Went for a spin in the most breeze I have been in for a while, about 17 maybe 18 knots! Even Glenny was coming for a play but he had some probs and didn’t make it off the beach. In any other class people would read that and go ‘wow he must have had a major’. In the moth fleet its normal for your sail to be over in 20 seconds sometimes, its just the luck of the draw. I think thats why there are not too many uptight dicks in the fleet.
Anyway, he took my boat for a bit of a sail, as he was keen to get out and do some sailing….. Rob turned up on the Assassin and rigged up. Had a good little sail with him and by the looks of it he has finally got it sorted to sail downwind without being killed and sent to heaven three or four times each run.
I had the thing absolutely wound up and was really motoring without having to spill, which is a first and it feels so good, more pies please. I cracked tacking again so thats an improvement. So all in all i learnt a lot, had a sweet as sail, saw a turtle, raced a kite surfing chick.. well actually, perved at her first then sailed past her! I was cruising upwind on 16 knots, amazing really comapred to two years ago when we thought 15 upwind was quick hey boys…. time flies!
Peace!
Its got to that stage of the year where you just canot get a tan. The only thing you can do is rig your boat, then go inside for half an hour to cool down before you go sailing. Sailing is measured in bottles of water, not what you want to achieve.
Anyway, i was sailing for all of about 25 second when the head pulled through on my raptor, this is because i am a dickhead and forgot that it has to plug into my mast…. oh well.total de rig and re rig in 45 degrees, Ive learnt my lesson quickly.
I think Ive sorted my teething problems with the sail and it felt so good upwind. I am still struggling a little with a new sail and being heavier. In breeze that i would power though before hiking flat out I am having to almost sit in… Weird feeling and takes a little to get used to it. The raptor really does seem to be very sensitive to over sheeting and you can feel your boat die as soon as its wrong. On the whole though, it feels better each time I sail, so moving in the correct direction.
My SK90 arrived this week to so its time to build my rig and adjustable forestay, that is one gasmo that I do like. Not sure my system will be quite as refined as others but it will do what i want it to do.
Lots of shit flying around the old web at the moment, how very exciting and controversial. Never happy to see things go to court in our industry, its just no good for anyone involved, lets hope they all sort out their stuff.
No, not really at all. I got out for a sail on Friday with my new sail. It looks good on my mast, possibly the only person to be using a mach two mast after I heard on the webpodcastthingy that all the peeps buying raptors are buying CST as well. I like my softer Mach two rig and I dont have any more cashola to be buying a CST. I have put another purchase on my downhaul though as the Raptor seems to really like to be completely cranked till its balls upwind.
No chance to line up with the white hope, we were both at the yacht club on sat afternoon but there was FARK all wind and it was 46 degrees during the day……. and I was a touch hung over…. There looks to be some good late evening breeze coming in this week and weekend so I will go out again and try some different battens. I just signed in for the Euro Champs, looks like there are some slippery sailors signing up to race. I am excited to get onto some flat water and see what the new sail mast combo can do with me tipping the scales at 80.1 Kgs the other day. I think thats a bit heavy so I might loose some, I dont like feeling like a square human. Safe to say, I am now absolutely crap as crap can be at tacking my boat.
And how Rubbish are the UK at football, are we really kidding ourselves that we will get much better…. its always the same. I left the pub at half time the other night. Congrats to Scott B for winning the 18 footers and to Mike Lennon for winning the open meeting on the weekend.
Just catching up on some net mothing and read that lots of peeps are going for the adjustable wand for waves. I am not sure I understand how it works….
As I understand it, the only time you are in serious trouble is if the waves are bigger than your main foil.. At this stage if does not matter what length your wand is at, you are swimming as soon as you make a mistake.
Also, by winding down the ride height you ride lower and therefore neutral is further back too. Personally I do not like sailing with my wand out the water at any time, I feel very outta control and stop concentrating on sailing and start worrying about my good looks. With a shorter wand, doesn’t that mean you spend more time with the wand out the water??
In my thinking, by the time you need to shorten your wand to go downwind, its going to be a question of who capsizes less is going to do better so isn’t it better to practice technique instead of hoping the boat is going to save you?
It was 50 degrees in the sun the other day up at the boat building yard on their eltronic thermometer. Its only the beginning of June as well so this looks like its going to one long long summer. However, there is 30 knots forecast on friday night and 23 to 24 forecast on saturday.
I was talking to glenny last week and he reckons he needs to go for a sail as he has only sailed once since the worlds and I am on about 4 or 5 sails since then. Probs a good day to get the velocitek out and see how fast we can go on saturday i think. Friday is taken up by a stag do and tonight the ministry of sound are playing their first set in the Middle East so going to check that out. I suppose saturday will also be a good test of if all this effort to put weight on was worth it or not.
Beriut was awesome, I recommend to anyone. Its basically a mix between Greece, Southern Italy and Cyprus. If there were not bullet holes and Arabic writing on walls you would think you were in Europe. Also, somewhat suprisingly, all the people are extremly friendly. Its a shame they are so close to all the trouble and its probably not the best time to go right now, I cannot imagine they are very happy about the flotilla getting nailed just off their border. I have ruled it out as somewhere to live though, as there is not a lot of wind at all.
The richest sailing race in the world was last weekend, and we were out there to watch it. Sultan got away to a flyer, but lacked boat speed for numerous reasons. The boat just seemed sluggish for some reason, i really wanted to get them to put a tweaker on the leech of their big sail, just to see if it would make a difference in the breeze. There was a little chat of them opening the rule so others could race. If that happens I will get one like a shot and do some of the big races. Something I did find very amusing was the start of the race. There were 100, 60 foot shows lined up and anchored. One of them put their sail up and then so did the rest….. in my book, all were OCS as the starting flare had not gone…. but not here, restarts are bit of a problem when you have two anchors for your support boat to pick up and then re tow your boat into position.
Looking like I will be on the IOW for Cowes this year, if any mothies are over lets have rum. My plans might change drastically within the next month though, fingers crossed.
