Who was out this weekend?.....

Originally posted by Medway Maniac Originally posted by Doug.H I spent all weekend in a Radial to see if I could still sail one..... So did you confound your critics at the club who said your success was all down to the Streaker PY, or merely confirm their suspicions?

Sadly there weren't many boats out.  However on the saturday it was fairly breezy and two of the full rig guys jumped into a radial to race against me and I pulled out a fairly beasty lead.  On sunday What fullrigs there were, I stayed with all the way round the course finishing just a few seconds behind on the line.  So far so good on that account but having been sailing for the whole week I was feeling extremely lethargic and generally struggling to keep going.  I expect this weekend when I'm feeling alive and fit, I may hear such comments as "well radials always have the advantage in these conditions" or "It was a complete lottery out there". 

Doug

Helped out at the sailability regatta at Rutland Sat & Sun, excellent fun, great crowd of people.

Been to prestwick this weekend. Saturday was RS300 class training followed by the scottish champs on the sunday. Both days over 20mph. Nice big waves to surf down. 2 EPIC days of sailing. Big grins all round when we came off the water!! 
Managed to come 4th on the saturday which was pleasing considering everyone else was at least 15kg heavier. Big thanks to prestwick volunteers for putting us all up on the couches instead putting us in the rain and 30knots of wind, being friendly, welcoming and hosting a great weekend.

Took the 5000 out saturday nice and gusty had a capzise before the start sailed like a trooper doing the average laps in 7 mins umm big course i think not.

Sunday out in the vareo chased the 600 and 300 all the way round beating both across the water in the first race and about a minute behind the 600 in the second now that was a great weekend of sailing

Medway - it was sparkling sailing in a force 3 - 4 SW this Sunday.  Windward starts to a bouy upstream, and then off down the river much of which could be done by kite - but no all - due the sinuous nature of the river.  In both races the 800s were gone and enough wind for us to leave the 400s and similar behind.  You might think this would be processional but it certainly wasn't. 

The 2 4000s (us and our rivals) battled it out all the way down river and there was the 59er (and a 5000 having a nightmare) in contention along with the odd 3000, 29er and a 600.

In the first race we got away nicely and left our 4000 and 59er rivals behind but the rival 4000 is good downwind and if its deep then the 59er comes into its own and so we were all close together at the most leeward end.  However we have the best windward performance and so we gound the 59er down and got right on the tail of the 4000 when they dropped the tiller during a tack and we were through.  Only a mile or so of the race left and the wind was freeing so we thought this would be processional - with us in the lead.  We rounded the corner and could see the club in the distance but it would be a bit tight to carry the kite and our rivals were now well behind - time to be conservative.

Horror struck when I next looked over my shoulder, our rivals were in a freeing gust and were really blasting and working their way up to windward and then they popped their kite.  There was a damn 29er with them too.  Soon they were over us and and dropping the kite in front as they rounded the mark for the short final beat.  We couldn't catch them.  The only consolation was that the 59er was out of sight.

Race 2. The rival 4000 got a cracking start and took a nice gust downwind to the corner of the river.  We did well, keeping the 800s and the 5000 behind us on the tight spinnaker reach but we were all hit by a massive header sending many swimming.  I managed to get my crew back on board from her swim on the end of the wire by diving across the boat but we had to drop the kite to negotiate the corner.  The rival 4000 had non of that and was gone - he must have been feeling good because he'd done a mile or so and no 800 had passed him yet.

We took back some distance and so did the 59er on the subsequent downwind legs, and by dint of good judgement on the shifts we were back on there tails by the most leeward part of the course (or was it just luck)? 

Our now infamouse upwind speed now came into play.  They covered as best they could but after a mile we were through, after another mile they were a 100m behind and and so it went on until they were almost out of sight when we finished.  I had shared a little secret with the 59er at lunch and they too had better upwind speed and challenged the other 4000.  We meanwhile were washing down the boat - oh joy.