3rd of the Sunday Series - another 2nd place

Just back in from a lovely week on holiday in southern Brittany, it was a short sleep and down to the boat for the 3rd race of the WSC sunday series. It was raining off and on and blowing quite hard so it was disappointing that there were only three of us, Stephen, Adam and myself. I elected to do the middle of the boat bit with Adam up front hopefully being able to stand up more due to the new "Kiwi Grip" which Stephen has applied.

The course was three rounds of a triangular course with only one leg spinnakerable with a a white sail reaching leg. Bit of a dodgy course maybe but suited us as we could sail the kite leg at about 120 degrees apparent wind with the asymmetric kite which was stable and powerful in the breezy (25 kts+) and gusty conditions under the raining clouds. Our first beat was pretty dreadful but the sailplan that always seems to be fast for us these days (No. 4 and a reef) plus the powerful kite legs gave us a second place on handicap. There's no catching Draig in this series with straight bullets. We'll try and be better opposition next week with more crew, Scoline were double handed this week and Rocket were struggling with getting their ayso to fly..

3 Lasers in Weymouth

Hopefully Moondog won't mind me nicking their photo from the JOG Weymouth in July...

Moondog, Blazer and FarrOut the other side of the harbour.

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!

Still Waiting

We didn't go out racing this Thursday as people are away and I'm waiting for child No. 2 to arrive. Rattler weren't there either as they're down at Falmouth for JOG week.

Darren went dinghy sailing in the club 420 "Milo". I've been hanging around all week expecting the baby to come at anytime so decided that I'd pop down to the club anyway. It was such a nice evening with around a 10 knot breeze that I thought it would be fun to take FarrOut for a sail single handed.

A great night for it as it's Lifeboat week so there was the big orange boat in the bay as well as the ILB and the WSC safety rib etc.. Plenty of people to pick me up / stop the boat if I went over the side!

No spinnaker work this time, we'll have a go at that next time. I'm getting used to sailing her under the tiller pilot. You just think that you want to sail off into the distance though. Coming back onto the mooring is the hardest and where you have the potential to get into the most trouble, I got away with it but it wasn't pretty!

That's what you call a mark rounding!

Thursday 2, Race 4

Following last weekends regatta, I got to the boat early to see if we could do anything about the rig settings. We now have more of a banana mast and it seems to have improved our upwind angles.


It was a lovely night for sailing with a 10-15 knot breeze and warm sunshine. Jack had brought along Adam and Ben so we had six on board FarrOut. The start was great with all boats positioned well but in the kind of way that 6 inches either way would have meant collisions. I'm pleased to say that with the new rig settings and the weight on the rail we were fast off the line.

We managed to stay pretty much up with the fleet all the way around but once again, much to our annoyance, Scoline were on top form and comfortably winning all the way round.

A nice triangle sausage course was set by Bill Barker meaning two ayso legs with a slick outside gybe, followed by a deep symmetrical kite run with a gybe in the middle there.

Fourth on corrected time for this race - we beat Rattler though!

10 Years Ago......

I found a post on the net mentioning FarrOut in the Oban regatta in 2001. Good to see that she once went at 14.4 knots:

http://www.petestack.com/sailing/reports/2001/oban.html

Weymouth Regatta 2011 - I'm exhausted!

It was a hard regatta on FarrOut, try as we might we were really struggling for crew especially in lots of wind on friday (upto 35 knots) and just a little bit less on saturday. Sunday started a little light and then developed into a lovely breeze and we had the correct five on board. It was the kind of breeze where Stephen on main trim could rest his arm muscles and concentrate more on the shape of the sail.

Sunday afternoon gave us our best result in IRC3 with a second to Scoline, it was fun to do a windward/leeward course and we didn't really make any mistakes.

I think after the weekend we need to check our rig tensions because we don't seem to be as fast upwind as we used to be.

Friday's long distance race was especially tough for Stephen and I double handed. The "death or glory" spinnaker hoist in that kind of wind made us lay down for a while...generally with the size of the seas and the screaming wind it was survival mode on the little lake racer!

Disaster of the weekend was ripping the clew out of the "Touareg" spinnaker. Not terminal, it will be back.

By the way... 2011 Quarter Ton Cup starts today, if they can find any wind. Check it out at  http://quartertonners.wordpress.com/

Henri Lloyd Weymouth Regatta

This weekend brings our annual town regatta. Entries are down this year with only four boats entered in IRC3. Such a shame as it's always enjoyable and a well run regatta.

We'll always enter, but I wonder if it's the entry prices that put people off. We have so much "free" racing in the borough with the various club races and under the YCW banner that it comes hard for people to pay for a good weekend - something that is usual in the Solent and elsewhere. But, it's only because people volunteer that the "free" racing is available. For the keelboat regatta to survive whilst the dinghy regatta thrives it needs people to consider it their duty to enter.

It's only by offering large fleet racing that we can encourage visiting boats to take part. We have the best sailing waters in Northern Europe, we can't keep it all to ourselves can we?

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 this Saturday

The annual pilgrimage to the J P Morgan Round the Island Race happens this weekend. FarrOut will be going across to Cowes this friday ready for an 0700 start in class IRC 3 on saturday morning for the anti-clockwise tour of the Isle of Wight.

Forecast isn't looking too bad at the moment. Downwind there, fairly breezy race and downwind back. Can't get better than that for us but we'll see what happens.

There are 1908 boats entered this year which is a record and a reported 16,000 sailors. I guess we'll just try not to hit anyone else and rock hop around the bottom of the island to try and stay out of foul tide.

FarrOut is going with four of us this year Stevo, Darren, Disco Dave and myself. Could probably have done with one more but maybe we'll pick up one along the way!

Two other L28s are entered, Nemesis in our class and Zorra in the ISC class.

It's always a special day so looking forward to it.

Mrs Mitchell's Salver - Victory

The first ladies race of the season gave us some problems, with Tracy on the other side of the world the natural choice was Celia for the helm position being a regular crew member. Trouble was that she wanted to sail her 420 instead, after a week of trying to organise an alternative helmswoman God intervened and made it blow fairly hard. This meant Celia was able to drive FarrOut and I would be able to put my 100kg on the rail!

As it was we ended up with 8 crew, 4 of whom were under 21. This may seem a lot to fit on the side of a Laser 28 but we were sailing under PY and it turned out to be perfect. Stephen rigged a mini video camera to the boom so hopefully there will be some footage to post but it may just be dead after the dunking it got in a massive broach.

Paul Barford was race officer and set us a triangular course. Of course we had the balls to hoist the Touareg bringing on what must be the ride of the season so far. Boat speed topped out at something over 11 knots as FarrOut lifted her bow and planed in pursuit of Rattler taking lumps out. This was exactly the kind of weather you need in an L28, flat seas and 25 kts+ and everyone sitting at the back trying damn hard to keep the rudder dug in.

There's now a trophy for Celia to pick up at the prizegiving. Well done to her and everyone.

Thurs 6/6 - Rattler wins it. Scoline gets series.

A nice bit of wind here in Weymouth at the moment the olympic hopefuls in the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta have been having a marvellous time in our bay.

We had a bit of trouble pre-start when the No. 3 luff came out of the tuff-luff and was stuck during a change down to No. 4, we did well to get the course and get to the line. Ended up OCS and had to dip back, Scoline doing to us what we did to them last week.

Stephen drove and did a good job around the square course set by the dinghy class Captain Tim Bowden. We had an issue though...a lazy spinnaker sheet managed to get itself stuck between the rudder and the hull meaning that we couldn't gybe and had to white sail one leg which effectively lost us the race. All we knew though was that there was rope stuck underneath at the stern so we daren't turn the engine on. Taz tacked us back up the harbour and we sailed onto our mooring. All fixed now.

Rattler sailed well to take the win but managed to break a few bits on the way round. Didn't get the series though as Scoline had done enough.

Next thursday is a ladies race so hopefully Darren's wife Kerry will be our helm, monday will see some more dinghy sailing for me in the club OK. I really was into it last monday - might have to get me one of them!

Thurs 5/6 - training

As the series is out of our grasp, we decided last week to have a bit of a change around in order to ready ourselves for the next big challenge of the Round the Island race as due to the length it pays to change the helms around. Taz was off rock climbing so Jack got to experience the foredeck in the light winds, Celia helping and flying the kite, Me in the pit, Steve on mainsheet and Darren driving.
Our start was good with Darren pushing Scoline off the line and OCS to a cheer from Rattler. We then went alright until a patch of no wind opened up on us and we saw Rattler and Crazeology sail away from us. Next thing we know we were sailing too high and too slow and Scoline got in front. Still that's training for you. Next week it's Stephen's drive...