We managed to get out for a monday night race this week. Steve, Stu and myself were joined by Darren in a rare appearance and we picked up Steve Fraser off a pontoon as we headed out the harbour. This turned out to be a strong team, which was what was required after we had a cracking front row start and selected the correct side of the first, short beat, this put us in a commanding position and we found ourselves leading the fleet of faster boats into the leeward mark. No mistakes were possible.
As always Folio pipped us at the last. We had a great tussle with Scoline though and were in front of them most of the race and had a photo finish. A great race and it was smiles all round.
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
Monday, 7 May 2012
FarrOut retains the YCW IRC Spring Series
Although the entries this year were low. Farr Out defeated the Beneteau 36.7 Wildfire to take the IRC spring series for the second year running.
Sunday morning started off light with clouds showing that a sea breeze would arrive, swinging the breeze right and building to superb sailing conditions in the bay. As we were sharing the bay with pre-olympic match racing and about 500 kids qualifying for GBR in the oppies, the race officer Derek Abbot set two races of windward/leewards over by the cliffs. Unfortunately only three boats turned out for the line: Wildfire, us and Effusion (Elan 295)the only entry in PY, Orion having been damaged in last week's storm.
At the club it appeared that we only had three of us Alice, Adam and me. Not enough to sail the boat effectively against fully crewed opposition. Luckily Nick Sharp, my old skipper from Pink Stink and Marionette days was available so the helm was given to him so that I could work the middle of the boat. This was a great solution to our problem and with Alice on mainsheet and Adam at the bow we were all ready to sail the boat well. This we must have done because we get to keep that big glass bowl again.
Now we've just got to win IRC autumn and winter series.......
Congratulations everyone.
Sunday morning started off light with clouds showing that a sea breeze would arrive, swinging the breeze right and building to superb sailing conditions in the bay. As we were sharing the bay with pre-olympic match racing and about 500 kids qualifying for GBR in the oppies, the race officer Derek Abbot set two races of windward/leewards over by the cliffs. Unfortunately only three boats turned out for the line: Wildfire, us and Effusion (Elan 295)the only entry in PY, Orion having been damaged in last week's storm.
At the club it appeared that we only had three of us Alice, Adam and me. Not enough to sail the boat effectively against fully crewed opposition. Luckily Nick Sharp, my old skipper from Pink Stink and Marionette days was available so the helm was given to him so that I could work the middle of the boat. This was a great solution to our problem and with Alice on mainsheet and Adam at the bow we were all ready to sail the boat well. This we must have done because we get to keep that big glass bowl again.
Now we've just got to win IRC autumn and winter series.......
Congratulations everyone.
Friday, 4 May 2012
Old Dutch in the Dark
Thursday 1 racing has become an all PY affair as for various reasons the two or three IRC boats available are racing with the W class for this series. I must admit having more boats racing together is fun.
Last night's race was sailed in fairly light winds prompting Stephen to request the presence of a genoa. I was expecting another sail to arrive but he brought with him "Old Dutch", a sail that I'd forgot that we even possessed. It's probably 20+ years old and was made by Hagoort sails in Holland.
This sail caused much hilarity as Adam the bowman had never had to tack a genoa before and ended up in some entanglement:
He was overzealous at one point dragging the cloth down the side of the boat and ended up "hiking" off the leeward guardwires holding onto a sheet and having to be rescued by Steve and Jack.
A chaotic race that was probably too long for the conditions saw us sailing on into dark with lights on. The follow my leader instinct meant that most of the fleet went to the wrong windward mark, then the wrong gybe mark. After this we bailed out and changed course for the correct windward mark. There were 3 finishers, Crazeology and Evisa who had both sailed the right course and us who had doubled back.
Here's the view we had of the committee boat as we came to the finish line:
The great thing was that with no traveller (new Harken one on order) and a 20+ year old sail we were excellently fast out of the start. Well done team for a funny and unusual race.
Monday, 30 April 2012
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
Instructional
On board video sems to be getting more prevalent as the technology allows it. There's been some great stuff coming out of Spi Ouest 2012, with the J111 team Blur from Sweden getting video out before the professionals.
This one below is from Noel Racine's JPK 10.10 Foggy Dew, a regular in RORC racing. Anyway it's great to be onboard a well sailed fast boat, you can always learn stuff.
Check out 1.45, sacrificing height for speed; 4.02 nice windward drop; 5.00 driving away from dirty air, speed up and tack away; 7.00 wide mark rounding and sharp cut in for the inside line.
This one below is from Noel Racine's JPK 10.10 Foggy Dew, a regular in RORC racing. Anyway it's great to be onboard a well sailed fast boat, you can always learn stuff.
Check out 1.45, sacrificing height for speed; 4.02 nice windward drop; 5.00 driving away from dirty air, speed up and tack away; 7.00 wide mark rounding and sharp cut in for the inside line.
Monday, 23 April 2012
Spring Series 2 and 3. Close
On a blustery, rainy sunday morning the second and third races of the YCW spring series were held. Again, a disappointing show in IRC with just ourseleves and Wildfire the 36.7 turning out.
We had a bit of an issue as Adam was unavailable to do the bow, and try as I might I just couldn't get more people to join us. So Alice, Steve and myself were joined by Ben who was really thrown into the deep-end on the foredeck. Because of this we decided that we would only use the asymmetric and gybe downwind if we had to. Whilst practicing before the race we had the kite wrap of all wraps and went so far downwind that we were late over the start line. It all went better after that in race 2 but the downwind leg probably lost it for us, although we did judge the gybe angle perfectly and that's something that isn't as easy as it would appear. Second by about 2 mins corrected.
The second race of the day started with some controvosy as we had a tussle with Echo at the pin end, after the gun and them probably closer winded than we are. We soon drove over the top and were away. The triangle leg was good for us as we tronked along at 8.5-9.0 knots. The run on the sausage leg was deemed so deep pre-start that we had no other option than to rig a symmetrical kite. We did well down here with the wind swinging to put us on the mark without having to gybe, phew! We lost to Wildfire by 3 seconds corrected. Happy about that as they've got new sails and a full pop-star crew, and sailed well enough to deserve it -especially after the slightly dodgy result last week.
Upwind we sometimes had issues and we didn't really have enough weight on the rail. Ben and Alice both did exceptional jobs. Good fun even though it rained.
We had a bit of an issue as Adam was unavailable to do the bow, and try as I might I just couldn't get more people to join us. So Alice, Steve and myself were joined by Ben who was really thrown into the deep-end on the foredeck. Because of this we decided that we would only use the asymmetric and gybe downwind if we had to. Whilst practicing before the race we had the kite wrap of all wraps and went so far downwind that we were late over the start line. It all went better after that in race 2 but the downwind leg probably lost it for us, although we did judge the gybe angle perfectly and that's something that isn't as easy as it would appear. Second by about 2 mins corrected.
The second race of the day started with some controvosy as we had a tussle with Echo at the pin end, after the gun and them probably closer winded than we are. We soon drove over the top and were away. The triangle leg was good for us as we tronked along at 8.5-9.0 knots. The run on the sausage leg was deemed so deep pre-start that we had no other option than to rig a symmetrical kite. We did well down here with the wind swinging to put us on the mark without having to gybe, phew! We lost to Wildfire by 3 seconds corrected. Happy about that as they've got new sails and a full pop-star crew, and sailed well enough to deserve it -especially after the slightly dodgy result last week.
Upwind we sometimes had issues and we didn't really have enough weight on the rail. Ben and Alice both did exceptional jobs. Good fun even though it rained.
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Monday, 16 April 2012
YCW Spring Series Race 1 - Victory
Victory in our first race of the season, albeit somewhat hollow as there were only two IRC boats coming to the line; us and Wildfire the Beneteau 36.7. The upshot was that we won by over two minutes. Hooray, but not much of a confort as we definately would have lost to Effusion the Elan 295 if they'd had an IRC cert. Got to be in it to win it I suppose.
It was an all in IRC/PY start.The race started well for FarrOut with a perfectly timed pin end start, keeping our air clear and diving to the favoured left. When Wildfire tacked back in after rolling over us, we went as well to stay with the race rather than banging the left corner which was definately a lifting tack. This meant that Orion the Achilles 9m got to the windward mark before us, though by the wing mark we'd caught up and they messed around on the gybe and we were able to cut inside and overtake.
Wildfire and Effusion romped away, but we knew that the race was not with the other PY boats. It was on the deep run that it all went wrong for us with a horrible spi/headsail wrap. We impeded Orion's progress and let them through as we sorted ourselves out and got back in the groove.
Not a faultless showing from us, but enough for a win. You have to presume that Wildfire had issues and were messing up as well in order not to win. But I guess on short course racing with lots of sail handling and in a fair amount of wind it's difficult for the bigger boat to beat a Laser 28.....well sailed or not!
Thanks to Iain Jones and the race team for an exhilirating race to start the season off for us. Glad to see that Steve Dadd, sailing on Orion, is back fighting fit after receiving a blow to the head and getting carted off to hospital.
It was an all in IRC/PY start.The race started well for FarrOut with a perfectly timed pin end start, keeping our air clear and diving to the favoured left. When Wildfire tacked back in after rolling over us, we went as well to stay with the race rather than banging the left corner which was definately a lifting tack. This meant that Orion the Achilles 9m got to the windward mark before us, though by the wing mark we'd caught up and they messed around on the gybe and we were able to cut inside and overtake.
Wildfire and Effusion romped away, but we knew that the race was not with the other PY boats. It was on the deep run that it all went wrong for us with a horrible spi/headsail wrap. We impeded Orion's progress and let them through as we sorted ourselves out and got back in the groove.
Not a faultless showing from us, but enough for a win. You have to presume that Wildfire had issues and were messing up as well in order not to win. But I guess on short course racing with lots of sail handling and in a fair amount of wind it's difficult for the bigger boat to beat a Laser 28.....well sailed or not!
Thanks to Iain Jones and the race team for an exhilirating race to start the season off for us. Glad to see that Steve Dadd, sailing on Orion, is back fighting fit after receiving a blow to the head and getting carted off to hospital.
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Spring Series starts this weekend.
We managed to drag a full crew out onto the water last sunday for a bit of pre-season training. Yes, we were very rusty and it was a worthwhile exercise. I think we all felt much better after about 50 gybes!
The start of the Weymouth Sailing Club season is this weekend with the Tony Bennett trophy - a pursuit race which will be won by a Squib or a Merlin Rocket. For us bigger boats it would have been a useful practice but we'll keep our powder dry for the YCW spring series which commences on sunday 15th.
Just to get us into the mood, here's some nice video from last weekend's Spi Ouest, check out 0.45s!
The start of the Weymouth Sailing Club season is this weekend with the Tony Bennett trophy - a pursuit race which will be won by a Squib or a Merlin Rocket. For us bigger boats it would have been a useful practice but we'll keep our powder dry for the YCW spring series which commences on sunday 15th.
Just to get us into the mood, here's some nice video from last weekend's Spi Ouest, check out 0.45s!
Monday, 12 March 2012
Back in the Water
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Winter Yard Work - new bits
The yard work is progressing ready for launch on 10th March, early this year due to losing a couple of weeks out of the sailing programme because of the olympics.
We have a new Excel V12 backstay tackle:
Also the bowsprit now has the bobstay fitted in 4mm wire and the tack block is fitted on a soft loop using a bit of pipe insulation to make it stand up, this may not be a permanent solution. We will still be using the pole downhaul as a tack line for the ayso so need the snatch block, we are considering having a permanent tack line.....but where to fit the clutch?
We have a new Excel V12 backstay tackle:
Saturday, 14 January 2012
Sprit Fixing
A day of maintenance on board FarrOut. Last week we had to remove the pulpit to feed a new wire for the bow light, it seemed a good idea to also remove the stainless bow fitting. Luckily a good fabricator friend of mine quickly turned around a fierce fixed bowsprit construction:
The extra out the bow should make those asymmetric gybes slicker and get the luff tighter for reaching. Hopefully the added projection will enable us to float the kite deeper.
Great stuff, now to declare it to IRC......we now check out with a longer STL, still shorter than the class pole though.
Great stuff, now to declare it to IRC......we now check out with a longer STL, still shorter than the class pole though.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Boxing Day Photos
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| Rattler broaches on hoist |
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| Rounding D |
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| FarrOut hoist |
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| Tacking down the harbour |
Sunday, 1 January 2012
Delayed Post
Apologies for not posting much recently, the Christmas season has been especially busy this year. FarrOut had a great Boxing Day race for which we invited Darren to have a go at driving her. The most notable part was the general recall of the all-in crusier class start. I'm sure it was caused by my saying to the crew that if we were over the line they couldn't have seen us on the committee boat due to the amount of yachts bunched there and the size of them.
We were certain that our second start was not goint to be as good as the first but sure enough we were on the front row again; there's been nothing wrong with our starts in recent series.
The results (on PY) weren't of much interest to us as we were probably stuffed beating up the river in a dying breeze. That coupled with a poor deep run where we were stuffed by the white sailing Seaquest 32 "Spindrift".
On wednesday 28th FarrOut came out of the water to sit for a while on her cradle, not for long this year, we just gotta try to get all the work done. The most remarkable thing about the haul out was the state of the anti-foul, we just had a light covering of slime and this was easily pressure washered off. We weren't expecting this and immediately rushed out and bought another tin of Seajet Emporer in white!
As we're out of the water we once again missed the New Year's Day race, which was a shame but you have to stop at one point. Sam and I went to watch from the stone pier and Weymouth Sailing Club though.
We were certain that our second start was not goint to be as good as the first but sure enough we were on the front row again; there's been nothing wrong with our starts in recent series.
The results (on PY) weren't of much interest to us as we were probably stuffed beating up the river in a dying breeze. That coupled with a poor deep run where we were stuffed by the white sailing Seaquest 32 "Spindrift".
On wednesday 28th FarrOut came out of the water to sit for a while on her cradle, not for long this year, we just gotta try to get all the work done. The most remarkable thing about the haul out was the state of the anti-foul, we just had a light covering of slime and this was easily pressure washered off. We weren't expecting this and immediately rushed out and bought another tin of Seajet Emporer in white!
As we're out of the water we once again missed the New Year's Day race, which was a shame but you have to stop at one point. Sam and I went to watch from the stone pier and Weymouth Sailing Club though.
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| Draig takes line honours in NYD race |
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