scott.projectsomewhere

But there’s a me.

Or a John. As the case may be.

Rig selection was a bit of a toss-up for yesterday’s 18 race at the League. There was a 15 knot North-Easter blowing early, but there was also plenty of cloud around and a lot of variation in the forecasts and readings. Most teams left it very late to make a choice, and when they did, most went #2.

But we didn’t. Along with Omega Smeg and Keith Piggin, we went for #1 because it just didn’t look that windy.

In the end, it wasn’t such a bad choice. We had plenty on most of the time around the track, but we figured it was better to be low-hooks rather than bending in the lulls. The race started well for us, lauching out of the line with good speed towards Bradley’s, then taking a couple of sterns after the first tack and mixing it up with the top couple towards the top mark. We didn’t quite have the pace to hold it with the leaders, but we still rounded in 4th.

The rig selection came into it’s own on the run, taking Munster and Delami by the first gybe, then Barnabas on 7 by the wing mark. We led only marginally around the bottom, and through the first cross, but then just couldn’t hold on in the puffs. 7 walked away upwind as we pinched and stalled our way up the work, and by the end they’d put enough time in to stay ahead down the run, and keep ahead for the rest of the race. Unfortunately we didn’t get enough light spots in the breeze to get back in touch.

We ended up about 1.30 behind at the finish, with Munster another 2 min + back in 3rd.

So not a bad result.

But in the end we would’ve probably ended up in the same spot if we’d went for the little rig, and it would’ve been a lot easier.

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We also had some fun measuring in the new boat in the morning. With the light-weight fitout we’ve gone for, and some weight savings almost everywhere, we came in at 7.5kgs under the 170kg minimum.

The new Rag weighed in about 1kg lighter than the new 7, even after Sam had the unenviable job of draining the bucket loads of water that somehow managed to make their way inside their otherwise dry hull. Sure the leaves had to be washed out, but a good drenching of everything else prior to weigh-in can’t hurt either. Given how far ahead the guys are, it’s great to see them leaving no stone left unturned in the effort to stay ahead.

With just under a week to go, I’m all set for the Australian Sailing Development Squad camp on Bob’s Hamilton Island.

The 49er group is up first, sharing the first week with the Laser Radial girls, the RSXs and the 470 boys along with a full compliment of coaches. Along with our Olympic rep Nathan, we’ve notionally got 4 49er teams attending. 3 established teams from NSW, VIC and WA, and myself and Jasper Warren, who don’t seem to be fitting into a campaign as such. But if I’m teamed up with Fang, I might have to step back into steering one rather than being on the front. Shouldn’t be too hard.

There’s also a full program of stuff going on during the week we’re there including individual fitness evaluations from the AIS, physio sessions, psychology, technical stuff. Plenty on. So much for laying by the pool in the sun.

There’s definitely been an awful lot of planning and preparation put into this, the logistics of getting everyone there, scheduled, fed and accomodated is in itself already pretty awesome. It’s great to see Yachting Australia putting in the effort to expand the Olympic program again at the low point in the cycle.

I fully expect to be sworn to secrecy with a whole ream of confidentiality agreements once we’re there, so the blog might be on hiatus… for a week. To fully appreciate it, I will also be suspending disbelief for the week and will do my best to keep my cynicism undercover.

But then I could just keep blogging the details. It’s not like anyone involved actually reads this right?

The rapidly diminishing value of the Australian dollar is slowly starting to have an effect on prices for all our imported gear.

Which is a shame really. For example, we are seeing Velociteks fly out the door at an increasing rate, but we’ve just found that they’ll be bumping the price for Australians by about $200, or close to 40%. I think that’s going to dampen sales potential just a bit. These prices will kick in from November 1. So get in quick if you are thinking about one.

The same goes for guys like Bladerider and the Mach2, with Bladerider taking a hit in their AUD sales margin for now with only between a 0-5% price increase yesterday, and the Mach2 approaching 30k delivered locally with taxes.

Sure I can deal with collapsing stocks, declining real estate values, nationalized banks, government bailouts, recessions and rising unemployment… but try to up the price on my toys… and I’m pissed.

The SailCam.tv guys have stepped up this year with their coverage of the 18 footer fleet.

The video from Sunday’s race is all there, with some good commentry from Jacqui and Killo. They’re doing a much better job than last year, but there’s still room to improve. It’s a huge step up from the “Steve Jarvis” dribble that went to air a couple of seasons back.

I reckon the live commentry is great, but they need to talk it up a bit more. It’d help if the guys doing the commentry can see what the camera is on, since there’s a lot of times when they’re talking about something that is unfortunately happening off camera.

They also need to know the sailors and their stories inside out. No excuse for not knowing who’s on Thurlow Fisher for example, and where they’ve come from. Same goes for everyone else, what boats are new, what teams have changed, who the new skippers are, who’s using new kit. Should be pretty easy to do the homework on all that and be able to keep the accurate and relevant talk going when all we’re seeing on the screen is boats going upwind.

Would also be worth having a quick chat to the winners on shore to find out their ideas on the race… slowly but surely building up the profile and personal stories behind the fleet.

But that’s not to take away from what they’ve got going on. There’s even a big improvement from the race last weekend, so hopefully they’ll be fully sorted come the important races in February.

Seabreeze and BOM got it wrong yesterday. We all looked at the forecast and the breeze in the morning and decided to safely go for the #1 rig on the 18s, which in hindsight was not the best choice.

The Rag, 7 and Fiat got on the water early for a bit of a tune up. As we launched, Geezer again failed to draw breath as he asked if the start was early today? No, it was just a couple of learners going out early to work out how to tack and gybe.

Anyway, being early-on-the-water was a bit of an eye opener. It was a bit breezier than we expected, but we assumed that it’d be windy at Bradley’s and light by Beashel, which is pretty standard. Ummm… no.

By the time the start rolled around, it was low hooks. The first work was still a bit up and down with the breeze going pretty hard left to right. We started well, but couldn’t cross out of Bradleys and ended up doing a few hand brake turns while ducking starboard tackers on our way out. We didn’t really recover well up the work from there, but still rounded in the top 5 or so, this week taking our 1-minute handicap advantage on the first lap rather than the last.

The former Manly 16’s team on Thurlow Fisher were smoking up the first work on their first hitout with their new rig and recut main. They lead easily to the middle mark, but came unstuck by the time they got to Shark Island.

We weaved our way through the carnage downwind to round 4th or 5th on the way back upwind, watching 7 and Active from behind again.

The wind kept building and despite shortening the strops, we maxed out on our vang again. The next couple of laps were a matter of hanging on, with a lot of boats littering the course after failed bearaways and dodgey gybes.

At the finish, 7 and Active decided to sail above the finish line, then Seve stepped off the boat during the last gybe to the line, and Active sailed back and through for another win, with us coming through for 2nd, and 2 minutes off our handicap.

Thankfully we’ve got a scratch race next weekend. So at least we’ll have a better guage of where everyone is at.

Only 10 of the 22 boats actually crossed the finish line this week, which given it’s only week 2 and it was top end big-rig, it’s probably to be expected. The excuses will surely start to run out as things drag on towards February.

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Saturday was not so windy thankfully, and for the first time in a while, I managed to take the Moth sailing and not break a main foil. Phew.

We had 4 boats at Woollahra for the 2nd race of the season, so the fleet is still building slowly. John’s boat has been sold to a new sailor, and a new shipment of Bladeriders is due in November, and Ben’s replacement mainfoil arrives this week, so hopefully we will slowly build a more regular racing fleet. Hopefully.

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thedailysail.com is running Frank’s article with a nice photo of the Rag, and the new 18’s site has a bunch of good photos.