Hi all,
4 Mossies out today, Tim and Neil cat rig with spin, my brother Niel and I sloop rigged with 11 and 12 year old sons crewing. Races consisted of triangle windward and return, windward to finish. With 2 races back to back. Conditions where mostly 8-12 kts. with some lighter bits to 5 kts.
Tim loaned me
Whiteside Express
, my brother was on his recently refurbished 4mm timber boat
Cool Change
sail number 869 I think, relaunched today, Tim on
Karma Cat
and Neil on
Imunity
. First race WSide had the pin and battled with KCat up the first beat swapping the lead, with WSide leading by a few boat lengths around the first mark, the first reach was very broad and KCat quickly passed Wside under spinnaker with Imunity following suit shortly after. The reach was so broad that the spinnaker cats and Wside tacked down to the wing mark, the second reach was tight of course but not to tight for spinnakers and they had 1/2 a leg lead at the bottom mark. Second windward the wind was fluctuating wildly in direction and strength. Wside managed to get the best of it and made some ground on Imunity and Kcat, to be within a few 100 metres as they rounded the windward mark. But by the time Wside got around the mark they where past half way back down and flying, Kcat finished as W Side passed the finish line still on the run. A awsome show of what the spinnaker cats can do in moderate breeze. Kcat won with Imunity second by some 4 minutes on yardstick <img src=
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Second race coditions where much like the first Imunity and KCat got the best of the start with CChange not far behind and Wside missing the start badly. A lucky shift saw Wside get back into it and as they approached the first mark it was neck and neck, with Imunity first with Wside overlapped and Kcat right behind, again kites up and Imunity and Kcat took off to battle it out to see Imunity and Kcat split tacks on the last beat, with Imunity coming out the clear leader. Wside followed well behind with CChange closer after sorting out some of the bugs. Again the spinnaker cats had a big win on yardstick.
Thanks to Tim for loaning me White Side Express, it is awesome how fast the old girl goes to windward. Great to have the chance to sail with my younger son, there is nothing like peer pressure as soon as he knew his cousin was crewing he was interested, wish he was allways that interested <img src=
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Gary,
Great to see you out on a Mozzie again. <img src=
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Saturday racing at Somers was cancelled due to strong winds. <img src=
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/> We had 40 knots registering at the yacht at 12:00 pm which then settled down to a pretty constant 30 knots for the next couple of hours. We can only guess that it was about 35 knots at the windward mark.
Hopefully it will be better for next weekend and judging by the 4 day forecast chart (Wednesday and Thursday look bad) it may turn the normal 7 day cycle on its head for a welcome change. <img src=
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Regards,
Peter
Whiteside Express was actually the boat that had the spinnaker on it at Rivolli Bay in 2001, and started the ball rolling.