Monday 2 - race 1

This is a series that we're not fully crewed for like thursdays. Looking at the forecast earlier in the week I thought it would be nice just for Steve and I to double hand the race. A bit busy on short course evening racing maybe so it was good that Alice was able to join us as well. She seemed to enjoy herself even though she wanted to do anything but be in the middle of the boat with all the strings, so that's exactly where we put her!

It seems to have been blowing and raining forever, quel estival? We were maybe too conservative to start off with a No. 4 headsail and a reef prompting comments about our main halyard being stuck. The No. 4 seemed to be doing much better though on a "2 holes clear" setting on the jib track.

Bill Barker was OD and set a triangle sausage course which meant we set up with starboard pole asymmetric for our first bear away hoist, unfortunately the port sheet clip popped off on the hoist (dodgy bowman) so we had to hurriedly drop, clip on, re-hoist and gybe at the wing mark. This went well but as we swiped the stern of Evisa, who was white sailing, competitive Phil indicated that he'd defend and we ended up below and alongside upto the leeward mark. Rubbish, but gave us an opportunity to hurl abuse. Coming into the leeward mark we pulled off a shake reef out/headsail up/ spinnaker drop in about 20 metres of water which was fun.

The next kite leg was deep so we selected the symmetrical and carried out a nice gybe without any real problems.

It was a fun race but we were fourth out of four....Nice to be driving again though.

A photo from the monday before last when we led the fleet into the leeward mark. Nice:



I love seeing all that lot behind us.

Alice Helm's Deep

WSC's Fanfare trophy is one of the year's crew races. In fact the other two used to be Ladies races until will made them "non-gender specific" this year. We thought that we'd get a lady to helm anyway, mostly because we felt really bad for getting her to step off the boat for the light airs race the week before!

Alice did a sterling job with a deserved fourth place, by the end of the race you wouldn't have thought that she hadn't helmed a race in FarrOut before and she was telling us all what to do! The three boats ahead had much more experienced helms.



L to R: Jack,Adam, Stu, Steve and Alice

Stuck in a Calm

Disco Dave took a nice picture of FarrOut on thursday before last sitting there in no wind at all. Thanks Dave

Monday 1 Race 6

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.

New Traveller

Ooh...Harken.

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.

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.

Boomkicker

Still can't get a photo on that Laser 28 forum!

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.

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.

Adam Checks out the Tuff Luff

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.

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!

Back in the Water

All ready for the new season. FarrOut is back on her mooring. Stephen and I managed to take her for a sail for about 3/4 hour. It felt like I hadn't been sailing for ages!

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?