Who was out this weekend?.....

The Medway was wild in the afternoon.  Lots of minor repairs required when the fleet got back to WSC.  We capsised twice but had many hairy gybes and we reached what we call "warp factor",  that's when the humming of the centreboard goes so high pitched you can't hear it anymore.  Still we finished which is more than most.

I can see we are going to go down the pecking order this year we may be amongst the better teams in the 4000s but we have a handful of new 29ers in the fleet now and they are hard for us 4000s to match let alone beat.  It really has to be blowing like it was on Sunday for us to go faster than them and then we also have to stay upright.  We have a good fleet of 4000s now though with 6 out on Sunday - but only 2 finished the afternoon race.

Light winds on The Medway.  Not enough in the morning to buck the tide so although we sailed faster than enybody else we still failed to get across the line and the race was abandoned.

The afternoon was better.  We had one of the clubs famous "around the creeks" sort of race.  A bit processional really but a chance to see parts of the river we never normally visit and a chance to race against our colleagues in the slower classes although that makes it a rather short race for us fast boats.

We came about half way after applying the PY - we'd normally do better than that but I had the rig really taught and powerfull (and I know it doesn't work but I get tempted by the power).  The lowers were too tight, this locks the rig rigid and the main is full and powerfull but draggy.  It doesn't respond well to gusts and the slot is too tight.  It gets counter productive because all the power is at the expense of forward drive and there are large leeway forces and so I tend to oversheet 1. to point like the other boats and 2. to stop the main from being backwinded.  The result is a crew who has to be hyperactive and a boat that makes a lot of leeway.  We can't adjust the lowers on the 4000 whilst sailing but I should have stopped for a moment and eased the rig tension that would have at least partially corrected the situation.

No sailing next week - Race Officer Duty.  Exasperation all round.

Finally got my 600 out on the water!

saterday was a good force 3, and was honking along and only capsized 3 times in  2 hours... not bad for my first time!

sunday, raced my dads 4k with my bro (for the last time, now on ebay with the vortex). there was no wind, took 35 minites to do 200m we finished 2nd across the water to anohter 4k but 5th overall. Later on when the breeze picked up, me and my bro both took are 600s out and were only just trapeezeing up wind.

A good weekend... now back to school

is that out on the wire to leeward simon?