scott.projectsomewhere

The days seem to disappear here in Weymouth. I’ve been spending long days on boatwork and on the water, with little time in between for the poor blog.

A quick recap of the days past…

Tuesday - Reverting to type with a light and shite breeze. Lowriding as Simon foiled in circles around us. Everyone got bored fairly quickly and headed in, while I stayed out to sail against Mat, who thoroughly thrashed me. I think he has this displacement thing down pat.

Wednesday - Another windy day. A long day on the water lining up against anyone and everyone. I was testing the Truflo Sail from Baz I used in the NSW States. The sail was quick in the really fresh stuff, and equal in the rest. So I was happy with it. Though it’s a big risk to use something different in the KA monoculture we have. Probably too big a risk right now. Again control issues downwind, so ditching the stiff small carbon wand for something with a bigger surface area to give me some more push against the waves at speed downwind.

Thursday - Another windy day, and I have never capsized so hard in my life. By the time I was ready to hit the water, most of the boats were back on the beach, so I spent plenty of time blasting around in and out of the water by myself. In one of the stacks I hit the water so fast it took me 30 seconds to catch my breath. In another I managed to wrap myself around the shrouds and cop a nice graze through my wetsuit from the top of my hip down to my groin. Close but it could’ve been worse. I found that my wand system was skiing out from the boat to stop ventilation, but then grinding into the topsides with the maystick, stopping it from moving forward and providing just the right amount of friction to completely ruin the responsiveness. I have no idea how I made it downwind, if you could call it that.

By the time I was ready to call it a day, John was on the way out, so I blasted up and down with him for longer than I should’ve. We weren’t that far apart pace wise, though John wasn’t slow. The Swiss surprise package Arnoud cruised downwind with us a couple of times - absolutely destroying us. I have never seen someone push the boat so hard in those conditions and not crash. He’s either got balls of steel or no brains or both. Or he’s just really good. Probably the latter.

Friday - Another moderately windy day, with a short on-water session against some 30 boats on a short course. Arnoud from Switzerland is still fast, winning a few of the races. John is also quick, leading and winning most of them. No surprises in the rest, with Amac very quick, and Mat and Simon also being up there. I was about 4th or 5th each time, nothing special upwind and on the border of control downwind. Not happy with that.

After the time on the water, it was time for more boatwork, with a good amount of time spent butchering my sail numbers to ensure I had 50mm spacing between them. They look appalling, but at this stage I couldn’t give a ….

So the regatta starts with a practice race tomorrow, but given the forecast for 30+ knots it’s unlikely we’re going to hit the water. I am really happy losing all that weight over the last few months given that it’s been windy - and is forecast to be windy for the rest of the week.

My form guide is still fairly on par, though I’d definitely be upgrading John and Amac, and I’d be putting Arnoud well inside the top 10. I’m not particularly positive about my chances, given that I’m making too many changes too late in the game, from changing wands, to changing gearing, to cutting up sails, to putting holes in the head to give more luff round… it never ends. I’m just a touch off the pace uphill, but woefully out of control downwind. Hopefully wand revision number 5 might help with that. Hopefully. I’m sporting a bit of a limp given my impaling on Thursday, so I’m looking forward to the prospect of a blowout tomorrow… that’ll give me some more time for boatwork… which I’ve been doing too much of anyway.

So what will tomorrow’s regatta bring…

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at 3:34 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.