scott.projectsomewhere

The past weekend saw an interesting collection of boats get
together the inagural Brass Monkey regatta at the Sydney Flying
Squadron. Everything was there from 49ers, Foiling Moths, 18s,
NS14s, 12s, Cherubs, 14s, 16s, F11s, 13s, A-Class, F18s, F16s &
Canoes. A bit of a mix for one course…

Saturday saw a ugly gusty Nor-Wester, coming off the land over
North Sydney to make for pretty ordinary conditions. I’d be
surprised if anyone came off the water without stacking it at least
once with the breeze fluctuation from 0-25 knots and shifting
through 45 degrees or more.

Now a normal boat would be difficult to control in those
conditions, but one that flies is so so much harder. Not only do
you need to keep the boat flat (the foils reinforce any incorrect
heel - yay), but fore-aft trim is now critical, as is height.

Needless to say I struggled, and so did the boat. It was a good
test of extreme conditions, and a wakeup call for what’s ahead in
mastering this little beast.

In the end I had some enourmous stacks, some amazing fast rides,
and came in sore and very tired. The gantry didn’t make it through
unscathed, bending one of the support bars somewhere in the race -
I have no idea where.

Sunday was an absolute write off - losing a cable-end while fitting
the centreboard meant I had to pull the boat back out of the water
and sit on the beach while the rest of the fleet drifted around -
probably not such a bad mistake.

Anyway… back to the repair shop again…

In other news, Dave & Gooby battled around the course on
Saturday in the 49er, then came out fighting on Sunday to score a
2nd and 4th, equal with the scores from Nathan Outteridge & Ben
Austin on his comeback regatta in their brand spanking new 49er.
Emmett cleaned up as usual, though a broken mast late on Saturday
wasn’t too great. On Sunday he tied on points with Clyton &
Tai.

Rohan battled around in the tricky conditions on Saturday as well,
looking way more comfortable than myself. He retired at the end of
the 2nd lap with a broken downhaul yet at the top of the 2nd lap
was only about 50m ahead… or was that 1 lap and 50m? He drifted
around for a bit on Sunday before heading home in a not so positive
mood.

Did I mention SFS was a total pain in the ass to launch from…
leads me to ask… why?

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2005 at 12:00 am and is filed under Moth, Sailing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.