Dear All,
Although it was disappointing not to have sufficient entries to run the match racing for the Courage Cock, myself, Alan Viney and Rob Vice turned up at Abbey Meads for a tuning session, which I must say was tremendous fun and at times quite hilarious.
Alan arrived first and found that our normal KASP lock with a normal hasp had indeed been moved back to the inner gate and so access we did not need to rely on the contractors black number lock. The culprit was UK Power Networks, the electricity board requiring 24 hour access, who had kindly returned our padlock to the inner gate. Still wanting to know who operates the remaining unknown padlocks, I tackled a guy coming in, who happened to be from the Runnymede Angling Association. He didn’t know about the other locks but we moved the contractors padlock around in order that our lock is on the same bar as Runnymede. I said that we would be putting a chain round our lock as they do and he was happy with that. We just need to purchase a small padlock to make our chain loop continuous. There is a chain in the clubhouse which could be used for this.
Does anyone have a small padlock with a 3 or 4 mm hasp that you are not using?
It was a beautifully sunny day albeit a bit chilly, with a cracking 2-9 mph easterly wind blowing through the trees and giving the very best of sailing conditions, albeit a bit variable in direction and strength. The objective of our sailing was to improve our speed by trials to windward, starting three abreast 10 foot apart and sailing as long as possible on each tack and then improving the trim on the slowest after three goes. Having plenty of time without rushing to race was very useful and I found several bits of my A rig that needed attention and received it. There were things that we learnt that require attention after some workshop work, so once this is carried out it should help to keep the Guildford fleet up to speed.
Good luck to the Guildford team at Norwich next week!
Having trialled to windward we also came back downwind, starting level and did some useful experiments. Running dead downwind with a swing rig is not the most efficient use of the rig which likes to be an angle to the wind, but one is never too sure whether gybing and searching for the wind slightly off the rhum line is going to pay or not. Obviously it depends on the wind variation, but on one specific test run I sail dead downwind between the marks had ‘Uproar’s sails right out at 90° to the boat, whilst Rob with his ‘BlimBlachBlahoo’, gybed a lot but sailed not far off the rhum line to get the best out of the wind. In the light flukey wind there wasn’t much in it but dead downwind seemed to be a slight advantage, which is not what you would expect.
After a bit we decided to have some racing but using a ‘gate’ start. This is supposed to be the fairest way of starting where the ‘pace’ boat sails on port from the start mark and the others approach on starboard to take the pace boat’s stern. Whilst this sounds easy it proved a bit more tricky, particularly when the pace boat got hooked up with the start mark causing some hilarity when the second boat hooked up with it trying to free it. Anyway it was a very rewarding day and for me the first time that I have set out from home without any 27 MHz radio gear. It all worked as anticipated and I even found out what happens when the batteries run down on my Saturn TX, it makes a horrible beeping sound, but does not appear to affect the range, which is good to know.
You have probably had enough by now, but this is reporting that a really good, different and worthwhile event is possible even when the entries are small.
The final evening workshop of the session will be on Friday, 25 March, on rules and tactics so see you there. Beyond that there is the Elstead Cutter on 3 April, so please put this in your diary. It is a handicap event for one of our best trophies so come along and enjoy some good racing.
Cheers, Roger
