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......

Winter Series race 2 - a stable northerly?

A funny old wind for race 2 of the winter series at WSC, a strong northerly topping out at about 24 knots but without the real gusts and swings that you expect from that direction. FarrOut ended up with a 7th on corrected time, not a bad race, the course set was a "triangle sausage" meaning that we could use the asymmetric spinnaker on the first two spinnaker legs and the symmetric spinnaker on the deep leg. This last leg we sailed particularly well, sailing by the lee and keeping 7.5 - 8.3 knots downwind to cut the corner on some other boats only to lose some of the ground on the next beat.

The race was won by the X99 Excalibur, I wonder if they can straight bullet the series?

J'ai franchi la ligne!

Nearly There - Guadaloupe that is.

I can almost smell the Rhum blanc Agricole, and man you can smell that stuff from a distance. Been doing well recently in the Virtual Route du Rhum steering the Monococque FarrOutGBR814WeySC from a starting position of 37,000 odd to the 18,000s. Should finish this morning.

Winter Series Starts

Joel and the crew of excaliber showed us the way for the first race of the winter series at Weymouth Sailing Club. It was nice to see Richard's old boat doing so well, she always was a fast boat.

There wasn't a great deal of wind for the race and we didn't have a bad one on FarrOut, finishing sixth out of nine boats. The triangular course suited our choice of assymetric spinnaker even though it was quite deep to start off with. I thought Scoline did really well, they were off like a shot and up there with the faster boats.

Rainy and cold for the first of the winter series

Route du Rhum - Cammas Wins

There's so much going on in the Route du Rhum that it's hard to keep track. Franck Cammas has crossed in the fastest time on Groupama 3, followed in second by IDEC Francis Joyon, Thomas Coville on Sodebo is just on his way in now. In the IMOCA class my money is still on Armel Le Cleac'h.

Perhaps the most interesting is the class 40. It's worth having a read of Pete Goss' blog: http://www.petegoss.com/routedurhum/blog.php . He's really showing that he's still got it and it's great to see a Brit out there in the top flight even though by his own admission he doesn't know his boat as well as some of the other racers. Come on Pete!!!!

It's a long slog in the virtual race, I'm managing to stay ahead of Pete Jackson on Albran by taking a bit more southerly option but may run out of wind any day now!

End of Autumn Series - Race 6

FarrOut ended up tied with Scoline in fifth place for today's race. So there were more boats behind us on points than in front of us, and we beat a couple of boats over the water, we can be really happy about that! I think that we sailed a good race and were pretty fast, especially on the beat.

Good fun and all smiles. Congratulations to Joel and the crew of X99 Excalibur for the overall series win. And I think congratulations are also due to Weymouth Sailing Club where the IRC series has been well attended and given some excellent close racing. The results have shown how well IRC has worked in the mixed fleet.

Bring on the Winter Series.

http://www.weysailclub.org.uk/content/view/298/151/

Virtual Regatta - Route du Rhum

For some mad reason I signed up for the virtual Route du Rhum, however I haven't been paying much attention to my boat. I was abroad with work this week so didn't panic about changing course. I don't seem to be doing too badly though. I'm kind of demotivated as this is the first virtual regatta when I haven't been given the "pro" sails for free. In fact if you want sails and pilot and stuff like that you end up paying €20.
Not feeling flush I think we will just lazily steer the boat for free, it'll be a more chilled way of doing the race with no getting up in the night. Could the fact that I'm currently reading "The long way" by Bernard Moitessier be anything to do with my attitude?

At bl**dy Last!

Young Sam's bath-time sticky letters spell it out.....after so long with little success, the crew of FarrOut can celebrate a convincing win in the WSC sunday morning IRC series.

The race went well from the start with only ourselves and the Figaro 2 "Milan" seeing the pin bias on the line so that we could both bang a port tack flyer and cross in front of the fleet. Up a lumpy beat to M and we were third to the windward mark with only the Figaro and the Melges 24 in front of us. We held on and kept it safe, keeping her going the right way in big seas and deep runs.

Let's see more of it.

A Figaro 1 wins Solent Series!

http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/?article=154492

Well done to Black Diamond for doing so well in a Figaro. Hopefully this will encourage Richard and Simon who own Rattler. It's true that the IRC rating at 0.974 has been much better this year but I'd say that it's still a difficult boat to win in, and as us lot on Rattler managed to just pip Black Diamond in this year's Round the Island race I reckon it's about time they did some more round the cans racing (without nicking the FarrOut crew that is!).

Rattler in her Le Havre "Groupe Partouche" days.

Autumn Series Race 4

Hooray, we've got our boat speed back! This sunday's race was a cracker with a 10 boat IRC fleet. We only had four people on board but the boat was flying with her newly scrubbed bottom. The highlight was overtaking an X332 zooming along with the Tuareg ayso, unfortunately we found ourselves to leeward of Iduna and wasn't able to overtake because of their wind shadow and it took a while before we could make the move to go above her. It was quite breezy and if I headed up all I could see happening was accellerating and driving up their transom!

It all went wrong on the gybe as Dave was missing from the bow this week. Stephen's stirling effort couldn't save us from the wrap and we ended up losing a spinnaker sheet. The temporary replacement wasn't ready in time for the downwind part of the course so we goose-winged.

Top boat speed of the day 9.3 knots. Although we had a nightmare after the first reach, we did OK in the fleet and without the problems I'd like to think that we'd be up there. Roll on next week and great to see Darren back on the boat.