A good session at Abbey Meads today, with plenty of planing off wind despite the variable strength and direction of the wind. Today there were some really vicious black west south-west gusts in between rather variable wind speed and direction. The good thing was that we did not have to change the southern landing stage. Peter reset the buoys to give us a windward leeward course. The forecast was 20 to 40 mph and whilst we probably didn’t get that level of wind, it was still strong enough to get plenty of planing intermittently in the gusts on the offwind legs. I was using my new cutdown fin with the heavy lead on UP, rather than the light lead is used last week at the ranking even. It was not up to it and there was just too much wobble on many occasions of the wind for this to be an acceptable fin. This was very disappointing, however the seaworthiness of the UP design in these demanding offwind conditions was tested and they handled really well even with the foredeck under. Initially we used C Rigs, but then used 2nd suit C2 rigs as these are so rarely used. Peter had altered the sail plan twice, but never had the chance to test either of the changes. He was pleased at last it could be tested and came out well.
