails with Richard and Simon, Simon's Dad and John Pollard of Westaway Sails. Sparkly bits of carbon cloth which seemed to pull the boat along, a little overpowered at times in the strong breeze with the No. 1 and full main (both new).

Clean Bottom

We lifted her out this weekend and got rid of that filthy bottom which was obviously the cause of all our recent poor results (ho ho)!
Farr Out got lifted on saturday, positioned on her brand spanking new cradle and back in with a lovely new coat of VC offshore on sunday. We had excellent weather for doing it and maybe a good plan rather than a blustery march day with freezing hands.

Thursday in the rain

Last night was rain and more rain, and guess what? Practically no wind. Hardly any boats showed up from WSC: about 12 squibs and 2 from Q class including us. At least we got a second!

This weekend is lift out and anti-foul so we'll see if the new cradle fits.

Sad to see that Flying Fish sank after a start line collision, glad to see that she's been refloated but I bet that makes a mess inside plus the annoying thing of "oh, yours is Laser 28 that sank isn't it?". My thoughts go out to them.