· Page Last Updated 5 Jan 2001
Winter and its getting cold. Too cold for me on December 31st - if there's thick frost I'm not going to go sailing! I've been considering modifying the boat to PlusPlus Mk 1A. This would entail taking the outer skin off and adding up to two inches more foam, then a new outer skin.
Sailing wise things are going OK. I think that things are improving - I even beat one of the clubs better sailors in a race the other week - he *must* have been having a major off day! Today I turned the second race into catalogue of errors - first, cutting my way nicely through a largish bunch up the first beat I went to duck an Iso, and tucked my bow nicely just behind his transom in approved inland fashion (we tend to sail much more closely without waves in the way), but hadn't realised how much I'd had to bear off - enough that my wing clipped his! Its not a boat to do 720s in - cost me around 15 places and just about last to the windward mark.
Then to make matters worse a few beats I was watching the rig and the downwind traffic carefully and completely failed to spot the *anchored* rescue boat... Another little repair job with a two inch square chiunk removed from the stem...
I think the tacking technique is getting a lot more sorted. The critical thing is the elastic for the tiller. (This is a Moth thing primarily, shockcord from the tiller end to each side of the boat to centre the rudder). The trick for tacking seems to be to free off quite a bit of mainsheet as you for into the tack, tack the boat well through the wind, moving across quite late and letting the boat heel to what would be the new leeward side and then drop the tiller extension on the new side and sheet in the mainsheet hard with both hands while getting out on the windward side. The resultant massive pump as the boat comes upright accelerates the boat out of the tack and gets the foils working. This is of course much like an exagerrated conventional roll tack. And as for the rules - let me assure you that to date gaining speed as a result of the tack has not been an issue!
Haven't really sailed the boat since July - I spent August/September in a flat out modification of my Cherub - its gained a snout - above waterline bow extension for the spinnaker pole and jib. If you're interested check out a set of pictures here. The Cherub Nationals then got postponed because we had some problems with fuel supply here in the UK, and when they finished I then had a lot of weekend work in the Office, migrating the organisation to NetWare 5.1. So three weeks ago I went to go sailing. It was F6-7. Decided to rig the boat anyway, using the very smallest size sail, but managed to crack a spreader whilst sorting out a snaggle on the jetty.
That evening the wind built considerably - I saw one weather report claiming F12 as the depression moved into the North Sea. Fortunately I'd taken the mast off ready to fix the spreader and mine was about the only boat in its area of the dinghy park not to be blown over. The next weekend we had a lot to do repairing jetties, boat tie downs and so on, and I had the spreader to do as well.
So last weekend I chucked the boat in the water, and as I pushed it off the ramp saw the mainsail disappear over the transom. Yes, you've guessed it, after removing the rig I hadn't reattached it to the boom. Mylar mainsails sink. A long way. Just there the water has to be 15 feet deep and I wasn't even going to try diving for it in November. After some effort I eventuially rigged up a drag out of a long length of chain and some rope (this worked a treat when I finally took the time to do it properly) and fished the sail out undamaged but too late to do more than have a quick sail round the pond.
The sailing seems to be coming together a bit more these days, although its not really showing up in results. Less major errors really, and some reasonable beats and so on. What is getting increasingly frustrating is this club mania for not having any powered up reaches on the course. This morning I had to miss the first race, and as I started rigging the boat they were sailing round a course which had a mixture of everything, including a georgeous beam reach across the reservoir that had me mentally rubbing my hands as there was a decent breeze. So they changed the course for race 2 for another collection of beats and runs/broad reaches. Yeah, windward leewards are fine in an asymettric boat in a decent breeze, and I know that runs are much more tactical in Lasers and so on, but I sail for the enjoyment - this is *club* sailing after all, and all these legs sitting in the middle of the boat are getting to me... I suppose I could put a kite on, but the speed the boat will get up to and control issues would be extremely worrying.
I do have a speed figure for the boat - stop frame analysis on the video shows that it was doing about 11 knots. Not an especially dramatic speed, but the wind was bottom end of Force 3 and it was the first time Alan had sailed the boats. The Cherubs were hitting about 15 knots in the same conditions, and they're knon to be able to hit 25.
I think I've identified one of my frustrations - the fact that I never seem to catch people downwind as often as my relative speed when next to them would indicate. I think I'm spending too long sailing in lulls! The boat can do a very significant percentage of wind speed, and we seem to be having a lot of long broad reaches this season. The breeze invariably - it has to come across half of Southern England and several rows of hills to get to us - comes in bands - a sequence of gusts and lulls. I get to the top of a beat in a lull, and then stay with the lull all the way down the run, just out of reach of the gust coming up behind. Of course nominally slower boats behind are sailing in the gust... Similarly with boats ahead. This is compounded by my amazing talent for completely messing up the last 100 yards of a beat, and letting people get away. A lot of its is natural ability of course (or to be precise my lack of it), but I am learning to use a lot more kinetics, because very often one quick pump or rock will get the boat travelling 20 or 30% faster for the next 200 yards. This seems to be particularly important with sailing deep. My theory is to point a tad, pump, and get the apparent wind well forward and the boat planing very fast. You can now bear away and go low, maintaining the apparent wind and speed until wind die slightly, then repeat the process. This certainly seems faster than either running straight downwind or gybing high. Its also more fun and interesting if you get it right.
I also had an interesting Wednesday evening race last week, in that I went out with the big rig, and some pretty big bands of wind - I reckon around 20knots - came through. I got the biggest when gybing for a narrowish gap* between a mark and a club rescue boat. The wind came in like crazy just after the gybe, and I failed to get the boat under control and clobbered the plywood mark top big-time with the wing. Amazingly no damage. However at this point I was hanging off the back corner of the wing, the bow was making a determined effort to head for the bottom of the pond, and there was *no way* I could stop and do a 360 turn! So I sailed round well clear of everyone and retired after the end. Pleased to note that in spite of extreme temptation the boat actually didn't show any particular sign of a pitchpole, although I suspect if the water had got up another two inches and onto the foredeck I'd have been in trouble. The long fine bow is great for that situation, it just cuts through. In my Cherub I'd have pitchpoled for sure with that much stem immersed. Its still pretty easy to really mess up a tack in that wind and lose a hundred yards. I think the next boat (!) would have a couple of inches of rocker extra under the daggerboard and the mast six inches further forward.
*Well, narrowish for me, in that boat, in that wind. There was no obstruction at all for a Laser sailor!
Amusing the other week - I did a broad reach alongside one of the Club Isos, who was trying to work out why he couldn't overtake me down a long broad reach... So right close to the mark he attempts the quick "out on the string, luff up for speed and grab an overlap" trick. This was remarkably unsuccessful when tried out on a single hander with superior acceleration and close reaching performance... So it was a pity that I bore off too quickly for the mark and spat it in to windward. Oh well, serves us both right - me for trying to be too clever and him for not staying to leeward like a gentleman... With the big foil it seems critical to keep the foil lifted offwind for wetted area, which was far less important with the little one. What is interesting is that the boat seems less stable on very broad reaches/runs with the bigger centreboard.
I've finally got the boat back on the water after a totally unreasonable break. Too much weekend working, too many other committments, transport problems etc. Had a short blast last week with the big rig up, but Easter Monday saw a good 15 knots coming across the reservoir, which in my current state of fitness meant the small rig, and an excellent chance to evaluate the changes.
My sailing was pretty appalling for the day - too many unforced errors as they say, and too out of practice, so we'll draw a curtain over actual results. In what was probably worst case conditions for the old rig problem the boat felt easier to keep in the groove and planing than I remember, and certainly much easier to tack - there's now enough side force that even if you come out of a tack too slowly and stall the foils (still possible of course) a couple of big tweaks on the tiller get you going again without the tendency to go straight back into wind.
So it seems promising!
The next Wednesday evening really confirmed things. Again a lousy result - poor sailing combined with the bad luck you always seem to get when you're sailing badly anyway - wind shift and lull near a mark meaning a couple of extra tacks, and the next few boats getting away on a gust - I'm sure you all know the sort of thing. But it was maybe a little more wind than the Saturday, at least for the firsty couple of laps, and again I was finding it easier to keep the boat in the groove, and more difficult (but still possible) to get myself really stalled out and sideways coming out of a tack. I really must see if I can persuade some "Rock Star" hot helmsman to come and do a couple of races and see how it really goes...
Today (May 1st) was slightly less windy and I ran with the full rig. Again it does seem easier to get the boat in the groove upwind, and at times I was making pretty good progress. However its still more than possible to completely stuff a tack, and I managed to do so so comprehensively that I ended up tipping theboat in to windward trying to power up again... Oh well!
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· Page Last Updated 5 Jan 2001