Autumn Long Distance - What a lovely day!

Under normal circumstances, Weymouth would be the last place on earth I would head towards on August Bank Holiday weekend, but the forecast was too good to miss, and we are disturbingly low on silverware this year!

A timid 7-8 knots was blowing from an unusual NW breeze, unsurprisingly shifty given the hills it is tumbling off, and on such I sunny day the land breeze was such that we we're utterly clueless as to what would happen next!! Unfortunately what did happen next was a shift that left us struggling to lay the pin end, and unable to tack over without ducking the whole fleet. After a nice little tacking duel with Farr Out we made our way out to the left, but it seemed that every time we tacked we went into a header.....really frustrating stuff, we we're glad to get around C and put the kite up!

From C to T the shifts continued, pressure up and down, we switched to light sheets, and after a few minutes of chaos with our heads in the boat we look up to see we had probably made the best progress through the confused airs. Farr Out had made good progress, but they had sacrificed VMG and appeared to have moved way to the right of the run.

From T it was next stop W. The wind had built to around 10kts and moved a bit further into the north. We had to fight for height on the way to the harbour entrance, concerned that the wind would continue to go left. Once through the entrance the wind dropped and went right again, this allowed the following boats to close the gap. Fortunately we had a Squib well in front to find W for us because it was well out of position, and not the most visible mark in the harbour!!

Around W, and it was back to X via the northern entrance, we we're pleasantly surprised to fell the boat power up nicely on the beat, having spent the last 40 minutes with about 2 knots of aparent wind! We got luckier (smarter) with the shifts on the way out of the harbour and crossed the line right on the tail of RWH. With only Rumrunner and FarrOut in sight behind.

A corrected time win (annhialation!) by 13 minutes over Rumrunner and RWH, and over 20 minutes to Farr Out.

And to think we still need to scrub the bottom!!

Becalmed.....

There wasn't much wind at the start of the last evening race of 2010, but there was a lot less at the end of.

Two members of 'Team Scoline', Dave and Lauren, took the night off to go dinghy sailing, which offered us a very different view of Scoline's start tactics. Somebody decided that tonight was a night to be mid line, windward boat, with a number of boats to leeward pushing them up. Unsurprisingly they we're OCS, not a great start to a mega light wind race.

Lauren and I we're then distracted by our own race....(by the way, we had a perfect start, windward boat at CB, full speed bang on the gun....and all of that with no watch!!)

Anyway, next time we looked up we we're amazed to see Scoline we're back in contention, at the point we looked they we're the only boat with a fully set kite and we're right on the tail of Sapphire & Excalibur with the rest of the fleet well behind.

Nights like that will always go to the proper racing boats though, there's no amount of talent that can make up for the decent acceleration from all the little gusts!! Allthough, they say anybody can sail in lots of wind, it takes a real sailor to do well when there isn't any.

August Series - (Monday 23/8)

Windy....really windy....we've had races cancelled in a lot less wind at WSC before! As we made our way to the start line we had a minimum 22kts, with gusts of 29kts (and probably more!). A short beat with the number 2 genoa confirmed that we also need a slab in the main (as much as I hate reefing, it was the right thing to do in that much breeze), then we settled down to watch the other classes start.

It was pretty obvious there was a massive pin end bias, the squibs and V class started at the CB and barely laid the pin once close hauled, and the wind was still swinging left. first job to persuade the skipper in pin bias (easy tonight!), next job to persuade him we need to start on port tack (never easy!). With two minutes to go it was clear we we're the only boat trying the port tack flyer, the rest of the fleet we're way out to the right of the start line, this settled our nerves nicely and we began our approach to the line. Once again Clive proved his credentials as the best starter of the three Scoline owners, bang on the pin at the gun and crossed the whole fleet, the fifth time we have tried that this season, and the fifth time we have crossed the whole fleet (you'd have thought by now the other guys in the fleet would be keeping an eye on us in pre-start!), with hindsight we should have tacked back on to stbd as soon as we had crossed the fleet, but we we're gambling on the wind phasing back to the right, we separated from the fleet too much and a few of them made some gains by going far left (again!).

We rounded O in second place behind RWH, with FarrOut about 7-8 boat lengths back, and Sapphire probably 5 boat lengths behing them. The wind was still in the high 20s with big gusts so we decided to 2 sail reach down to B (great course, OBM is probably the biggest triangle they could have set us), we had 6.5kts of boat speed with the two sails, probably could have had 8-9 with the kite, but doubt we would have maintained enough height to get to B.

Behind us we watched FarrOut hoist the 'Touareg', their SB3 spinnaker, as we watched it flogging, and pulling them sideways we laughed out loud.....we had visions of them pulling that thing back in in shreds! Next time we look over our shoulder they had halved the gap, the wind had dropped by nearly 10kts and we were massively underpowered, FarrOut was on a sleigh ride and easily passed us just before B, they had managed to bank enough height to go very wide around us, which was a wise choice, if they came in close I think we would have taken them to the Spyglass for a pint!! Given the drop in wind we had no choice but to hoist the kite for the leg from B to M, but there was no chance of us passing Farr Out with that Assy. We would have to wait until the upwind leg.

We had height and speed over Farr Out on the slug back up to the finish line, but Sapphire had height and speed on us, forcing us into a tack to avoid getting squeezed out to the port layline. A few nice close tacks between us, Sapphire and Farr Out followed, with positions changing all the way up to the finish line, we just got the advantage crossed the line ahead of both of them, and watched Farr Out sail an extra 300yds or so to cross the line at the pin end, however, they had done enough, having the kahunas to hoist the assy in 25+kts of breeze made up for it and they took an easy and well deserved win ahead of RWH (who we didn't even see after the start!) and us in 3rd.

Hopefully this is a new era for the club letting us race in lots of breeze - everybody coped really well with the conditions and the beer always tastes better when you've earned it!

Looking forward to seeing the video from the Safety Boat of the start!!

Deep Runs & Long Beats.......Perfik.

Monday night, race 3 of the August series. With two very poor results in the first two races, we had some cathching up to do, so we brought a full crew......8 people on a Sigma.....where are they all supposed to sit?!

The first leg was a short beat to H, with a pin biased line and breeze going left, almost looked like a port tack flyer, but we didn't think there was enough bias to make it stick.

We started pin end on starboard with the intention of getting over to the right as soon as there was a gap so that we we're in a position to control the port layline. We had good pace and tacked across the whole fleet, and then went too far right. The left hand side was massively favoured and Farr Out, having banged the far left corner, cashed in, first to the windward mark by a country mile!

Now to try to work out how to hoist the kite...the trouble with having lots of crew is everybody assumes somebody else is doing 'that'.....so the kite goes up (not tailed), pole bouncing around (no downhaul), why is the kite flogging? (because nobody has the sheet!). Once she was under control we set about catching Farr Out, we let Sapphire pass (no point fighting boats that should already be 2 minutes in front, just let them through and cover!) we managed to get an overlap on Farr Out and Sapphire by the gybe mark, and we we're let off the hook big time by Amorosa who could have protested as we dived inside her at J!

A late drop put us in Sapphire's dirty air on the start of the long beat, so we we're forced to tack away to the right, even though we knew we had to go left. Sapphire and Farr Out went far left and Farr out gained again, having to duck our transom at one point as we crossed on Starboard, fortunately they carried on out to the right and we got the left, and we more than made up the gap again by the end of the lap. One more lap to sort out our crew work - but still none of us could remember who had done what on the previous lap so it was back to square one!

Stayed left on the beat, as did everybody, so no big changes, at the windward mark we got in an allmighty tangle with the kite, some frantic foredeck work and halyard pumping and we we're back in control, just had to control the gap to Sapphire and the win was ours.......looked like there was a bit of a luffing match going on behind us with Farr Out and Prime Time, which caught our attention for a few minutes....we even thought we saw contact at the gybe mark?!

Early drop, great rounding, far left corner of the beat, jobs a goodun! Win by several clear minutes..........maybe the bottom isn't as filthy as we thought!

Ladies Race

Scoline's defence of the Mary Mackarness Jug was almost a non starter this year, when our only 'lady' was defeated by the gridlock caused by Weymouth's traffic management improvements.....lets face it, anything will seem like an improvement after this chaos!!!

Fortunately we found Lauren on the quay looking for a ride, Lauren is down from 'oop north' to do a dinghy sailing instructors course with the Sea Cadets, and as fate would have it.......is now the holder of the Mary Mackarness Jug.

I'm not sure who was most nervous as we came into the start line, Lauren, thrust onto the helm 5 tonnes of finely tuned racing machine (well 4 tonnes of racing machine an 1 tonne of superfluous crap!), or the three owners who we're sent onto the rail while a 16 year old northern lass hustled their pride and joy into position on the start.

They needn't have worried as Lauren steered a cracking race, steady and smooth upwind, confident changes of direction, and the most important job of a helms(wo)man - make the crew look good!!

Sapphire could not shake us on any point of sail, and they crossed the finish line less than 2 minutes in front of us - a handicap corrected victory by over 1.5 minutes to Sapphire, and nearly 6 minutes to 3rd placed Hooligan.

Cracking sail, well done Lauren.

(oh, and the crew - at least there will be something for us at the prizegiving this year!!)

Too many tight reaches!

'Farr Out' hoists their new 'secret weapon' on Thursday 5th Augusts evening race.....well almost!

They did get it all the way up in the end (and to be fair they we're pretty damn quick in a straight line once they got settled) rapidly gobbling up the lead we had built up on the beat, and had us quite worried as we rounded 'C'. Fortunately for us the boys on Farr Out we're a bit more 'Spaced Out' when it came to judging the gybing angles down the run.......maybe they have been watching 'Awesome Aussie Skiffs' too much and they thought they'd get the Laser28 up onto the plane????????

If you read this guys, try chapter 12 of Frank Bethwaite's 'High Performance Sailing'.

A lacklustre 3rd on corrected time, perhaps gifted to us by Farr Out, but we just weren't close enough to Sapphire and Excalibur.

Will be interesting to see how the handicaps are affected by all these new sails popping up all over the place.......sometimes it hurts to be 'One Design' (SULK)