Who was out this weekend?.....

Well I spent the three day weekend out sailing every day. Had some mates come down with their boats to the Blackwater so was out jollying in a 200 and a 400. Got the kite up, and hurtled down the river, bow lifting and loved it. First time had it going well.

Spent Monday in a Pico with little bro racing in the cadet fleet, great fun hiking out while he steered through the waves.

More sailing time needed!!!!

Had an absolutely knackering weekend!   Was at broadstairs practicing in
a radial.
SATURDAY morning, did a long run directly offshore out to some channel
marker then a nice long slog of a beat back. It probably wasn't that far
but considering how slow and painful the radial is...... it was a long slog.
Made it back to shore in time to join in with the two club races.
SUNDAY was the big day. Started off with the two morning club races to
get warmed up and then went back to shore to wait for the others to turn
up. Then in the afternoon 3 radials launched with a rib and a
cameraperson to get some footage of us. It was a very VERY long upwind
slog to a channel maker some way along the coast giving everything I had
and trying to keep in sync with the waves. I was very sloppy and wasn't
quick at all compared to the other 2 radials.
Going downwind was absolutely brilliant and the one reason that makes
the radial worth sailing, big breeze and good waves. I didn't have much
problem getting back into downwind laser sailing but there was lots of
niggles I wanted to work out.
We repeated the long upwind slog 2 more times before we were all happy
we got what we were going to out of the training session.

The vid footage taken of all three of us gave lots of comparisons of
different ideas and variations in style and was worth it's weight in
cocaine!

MONDAY was the Dyson Dash, three back to back races in a good sized
handicap fleet. It was well worth it to top off the weekend. In the three
races I managed to clean up a lot of my racing.

All in all one of the most productive weekends I've had in several years. It
highlighted a lot of weaknesses and flaws in my sailing and I know
exactly what to work on.





Edited by Doug.H

CVRDA tenth anniversary. Lots of interesting and unusual boats including FD "superdocious". Lots of wind and very few breakages considering some of the boats and masts are over 50. Some very pretty restored boats and some upgraded workaday. Great to see them all out and blasting not hung up in some museum.

Round the Isle of Sheppey Race 2009

There were about 140 boats out for the annual Round the Isle of Sheppey Race.  Excellent organisation and a great race to be part of.

13th place - not bad for a boat with a deep daggerboard.  In truth we did capsise once because we embeded in a mudbank and we had several other groundings which held us up.

The wind was up a bit from the forecast and so the long downwind sleigh ride to Warden Point was wild.  Being a a long race we were a bit conservative and didn't wire but soaked deep and by going offshore were able to ride the surfs and didn't lose out on those inshore.  Our rivals in the 59er were pradictably drawing away with their light boat and big spinnaker.

Hardening up at Warden Point we were still able to kite but it was tight, fast and furious and I suspect the depth was marginal since the rudder stalled on a couple of occasions even though we were very upright, or perhaps it was weed?  Its a funny feeling doing 20Knots and a rudder that's all floppy.  This is where we passed most of the slow handicap boats.

Turning upwind at Shellness with the tide under us it felt very windy and the chop was very short.  We started to gain on the 59er which wasn't far ahead and there seemed to be Blazes everywhere.  The conditions obviously suited the Blaze as they were difficult to pass. It was impossible to tell where the shallows are and we carved one deep furrow and capsised in 3 feet of water.  This let our rivals in the 59er get away.

Once upright we were passed by the M20 Vampire cat sailing on a handicap of 573 (way faster then a Tornado).  They seemed to go past so serenely - but then the good guys do always make things look easy.  They were soon followed by the Hobbie Tiger which won the race (when am I going to get the ride I was promised by the agent)?

Then into the narrower part of the Swale where there was a well sailed white Scorpion.  We should have got past him easily but another brief grounding and his canny use of the shifts made this quite difficult and only achieved when it freed a bit and we could plane away.  We were still mixing it with the Cherubs here and it was good to see a couple of them simply sailing and not breaking.  We passed them though, they just don't have the length and our 59er rivals were now in sight again.

At the bridge we passed the 59er and were told we were only the 10th boat through.  It was ding-dong with the 59er for the next leg which was a fetch, but as it freed the 59er gained and passed and then we grounded again.  The 4000 has a very deep board, probably 150mm deeper than a 59er or most other boats - so a bit of a liability around the island.

Around the corner to Queenborough was deep so up with the kite but a sloppy gybe (going too slow) and we were in for another swim.  Then a tight spinnaker reach through the moorings was just too tight and my crew was losing her bottle so we dropped it and 2 sailed to Garrison Point where in truth it was probably too tight and windy for the kite.

Emerging from Garison the finish was in sight, up with the kite and our rivals were in sight but untouchable.  There was also another damn Blaze!

We finished in 3¾ hours so not exactly a long race but great fun and some boats were still finishing at 6:30 in the evening. I'm suffering today with aches and pains, its not often you get to do ¾ hour on one gybe, but then you have to remember there are 125 years of sailing experience in the boat. 

I'm going to do it agian next year and I regret missing it for the last decade or so because I thought the 4000 would not be suitable.  I would emplore all those in the South East and even further afield to be there next year - if you can do it in a 4000 or a M20 cat you can do it in anything.  If you miss it you are missing one of the great British sailing experiences.

did the round sheppy race, made it half way round before the boat sank and had to be to a shore by a trawler!

amazing run downwind tho catching the fast fleet up after having started 3mins or so late.