remmie’s sailing blog

Bit behind the times but update on the weekend…

First of the offshore winter series and we served it.  Started with a light easterly, eventually got beaten down by the incoming seabreeze.  We managed to sail in front of the 3 mile transition hole and pick the seabreeze coming back off the coast, pretty much avoided the transition which was great, sailed around everyone parked in the hole skimming the edge of it by a boat length.  Had a great battle with another boat running into the beach mark; one light planing hull, one heavy displacement hull made for fun and games in light puffy stuff.  Eventually got the overlap on the mark, hauled up beside them cause they blinked on the kite drop first, slammed it round and shut the door on the inside shot much to their distress considering they were already sticking it in there.  From there is was a bit of soldier’s course (easterly course on a SW breeze) and we had the displacement boy between us and the competition with a divi 1 boat storming down on them.  Got 3rd over the line beaten by a 42′ and a 36′ in a 30′, 4th on handicap only beaten by the displacement and LWL boys;  so happy little vegimites.

Was really grouse, had a thrown together crew and we just stuck it, grabbed the sailing master from my baby and it was awesome.  We’re used to working together but him having to direct people to do what I needed; having him work directly with me was pure porn; it’s amazing the change in dynamic one person can cause.  Scared our skipper a few times, he was of the opionion that we should be dropping the kite 2BL before the mark, not having the pole still up as the bow went past the mark.  We had float hoists, float drops, and peels happening; this was the boat that I introduced to float drops last week so an interesting learning curve.

All in all very good weekend, smiles all round.  Decided that we should probably lighten the boat and take things seriously now!

Rgds,

remmie