Crap Day.

Weymouth, Dartmouth, Essex... all over really.  Brown Sails... love them.

Edited by kneewrecker - 04 Sep 14 at 9:35am

All part of the game, isn't it, or you'd be sailing a Squib?

http://www.squibs.co.uk/

Originally posted by Medway Maniac You are complying about having to hike, so a bigger sail would just have made it worse, and upwind no faster.

Au contraire, no it wouldn't have improved the upwind bit, but the downwind bit would have meant I'd have regained my upwind losses, which is the normal course of events, in fact pretty much all that is open to the lightweight once the breeze is above his threshold. It wasn't as if it was terminally windy, it was me being stupid and given I don't normally sail single handed it wasn't going to count for anything series wise so I thought well I've never used this small rig, funnily enough toward the end of the night when the wind dropped a bit further I started gaining ground upwind, but still couldn't make my normal gains off wind. I guess it wasn't me doing anything it was the rest of them slowing down upwind and I stayed about the same speed.
Either way the biggest rig you can handle still remains the best racing tool, exactly the same as windsurfing and I screwed up, exactly the same way I might have done chicken rigging windsurfing.
All the pain, but no gain.

Back on the sea last night and crew less, it was a perfect sunny evening low water 6-8 mph when I got there, then the wind knotched up, to 6-8 kts, then 10-12kts then 13-14kts average at which point I though damn, I'd better break out the smaller sail, 1st time on the sea single handed and all.
Big mistake, as usual, gun goes wind drops then the slow realisation that even in its newness an 8.4 isn't holding or pointing anything like a laser and by the time the top reach arrives out to sea the wind is less (our coast has a thermal accelerated band close in and 200 yards out you're left with the residual gradient wind which was still the 6-8 knots my man in his Laser cruised by underneath me, I am going mental.

The one area the jolly old EPS normally has an advantage over the standard Laser on fresh water is down wind, not tonight , by the the first gybe virtually the entire mackerel fleet had had it's evil way with me, by the bottom mark I'd been violated, by everyone except my chum and fellow lightweight who'd switched to his radial and was part of the decision making process that had condemned me to another 40 minutes of wrong sail hell and just as I was thinking it couldn't get any worse the tide switched on and I kissed the top mark. (didn't even use my tongue). Howls from my Phantom friend who'd gone too far inshore and missed a shift so I'm now spinning as well.

The two main Laser men are gone and I'm left battling it out with the 'old people' both of whom are in front of me and cruising, leaving wide berths round marks over standing left and right, funny you only seem to notice the pain when you're behind, although it had dropped it was still necessary to do that hiking nonsense which is ten times more painful on the sea, especially when the tide turns the course one sided.

Long, painful, (I'm not even going to go into the cramp that sets in)story cut short I did eventually manage to overhaul the Phantom and the Laser of my work colleague both of whom have no place occupying the same leg of the course since they've done no practise all year and I've raced almost continuously all winter. Two tail ender 500's I also kept at bay, but the Contender, two lasers and the Hornet were long gone, I did come close to my Lake protagonist until the lapping Contender forced me to wrong tack out to sea in a forlorn hope rather than be buried, the end result was just as inevitable dropping further back, why do we do it, even though we know it's wrong, the tack is hopeless, why do we still take it?

Whatever as crap a race as it was, I enjoyed the night and realise I've got to toughen myself up, all this lake sailing is making me a softie..

Originally posted by kneewrecker Heads Up.... it's going to be blown off at Hythe on Sunday.... expect 'Crap Day' update monday morning.

You know what? It needn't have been, the wind went west so the sea wasn't exactly huge, but because of the forecast no-one really showed, that and the fact the day before's big gusts had blown the spinner clean off the club anemometer, so another crap sailing week (for sailing dinghies and three more lost days) Lets hope things improve this week.