scott.projectsomewhere

Adam said he was going to yell blog titles to me on the water as we raced yesterday… but he didn’t. Not that we had that many opportunities, there was a lot of distance between boats at times.

I ended up with a 4,9,5 to put me in 4th overall before a drop comes in. That’s ok, but get’s worse after today’s 5th race with a lot of boats dumping a bad score.

The first race was a pretty boring affair. I started reasonably well closer to the pin, then was the first to tack across the middle from the left bunch. Chris was launched on the right hand side, but couldn’t get back on the foils after the tack and had to low-ride to the top mark. A lot of boats were covering a lot of distance trying to stay on foils, often sailing away from the top mark to do so. In the end it was Amac, Simon then me who low-rode in for 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively around the top mark. Down the run it was more of the same. Simon, Tomaz and I sailed dead downwind for the finish, while Amac reached around searching for a way to foil. Amac headed off to one corner, while the three of us got up and headed to the other.

At the finish of the shortened 1-lapper Amac was way ahead, with Simon & Tomaz putting hundreds of metres on me and coming through 2nd and 3rd.

The rest of the places were all over the map. Not exactly a great race.

The next one was another drag race. Bora and Mark launched through gaps at full speed at the boat end to take a jump on the fleet, and I tacked to the right with Chris. After an overlay on the layline, trying to compensate for the light winds, I rounded in about 9th. I seemed to lose about 100m on the runs to the boats around me, and peg back maybe 50m on the works to slowly go backwards in the fleet. Having a mainsheet strop break and going to 2-1 sheeting probably didn’t do me any favours. I crossed in 9th.

The last race was yet another drag race to the laylines. This time I picked it better and came around the first mark in 5th and held onto that for the finish. Chris did pass me on the 2nd downwind but decided to stop after that and let me take 5th.

So Amac is crushing everyone with a 1,1,11,2 for 15 points after 4 races. Mike Lennon is 2nd on 24 points, with Brad Funk on 25 and me on 26. Full results are on the DOSC site.

While 4th is not bad for now, I’m not exactly going to do much damage with a string of 5th to 10th places, so I’m going to go out on a limb and put the small rudder on. If I can get it up it should be faster. “If” being the big question.

In the meantime Amac has no reason to change anything on his boat, no reason to de-rig even…

There were plenty of interesting antics after today’s light wind race 1 of the Worlds.

Lots of snakes and ladders on the race course, with Amac clearing out to a huge lead while the rest of us went back and forward in the placings.

I started reasonably well and rounded the top mark for the first time in 3rd behind Amac and Brad. A bunch of boats closed the gap on the downwind, and I gybed badly through the gate to round behind Dalton in 4th.

Another bunch of boats came out of the right the next work and I dropped another couple of places, and on the last light lap I lost a couple more, then got a few back on the final run to cross in 8th. not great but could’ve been worse.

Amac won convincingly, with Mike Lennon coming through on the final leg for 2nd ahead of Brad and Chris.

On shore afterwards, Arnaud was changing back to an MSL10 after finishing in the teens, and Rob was changing to his MSL13 to match Amac’s configuration. Simon was again considering retirement, and I was thinking of pulling out the small rudder.

Bora finished 12th, then had Shirley Robertson with CNN take his boat for a quick lesson. After a glamour high speed pin end start, Bora re-started despite no individual recall, then had an uphill battle from there on to close the gap on the leaders.

So there’s plenty of runway left in the regatta, but a few more races like that won’t be too good for all the single digit sailors out there.

So the UAE Nationals finished yesterday after a light and shite breeze filled in.

Very tricky conditions for most, with the breeze sometimes filling in through the haze and evaporating at times just as quickly. Plenty of boats used a variety of propulsion techniques to get going. And at times the boats on foils were heading off to the corners, probably making little progress upwind towards the mark, but with no ability to tack and get back up again. The choice was to tack and stop, or to keep going in the vain hope that you could start to point at the mark eventually.

Most of the time it was a matter of picking which side you wanted at the start and heading off that way. Lowriding would have often been as fast if not faster.

Anyway, I got around in reasonable shape at the first mark most of the time.

In the first 1 lap race I did a mix of foiling and non-foiling and rounded 3rd, and was positioned pretty well for the downwind, but new pressure brought down a bunch of boats and I had to sit tight and wait for it. 4th over the line.

The next race was more of the same. This time I got hung out to dry a few times and came home 6th.

The last race was a bit of a shocker. I was in good shape, but then had to double tack at the last top mark, and managed to get stuck in irons, go backwards and hit the mark. A 360 later I had burnt a lot of distance, and again the boats behind brought new pressure downwind. I lost 5 boats and finished 10th.

So tied for 3rd with Bora in the Nationals so 4th overall. Behind Chris and Arnaud.

There was a pretty healthy discussion about pumping at the briefing for the slalom in the afternoon. Plenty of guys were not happy with the amount of ooching going on, and plenty of guys were unhappy about the prospect of being protested when they did it. The rules might change in the future but it seems for this event that if you have to bounce to get up, then you’re not going to get up. Nobody wants to start having protests (since we haven’t had one at the Worlds since 2005), but the only way it seems that we’ll avoid it is to not pump or ooch.

We can’t push up the minimum wind limit for this event given we’re already here, and can’t change the rules on kinetics now.

The other good suggestion was that nobody should be ooching to fly in the prestart, which gives the PRO the false sense that everything is fine for racing since boats are flying.

Given we’ve got 0-5 knots forecast from PredictWind for the next 5 days, it’s going to be tough going. I think we’ll see a few lighter-weights win races by legs if they can keep the boat up and foiling when others can’t. But that’s the way it is. For everyone else it will be a matter of minimising damage waiting for the breeze to get up enough. If it gets up enough.

As Riss said a few days ago… which was good advice for today as 20+ knots and epic waves made for some awesome downwind conditions.

We only got two races off for the UAE Nationals, by the last race only 4 boats finished. Plenty didn’t make it off the shore, happier to sit and watch the carnage only two days out from the Worlds.

My races were a bit tough. I snagged a plastic bag on the rudder with 30 seconds to go and had to capsize to clear it. Though after that I rocketed upwind and rounded in 3rd with Arnaud behind Chris and Bora. Downwind was not so kind to me. I pitchpoled 3 or 4 times down the first run, a few times more than the guys infront. By the bottom things were pretty spread out, and I went round in 6th behind JPZ.

I just held things together for the last lap and finished 5th, with a few more pitchpoles for good measure. Arnaud took the win by 10m over Chris. Rob was 3rd with Bora 4th.

The next one the fleet had thinned a bit, but I got off the start ok and went around behind Arnaud and Brad. Brad didn’t make the spacer mark and I was almost the same, blasting away without a mainsheet trying to weave between the waves and the mark.

By the time I got a chance to look around, everyone behind me seemed to be in the piss in the same place.

I still put it in a couple of times, but Chris’ advice to wind it down helped, and I spent more time plowing but less time upside down.

At the end Arnaud must’ve capsized a couple less times than I did, crossing ahead by a few hundred metres. Rob and Chris were similar distances behind. And that was it.

Given the number of people making it around, the RC cancelled racing for the day.

Amac did head out when everyone else was packing up. Given the Black Rock-esque conditions he was showing us how it was done. Flying high and aggressively downwind, with some similarly spectactular pitchpoles along with it.

Unfortunately the rest of the time here will probably be nothing like that.

Plenty of waves out there yesterday.

Continuing in the theme of “it’s not normally like this” we had a 20 odd knot breeze blowing at times with a nice rolling swell and a reasonable wind chop on top. Almost blowing Rob Mundle. Fun conditions for Moth sailing.

Bora, Arnaud, Simon and I went out first to blast up and back a few times. Arnaud wasn’t on form. Simon was quick with a softer mast, and Bora was smoking upwind.

Downwind was a bit more interesting. The first bear away Bora ventilated the rudder and crashed out in the first 50m. Arnaud crashed out a bit further on and Simon seemed to cruise downwind unaffected. It seemed no matter how many boats we’d start with, it would be a race of attrition to get to the bottom, with boats launching into space left and right.

The last few hundred metres to shore was the worst, as the breeze built and waves shortened up. At times you’d be heading up to avoid going down the face of the wave, only to accelerate through the beam reach and then have to accelerate again through another bear away. All the while trying to slow down to avoid a pitchpole.

At the end of the day there would’ve been more than a few bruised sailors, and a bunch of boatwork to be done, with the guys at our place staying up late working on major repairs to two boats… and the regatta proper doesn’t start for another 5 days.

Though in true form, the regatta will be nothing like yesterday. Today the breeze is significantly lighter, and the forecast for the next few days looks lighter again.

… almost.

I think I was having flashbacks of Weymouth yesterday sitting inside at DOSC. Everyone seemed to be inside drinking coffee, eating and posting on facebook while it rained.

So for the life of me I can’t work out which is the more significant of the two greatest recent inventions in the Moth class, hydrofoils or free wifi?

At least the rain cleared for a while yesterday so I could finish putting the boat together and head out for a sail.

Unfortunately the guys that built Dubai didn’t really consider that it would rain, so there’s no storm water drainage… and now there’s a pretty foul smelling run off that sits along the shoreline near where we launch. We all hoped the slick was oil, but it sure didn’t smell like it.

The 30 odd knots that was forecast didn’t eventuate, but the rest of the week is apparently set for big breeze and big waves before it goes back to sub 10 knots for Monday’s first race of the Worlds. Yesterday we sailed around in a building, shifty breeze from about 10 to 18 knots offshore.

I managed to get plenty of straight line speed testing in with Arnaud and JPZ, before doing a bunch of impromptu short races with the Swiss and Simon & Adam. The boat felt as though it was going ok, despite being out of range and locked at full lift on the rudder. Of course the big test for everyone will be over the next few days now that the American’s boats have arrived.

Time for me to get a sailing lesson maybe.