scott.projectsomewhere

It’s been a busy weekend of boatwork…

Two 9-5 days of fiddling with bits and pieces while John and I waited for wind.

Saturday didn’t cooperate til late afternoon, when we blasted off for a bit of upwind sailing. Unfortunately the breeze died off when we turned around, and we had to sail home in absolutely no wind. Not easy for John who hadn’t yet inflated his wing tramps.

Sunday looked more promising. A nice 10-20 knot gusty westerly was blowing. It was the perfect opportunity for the new owner Luca to take the boat out for a test flight. A bit over an hour later I had the boat back, and John was almost ready to hit the water again.

We flew around for a bit, and started to tune upwind… but that didn’t last long. John’s handiwork failed and his rig came down within the first couple of hundred metres.

Not such a good start to the day.

Anyway, I continued flying around for another couple of hours, joined by Luka (not the same one as earlier) for a bit while he tested out yet more foil setup configurations (unfortunately a quicker one by the looks). We were to join in the club race at Woollahra, but my rudder box cracked in one of the big puffs and I thought it best to take it in before it got worse… that and I was buggered after almost 3 hours of cold, wet and windy sailing.

So more boatwork to finish up the afternoon… and more again for the week.

Never seems to end.

Interesting article in the SMH about rich Sydneysiders… with the following quote:

But the findings don’t surprise Clive Hamilton, the executive director of The Australia Institute, who says Sydney is rapidly becoming a city of “the haves and have-yachts”.

Does a Moth count as a yacht?

Not the best conditions for racing a foiler Moth yesterday at St George’s Anzac Day race.

Things started off in pretty much a drifter, and then slowly improved through the three laps (plus the extra one done just for good measure).

Alan was first to foil in Phil’s Chainsaw. He led round the first top mark, followed by Luka and myself. I then had a good lead around the wing mark before Alan again led Roger (lowriding) around the leeward mark.

But then a nice bit of breeze on the next upwind allowed me to pull ahead and I led around the rest of the track, slowly increasing the margin with each leg.

So I’m pretty happy with how the boat is going. Still plenty of improvements to be made to it (and even more to be made to my sailing!), but I’m happy that I’m getting faster and faster each time I go sailing.

There was plenty of talk on shore about why the Bladerider was lifting earlier than Fastacraft and HT Foilers, and plenty of talk about Phil’s new P&B sail… though not really anything conclusive.

More racing at Balmoral this Saturday, and the BYRA marathon the following weekend. John should make the racing in his new BR provided his wing tramps and centreboard arrive in time.

And the sun is now shining for another day in the office.

What about this for a new coach boat to keep up with the Moth?

It feels a bit like that when you’re driving through Sydney with a shiny-black-carbon Moth on the roof of the car.

I reckon every 2nd car going past had someone craning their neck out of the window to see what the ridiculous looking contraption on the roof was… it was sort of interesting to see the expressions on their faces (but maybe not so good for concentrating on the road).

And that’s even before it starts flying around on the water…

Rumour has it that Julian has been pushed to add more sail to the Women’s 29erXX after the light winds in the Hyeres High Performance Trial event.

It’ll be interesting to see what they come up with…. but why not just send all the boats to Garda (or San Fran) and see how they fare.