Battle Of the Classes

Wow, what a fantastic day.

I felt really fast today, finally attached a burgee to the mast (that helped).

Results tomorrow, but pleased to announce that having started 2mins behind the RS100, I finished neck and neck on the finish line.....I would have been way in front if I hadn't caught my tiller extension in the elastic at the transom at the leward mark and had to stop to unhook myself.

It was just enough to give the 100 time to catch up and hang on for the last part of the race.

Can't wait to race them on open water, it was cramped conditions today to say the least.

Loads of boats on a thin course, although we were really lucky to get the breeze blowing up and down the dock.

Great fun.....more more more.
Pictures with kind permission of Mark Jardine http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/

London Boat Show Battle of the Classes

Well I will be there....

Packed the boat up today for the first time since putting her together from new.

Everything has its own padded bag, wings, mast, rudder, foils.

De-rigging and loading up ready for towing took exactly 35mins, excellent.

See you all at the Boat show then.

P.S.

Happy New Year people!

Bloody Mary 2010

......Froze my nuts off!

One piece of advice.....when the huggy bear label says to wash on a cold wash and not tumble dry....follow them instead of shrinking them and splitting your crotch when getting the air out of the drysuit.

Managed to rip a hole the size of a grapefruit in the crotch of my huggy bear underneath my drysuit, which after the second capsize was enough to drop my core body temperature down to a level where I was really struggling to concentrate on righting the boat....so I thought it maybe a tad too cold to perform well enough.

My hands were toasty, but I felt really chilly.

I should have worn my shorty inside the drysuit.

While I was sailing the spray that was coming over the wings etc was turning to sleet and snowing in my face.

All my sheets where frozen, kicker would not adjust, traveller car ropes were frozen and when I went to hoist the spinny for the second downhill run the cleat and 5mm sheet had frozen to a block of ice.

Not to mention the sheet of ice on the wings.....MENTAL.

It was really really good to race against other D-Ones and I was really glad to say I was up the front end which cheered me up.

My second capsize was in a mentally huge gust which just wiped me out with the kite up.

It was the same gust that snapped Andy Rice's mast.....a build fault on that particular mast, mine was absolutely fine, glad to say I had no gear failure whatsover, apart from my faulty huggy bear.

Had great fun, but wish it wasn't so bloody cold.

:o)