Who was out this weekend?.....

Well, decided on Friday to pack the 200 up and take it over to the sea. Crew sorted and boat on the road.

Come Sunday sun was out and wind was a F3 the race, a long distance one from the club to the Nass Beacon near to West Mersea, a distance of about 15 miles (land miles) took us about 3 hours.

Was fantastic reaching with the kite up until we took a swim, gave up to then have to cross the race course the RS Feva's were racing for an Open meeting to get to the beacon.

Anyway, fab weekend and now have the lobster look, I must remember to slap on sun lotion, I must remember to .............

It was windy on the Medway on Sunday.  Wind whistling in the rigging especially in the afternoon.  Brilliant sunshine, a strong breeze and blue sea - it can't get much better for blasting and racing too.

I helmed the 1st race and the start was off-wind.  We were the only ones to carry the kite and it took us too deep so we rounded the 1st mark last but we soon had a 4000 and a 29er along side.  We couldn't get through their lee and so ran off deep eventually heating up the angle and getting ahead.  Meanwhile the leaders were well away.  We also missed a mark and went back so it was a lonely sail back up river and against the tide to finish with only those that had dropped it in behind us.

The 2nd race was my turn to crew and my guest helm (Brian Whitmey from BBSC) to show me how to do it.  The wind was up a bit too.  Glorious reaches with the kite, me well back on the rack (astride the helm) and blue sea all around and the wail of the foils as we luffed and dived over the waves.  We were well away from the Osprey, the other 4000s and the 29ers with one 4000, and a 5000 just in front and the 800s and a skiff - then we dropped it.  The Osprey was back with us just as we turned for the long beat back.  My helm loves to sail it free and we planed back up wind throwing in tacks whilst the Osprey just plodded up wind with no tacks for almost a kilometre.  If we hadn't fluffed one of the tacks we would have had them.  Closer to the club and in lighter winds our advantage was not so great but both us and the Osprey were making on the leading 4000.  We never caught either but we'd had a great sail and knew we had the performance if only we could have kept it upright.  Still we were not used to sailing together so we felt good about our result all the same.

Facinating to be crewing the boat in a breeze and from a flat wiring perspective a great view of the rig.  I'm sure the jib leach was a bit closed at the top and so will be tweaking the jib tracks or the tension of the lowers next week.  I'll also be sailing a bit freer as I now realise I've gradually lost the touch of really driving off to get the beast planing up wind.

Yep it was windy in the Solent too...

 Thank you but with such glorious conditions, it would have been hard to get all duff shots.

I've plonked a gallery on my site: http://www.isabellejackson.co.uk/rtir08/

The name embedded in each image is probably pretentious, but I got rather miffed one day when I saw some of my photos being sold for £30 a print!