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)

Uneven Speed

So upwind its slower (obviously) but downwind in a blow is amazingly quick.

Because I started so late the Musto Skiffs caught me in the first beat and we all round the windward mark together.

Kites went up and as we all caught a huge gust we burned across the whole top of Queen Mary from right to left and gybed past the bund and down towards the clubhouse-ish to the leward mark.

By the time we all reached the leward mark I was approx 15-20 seconds behind the last skiff.

Now I reckon that is really good speed.....and it was really good fun keeping up with them.

Upwind of course they spanked me, but that is to be expected.

When I was near the K6 and went off on a broad 2 sail reach I left them standing.

I was really happy today.

:o)

Learning the hard way

Well today was up and down around 18knots and a tad chilly when racing had finished.

I had a bit of a cold and was feeling a bit below par, but soon forgot about it once sailing.

It was the Pursuit Race today running roughly the same format as the Bloody Mary.

So kind of important that I got to the start in time!

Unfortuneatly I had to launch to leward of the bund and sail round which made me reall late (gutted)

So with a handicap of 950 I was supposed to start at 12.32 but actually started at 12.40 ish with a K6.

This ruined my handicap chances completely, however I carried on for the practice.

I have realised that I have been making it quite hard for myself upwind, by not letting the traveller off enough.

Today I wacked it a long way off and was planing quickly to windward. Something I should have done weeks ago.

Happy Christmas

For all those of you who have shown an interest in my blog and future visitors.....

HAPPY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

See you all at the Bloody Mary!