Thursday Night is Race Night

Last night was the first of the fun evening races at BBSC.  The idea is to encourage everyone to add a little bit of competition into their sailing.  The format was a simple out-and-back one.  This meant that there was only one mark and so it was easy and quick to set up.

Several people turned up on all sorts of boards, from full-on retro longboard racing kit to 130 L freeride boards. This did make it hard to figure out a fair approach, but it was decided to ignore the differences and simple race for the fun of racing against one another.  With a "one, two, three, GO!" the first race started and it was soon clear that the retro longboard still stood head and shoulders above the newer kit in the very light winds, but even so it was good to see the youngest sailor, Dominic, first to the mark (with only the smallest of head starts).  I was not far behind, but managed to fall in as the dodgy sliding mast track and grip-less board conspired to undo by cat like balance (these old race boards are tippier than I remember).  This allowed Nick (on full course racing gear) to sneak past me and Dominic and hold off Chris for the first victory (although will be disqualified by the Race Officer for having raced in the past and also having more skill than is allowed under the Rules).

As the first race ended the wind become even lighter and more flakey so most sailors spent the rest of the evening free-sailing practising lightwind freestyle (I will claim the world's slowest duck gybe).

All in all it was good to simply be out on the water.  Next week we may see if we can organise a one-design race on Starboard Rios and 5.5m sails.  More in the next report.

What to do if your fin screws are way too long?

Just shows that it is worth checking your kit before sailing it.  I arrived to find that my fin screws were too long and the fin would not fit tightly in the box.  With a bit of luck I found just enough washers in my tool box to make it work.  

Not very fast today...

I had the chance to sail at Whitstable yesterday.  There was plenty of wind, about 18 to 24 knots.  The only thing was that it was bang onshore and high tide.  This makes it rather hard to get out as the groynes are only about 20 yards apart which means you have to swim out against wind and, in this case, tide so that you can edge past the groynes and get some speed up very quickly to head up wind.  However, there is not much space and twice I managed to almost smash into submerged groynes.  In fact, I did graze them slightly and picked up some minor dings to the board, but nothing serious.  

I had rigged up the 8.0 Hot Sails Maui GPS and slotted that into the 110 (66cm) Mistral Slalom RD.  I thought that this would be a bit too bit for the conditions (even though someone on the beach told me that it was dropping), but I wanted to find out when that combination would be too much.  I think that for comfortable sailing I was right in that it was a little on the large size, not that the sail became unstable; but more that there was more power than I could comfortably control, especially when trying to gybe and tack.  The board was surprisingly controllable given the condition of the chop, which was a intense form of Thames Estuary corrugated chop - short, sharp, steep and brown.  I would have loved to try it with a 7.3 but I do not have a mast for that at the moment.  I would also have liked to try the 95L Mistral Slalom and a 6.6 GPS but I did not have the combination with me.  

All in all it was a good session to show that the conditions required a smaller set up (and perhaps some more sailor skill....).  I found I could really only get comfortable going upwind, downwind I was completely out of shape and I think that showed in the very low GPS speed of just over 23knots showing on the GT-31.

Whitstable is a very pleasant place to sail from (if you can get parked) and the Whitstable Oyster Company - the building on the far left above (http://www.oysterfishery.co.uk/) is good for food and coffee.

Hard slalom session

Very choppy and bang on shore meant a disappointing speed.
Lessons for the day are sort out fins and get a 7.3m and sail in power
not overpowered, at least not yet

more lightwind freestyle practice

Another hour or so in the drizzle doing lightwind stuff.  No sign of summer or decent wind.  Fingers crossed that tomorrow will deliver...

Forecast is looking good

Well the closer we get to the weekend the better the forecast looks.  However, there is now a problem.  It is looking like it could be epic jumping at Camber.. Should I sack slalom training for that?  I think that I had best get on with the training up at Whitstable and put in some GPS times and gybing practice.  Though it could be a bit off-shore, that should at least make it flat.

Slalom Training this Weekend

It looks like there could be some wind this weekend.  So the plan is to do some slalom training at Whitstable and perhaps have some seafood.

WRF 9 km 27.05.2010 00 UTC Fr 28. Fr 28. Fr 28. Fr 28. Fr 28. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Sa 29. Su 30. Su 30. Su 30. Su 30. Su 30. 18h 19h 20h 21h 22h 03h 04h 05h 06h 07h 08h 09h 10h 11h 12h 13h 14h 15h 16h 17h 18h 19h 20h 21h 22h 03h 04h 05h 06h 07h Wind speed (knots) 2 4 8 12 12 8 7 8 8 9 9 9 8 8 9 9 10 13 14 14 14 13 13 13 11 9 7 9 11 12 Wind gusts (knots) 6 8 13 17 19 11 10 11 11 13 11 13 12 12 12 13 14 15 16 18 19 19 19 20 18 13 11 12 16 14 Wind direction Temperature (°C) 15 14 13 12 12 10 10 9 10 10 11 12 13 14 14 14 15 15 15 15 15 14 13 13 12 11 11 11 11 10 Cloud cover (%) high / mid / low   79 97   61 86   13 96     52 45   51 98 99   98 98   97 99 5 94 99 40 98 96 54 98 100 52 94 85 41 90 98 30 89 89 95 78 93 100 95 95 99 98 95 97 97 100 67 96 100 6 97 100   96 100   70 100   69 100   97 100   98 100 64 63 100 100 26 100 98   100 89   21 86     34 Rain (mm/1h)                             0.1   0.1 0.1             0.2 0.9 0.6 0.3     Windguru rating                                      Lat: 51.3663, Lon: 1.051, Alt: 4 m, Timezone: BST (UTC+1) 04:53 - 20:52 11 °C  [Detail / Map] [Tides] [Archive] [Link]