Bash, Crash, Crunch - Spring Series Finale....

A muscely 20knots+ from the east greeted race 5 and 6 of the YCW spring series and brought with it some sizeable seas. For some reason Farr Out loves this kind of weather. Bashing to weather in the smallest boat in the fleet didn't seem to be a problem and once again we were able to do a good job at keeping with the fleet just to turn round marks to surf away and make gains on the bigger boats.

We were gunning for the title and Scoline and Sapphire were our rivals. Scoline unfortunately only had two of them to crew the boat so couldn't properly compete which was a great shame. We then had the sickening sight of Sapphire laying right over on being T-boned by the other, and first time out, Dehler 33 Rocket after a port/starboard bear away that didn't quite work. Nasty damaging stuff.

Farr Out didn't escape, as late in the second race after some great tussling with Snow Goose after they shut us out at the start and we caught up, we were surfing past to leeward of them and a following wave spun the boat out and we broached in a long curve which ended with a damaged stantion, lifeline and rail for Snow Goose and a crunch on the bow for Farr Out. Horrible, first time I've hit another boat and don't fancy repeating it.

At the end of all this exhilirating racing, and a top boat speed today for us of 10.3 knots, I'm pleased to report that Farr Out has won the YCW Spring Series 2011. We worked hard and our happiness would be complete if we hadn't have had that crunch at the end.

Bring on the rest of the season - evening racing starts this thursday.

Spring Series 4 - Long Distance. FarrOut first.

Easter sunday saw the long distance race of the YCW spring series. As we got to the boat the wind was peaking at 20 knots from the north with the potential to die from there. And so it was in a fickle breeze that we beat up to H off the seafront, reach off to O at the end of the pleasure pier and what should have been a nice ayso reach at 90 degrees over to R at Ringstead just kept going forward. We held the touareg at 60 degs as long as we could but we knew we had to go to white sail in order to launch the symmetrical kite for the run over to G off Grove Point on Portland. The crew of FarrOut kept working and kept us moving the right way. We chased the two Sigmas down to the beach, every time it went light we gained and as soon as they had a puff they went away again. As we reached H to turn for the line we managed to get in front of Snow Goose but they soon overtook again as we blundered a pressured kite hoist.

We'd stayed with the fleet and over almost 3 hours our rating was enough to give us the win.  this puts ourselves, Scoline and Sapphire all on six point as we come into the final two races of the series next sunday. We could do this......it would be a great way to start the season, but I won't pretend it's not going to be difficult.

Iain Jones took some photos from Spindrift, this one as we were coming up to G.

Race 2 and 3. Light Airs Drifting

A gorgeous sunny day but no wind to speak of. My team talk on the mooring went something like this "We have to be on the money at the start or we've already lost. Today will all be about how tall your rig is and we've got the shortest one in the fleet!".

Race 2 was a decent start which put us to windward of the fleet, we were the first boat to tack to the right which I think paid for us, a couple of ayso reaches and a beat back to the line and it's all over. Third on corrected time.

Race 3 we had a lovely start at the commitee boat, the pin end bias sent the rest of the fleet that way keeping our air clear. The wind had filled just for this first beat but once we were around the corner it was difficult to keep the kite full. This time we were chasing Scoline who went deep looking for mark C and initially we followed although the GPS told us they were going the wrong way. We corrected and gybed back which probably gave us a better angle into the mark (if we'd have had the Touareg up and not the red symmetrical). Scoline had her big genoa and the next leg went close reach/fetch/beat as we went back to finish at the windward mark. This was the time in light airs when dropping the genoa from our sail inventory was a bad move....It was painful upto the line at sub 2 knots of boat speed. Forth on corrected time.

Not bad results, FarrOut now has 9 points with half of the 6 race series complete and 2 discards allowable.

Next week is the long distance race, so if we can stay up there then the longer the time racing then the more our rating can help us. Let's start praying for wind now. The beer locker is nice and full though!

YCW Spring Series - Race 1. You can't get closer!

A gorgeous sunny day with a light NE airflow was predicted to give us problems being the slowest boat in the IRC fleet and a dying breeze meaning that the faster boats would finish with more wind than we had. Luckily the wind died from the start so it was a problem for everyone.

Our starting tactics were good but backfired being shut out by Spindrift and subsequently by Wildfire. This meant that we were last over the line but it got better from there as we sailed directly to the windward mark. The windshift and lack of wind troubled our pre-start asymmetric kite choice but as there was no wind it didn't really matter, the well considered gybe however put us on a tight reach upto mark H - perfect. The next, and final, leg was white sail and Darren called our tack perfectly to lay the line. Farr Out was 2nd by one second corrected time to Scoline.

A good start to the series and well done especially to Dave for his first time on the boat and a good job in the pit and Taz for his first time on the bow.

Link to results: http://www.weysailclub.org.uk/race-results

FarrOut hits the Water

Saturday evening saw a smooth launch for FarrOut and Sole Bay in advance of the planned sunday morning launch. All went very well apart from the rubber from the cradle pads sticking to the anti-foul a little but we had some time to paint over these.

She looks nice sitting on her new mooring in the cove at Weymouth Harbour. I'm hoping that this mooring is going to make parking short handed really easy.

Sunday 10th April is the start of the YCW spring series and we're entered into the IRC class. Better get all the sails and stuff back on board then!

It looks nice but does it work?

The most recent maintenance task has been applying the new anti-foul to FarrOut. We've gone for SeaJet Emperor 034 which is a self polishing type. It's white in colour and is supposed to stay that way as it's copper free. It certainly looks nice when applied so I just hope that it's successful and keeping the weed, slime and critters off the hull and makes us nice and fast.

And for those that don't believe it (Iain!) that's Stephen working on his boat....

Past Glory

On my Blogger list is the Scoline blog which is kind of static at the moment so there's not a lot of posts to view, however my eye was caught by Dave's post about one of the monday night races last august:

"Behind us we watched FarrOut hoist the 'Touareg', their SB3 spinnaker, as we watched it flogging, and pulling them sideways we laughed out loud.....we had visions of them pulling that thing back in in shreds! Next time we look over our shoulder they had halved the gap, the wind had dropped by nearly 10kts and we were massively underpowered, FarrOut was on a sleigh ride and easily passed us just before B, they had managed to bank enough height to go very wide around us, which was a wise choice, if they came in close I think we would have taken them to the Spyglass for a pint!! Given the drop in wind we had no choice but to hoist the kite for the leg from B to M, but there was no chance of us passing Farr Out with that Assy. We would have to wait until the upwind leg.

We had height and speed over Farr Out on the slug back up to the finish line, but Sapphire had height and speed on us, forcing us into a tack to avoid getting squeezed out to the port layline. A few nice close tacks between us, Sapphire and Farr Out followed, with positions changing all the way up to the finish line, we just got the advantage crossed the line ahead of both of them, and watched Farr Out sail an extra 300yds or so to cross the line at the pin end, however, they had done enough, having the kahunas to hoist the assy in 25+kts of breeze made up for it and they took an easy and well deserved win ahead of RWH (who we didn't even see after the start!) and us in 3rd. "

 Stuff  like that makes me enthusiatic for the new season! It's a lovely sunny day here in Weymouth today and you can really feel springtime.

February Update

It's a quiet time for FarrOut as she sits on her cradle sheltered from the gales that are around. Over the past few weeks there has been some tinkering and gradually it is all coming together ready for launch day on 3rd April.

Steve and I have just spent the weekend on an ISAF/RYA sea survival course jumping in and out of liferafts in fully oilies. I'm pleased to say that the "visitors" lifejackets that we used both inflated perfectly with their 2003 vintage gas bottles. They will now be serviced ready for the new season. It was a good course run by Poole Harbour Sea Survival and you always learn a bit more even though it's my second time of doing it.

It's regrettable that the team seems to have broken up with Stu away to Australia with work and Dave deciding to try some other boats to see if he can find some more and different shouting. Still, a new season with new opportunities we'll see how it develops.

Fun Video - you don't wanna go on the foredeck to get that jib down..

New Year 2011

We missed the new year's day race being already out of the water but it looked like they were having fun out there even though there wasn't much wind. I took some pictures on my phone, some not bad ones of Draig as they were coming down the harbour:

FarrOut is booked with a berth in Cowes for the J P Morgan Round the Island Race on 25th June. Regular crew please keep this date free!

Boxing Day Race - Haul Out

A hectic couple of days for FarrOut post Christmas. We participated in the annual WSC boxing day race after being towed out into the bay by Rumrunner having started the engine in the sub zero temperatures, but presumably wiped out the impeller of the raw water cooling pump due to it being frozen. We also had to wash down the decks to clear them of ice but the seawater had nowhere to go, the scuppers being just solid ice plugs:

It was a good race with some Argie-bargy on the start line when all the other boats decided to mess with our planned port tack flier. Our lateness for the start meant that we hadn't had time to work on our angles and so selected the symmetric kite. We didn't do too badly and the fleet was really bunched with Rumrunner being up there as well with her brand new sails. They got past us but didn't deal with the massive shift which I must say we played perfectly dropping the kite and just trimming on the white sail as it hit us. The guys up front did brilliantly in switching to the asymmetric for the next leg and we flew up the rankings. If the race had finished at "X" we would have been right up there but the lack of wind on the beat up the harbour to the traditional finish outside the club had us scuppered. Well done to Sapphire for winning.

Fun was had by all for the last race of the season for us and the next day we hauled the old girl out of the water for a few months of pampering ready for more glory and disappointment next spring!

WSC winter series race 5

With Dave and Darren indisposed this sunday we were down to the three owners, so it was great when Steve Dadd's crew from Rumrunner / Spindrift were similarly down to three and joined us underachievers on FarrOut. Our Steve and Daddsie had carried out similar training the night (morning?) before the race and so were both match fit.

A sunny and fresh morning started off nudging the 20 knots mark but tailed away during the race and 6 largish guys and a dirty hull is definately not what we wanted by the end of the race. Paul Elson was thrown right in at the deep end with the combined pit/trimming role and he coped superbly as it's quite busy in there. I volunteered to do the honours at the pointy bit in Dave's absence and was nothing but civil to the numerous skippers I had sitting behind me. My problem with the foredeck on a Laser 28 has always been going around the front of the mast during the tacks, the triangle formed by the jib sheets is quite small and the deck slopes away making it quite precarious. I favour the laying on your back with your feet in the anchor well approach. Once I'd cleared that up I'd say it went quite well with quite a few gybes and no wraps, thanks to our new friend Neil on "human guy". We felt sorry for Scoline when their gybe didn't  go as well....

The start was good but we really could have punched a hole in the side of Excaliber who should have gone up and OCS, ho hum probably have done the same thing myself but if you're reading this Joel the next transgression will be ours.

Nice to see a new boat out there John Stevens with a J80, interesting that it didn't really get away from us upwind - we'll see what happens when they get more used to it. We were very closely thinking about buying one of those before buying the Laser.

Anyway, not a bad performance considering our many handicaps and we managed to beat a couple of other boats on rating even though we were last over the water after Scoline retired.

Winter Series - no hope

There was snow on the decks when I went to the boat to repair the broken bits from the last race. Luckily all this was gone by sunday racing, which was relatively warm for the time of year and nice sunshine.

We went well for the start of the race, but as I've said before I think that we have to treat the rest of the season as training because the state of FarrOut's hull is beyond racing spec! This showed when the wind died and we lost all the ground which we had gained and as the slowest boat in the fleet we're always going to pay when the wind dies and everyone else is so much further round the course.

The race was won by Excalibur again, they couldn't be caught by Draig in those conditions and the length of the race with the wind dying kind of gifted it to them and so the series. A deserved series win with only one blip to their otherwise straight bullets.

FarrOut will return in the new season with a painted and faired bottom and we can start again! Oh hang on, we've got a few more races yet.

Nice mini footage

Thought I'd share this footage of a mini sailing with it's spi. Not a bad tune either, quite relaxing with all this cold weather around.

Race 3, Snow on the hills.

In minus temperatures and with snow on the hills we braved it out in the bay for the third race of the winter series. The race officer gave us a hut start and a course change that we only saw within the five minute pre-start period meaning that we weren't as prepared as we usually would be. We were slightly late on the start but had a good first beat that meant we were back in it.

Unfortunately we were a bit short handed and got into trouble after the gybe mark when it was clear that we wouldn't carry the kite up the next leg even though some broaches were fun. The low temperatures must have had an effect on the gear because we had some breakages which meant that we didn't have twinning lines or a starboard jib turning block after a while. We lost time up the next beat fixing gear and changing to asymmetric kite. It was all lost after the second gybe on the ayso with a wrap from which there is no way back and we overshot the gybe mark sorting it out.

A retirement was fitting in the circumstances. No serious damage but some bits to sort out......