Who was out this weekend?.....

I had a bit of a 'mare of a weekend at Netley SC with the 600 for the RS youth thingies. On Friday I got well and truly lost on the way there, ended up driving through another little village and getting lost in a police training centre, before getting lost in the country park looking for the club. Having finally found the place and rigged up I was looking forward to some decent racing, by the time the practice race started the wind disappeared, up the first beat there were some monster shifts coming through and gybing 200s coming downwind towards me. I was handicap racing against a 300, 1 400 and several 500s at this point because Dan (holandsd) hadn't bothered to show up for the friday. Anyway the practice race didn't go well, so hanging around between the races the wind came up to a solid force 4 possibly a 5 at times, with me still on my light winds settings. In the 1st real race I struggled upwind having the mast slopping around everywhere because of my light wind rig tension, which felt horrible on the wire. I managed a 4th. Between race 2 and 3 I put my rig tension on and immediately wished I'd done it earlier. The 3rd race was going really well, I had built up a nice lead over all the 500s and was confident I would win it on handicap, then coming into the last gybe mark to go onto the reach back to the comittee boat, I rolled into the gybe nicely, pulled the main over, popped the battens and with a little ping the port shroud decided it had had enough, and over the rig went. Nice and cleanly over the bow, no other damage. Luckily a guy from the circuit was on safety boat that day and leant me his shroud for the rest of the weekend.

On Saturday I arrived in plenty of time to rig, feeling suprisingly OK after going to a 21st birthday party the night before. There was no sign of any other 600s in the dinghy park until we were launching I noticed Dan on the beach. At last, some competition. The wind was again solid force 4, except it was more the top end of a 4, probably a 5 for more than just the gusts. I got a crappy start to the first race, came off the line behind the other 600, who had hopelessly little kicker on and proceeded to sail through him. I just managed to get past all but 1 of the 500s on the reach to the outer loop of the trapezoid course, then got forced to sail an asymetric's line down the run by the 500 (I was suprised I could keep pace with them even though they had their kite up). Anyway I cleared them on the next windward leg and pulled out a little lead to finnish 3rd on corrected time. The 2nd race was a dream, I got a good start, 1 500 tried to leebow me but i sailed higher and faster over them, much to their annoyance. I was 1st at the top mark and from then on did a horizon jobby, finishing 1st by about 2 mins on corrected time. I was horrendously late to the start of the third race after rolling in to windward on about the 1 minute gun, due to a shoddy tack. When I finally got to the comittee boat and ground the kicker on to go upwind there was an almighty bang and my nice vectran kicker snapped. The kicker I had made up just before the LOSSC open meeting about a month ago. It didn't even go on a splice, it just snapped in the middle of the vectran. So I retired and managed to bodge this up for the next day with some spare line and some help from Dan.

Camping on Saturday night was not looking appealing with heavy rain and lots of wind, but several beers and rum and cokes later and I didn't mind that much. Mr Holands and his rather leaky tent on the other hand, had rather more problems.

The Saturday night got quite amusing and I was feeling very unwell before the start of Sundays racing. I got an awful start to the first race, rolled by a 500, then the foils stalled out and I was reversing away from the line head to wind, and when I finally sorted that out and started heading upwind my bodged kicker started slipping. Without enough kicker on, and miles behind the fleet, I gave up and went in to sort the kicker out. Coming up the beach I noticed some horrible holes in the side of the boat, possibly trapeze hook, more likely a careless launch and a few waves dropping the boat on it's trolley. Anyway it wasn't leaking so a bit of duct tape and a kicker fix later and I was on the water in time for the 2nd race. The wind had come up a lot and been shifting around whilst I had been ashore and we had a postponement for the wind to settle down, in which Dan and I were enjoying blasting around in the 600s. As the 200s 5 minute gun went I was just behind the comittee boat and heading out of the way, when my pintle snapped on my tiller. A bit of sailing around trying to see if I would be able to get in without it confirmed I was stuffed and the boat promptly fell over and left me sitting on the daggerboard, explaining to Dan that he would win seeing as I wouldn't be able to complete anymore races, whilst some guy on the comittee boat sat there taking pictures of me waving at the safety boat trying to get a tow in.

It was a very frustrating weekend, but I still managed to beat Dan (the other 600) by 2 points despite scoring 4,DNF,3,1,DNF,DNF,DNF,DNC.

Im sure he will be along in a bit to explain why he arrived so late for the racing, and why little orange triangular tents from 20 years ago are so much better than modern ones.

Fantastic Medway Regatta.  Two days of brilliant sailing, generally breezy and mostly sunny with a huge entry (getting on for 100 boats).  29 in the Fast Handicap which was won by Neil Asby and Nick Lett in an 800.  Only one other 4000 though and that was our arch rival who we just beat overal.  We thrashed the Osprays and the 59er but were surprised to find ourselves beaten by a Contender and a Buzz who we never saw in any race.  That's the trouble with handicap racing.

We came 8th but we could have done better if we hadn't been class racing with our rivals.  Still all that place swapping was exciting.  Generally they are faster downwind and we are faster upwind so you can imagine they would get us and then we'd get them.  Mixed in with that is the 59er who is faster downwind and slower up.  Only in the first race did we beat them all soundly and in the second we had a swim.

OK, it snapped right at the base, where it was spliced round the shackle on the hull, or possibly just up from this on the bottom part of the final cascade. I think it was 4 or 5mm vectran, I can't remember exactly. I suspect it had something to do with the tight radius of the shackle. I haven't yet sorted out whats going back on the boat. There is a bit of a lack of funds for sailing at the moment, which is a little problematic after this weekend.

I've just thought it's possible the vectran wore on something near the shackle or possibly some grit or something stuck under it, I don't know.