Practice sailing with the TRYC at the Corinthian Sailing Club today, winds started about 11mph and built to a steady 15, with gusts in the low 20's. RG-65's and IOM's raced on a staggered start on a long course.
Roo and I brought out IOM's to practice for the next week's LUF Cup. Here he sails his IOM Tenacious:
Tenacious is an old Byerley designed Forte, and pretty good in a breeze. Unfortunately, we need to engineer some some more rudder throw into her, as she was a bit tough to turn in the upper A-rig conditions. Roo sailed her pretty well nonetheless, and sneaked in a win when his two comrades fouled each other at the reach mark, or as he says, "a win is a win Dad!" Sailing my boat later, he creditably sailed to two seconds, good job!
Brought my Tempest, Juno out and enjoyed a pretty good day in the upper A-rig, with two 1st, and the rest seconds.
Juno is a pretty balanced, mid-range boat and went very well today against a Lintel and a Britpop. With the big gusts I went ahead and set my close-haul a touch looser, with some twist at the main top to help dump the over-powering gusts, and she ran fast and hands free on the beats. At Eric Rosenbaum's suggestion I added a touch more topping lift to add some similar curve-off in the jib. That proved to be a good suggestion, and after that I just enjoyed a rare (for me!) treat; concentrating on my actual racing and strategy rather than the boat itself. Chuck and Wolfie provided good racing competition and it was a pretty good day.
Roo shot some video, its a bit shaky but here it is:
You can see Wolfie's yellow Britpop port tack Chuck (red Lintel) and I (white Tempest) shortly after the start, and a tight race to the mark. Chuck and I roll over Wolfie downwind, and we jockey tightly around the mark with Chuck in the lead, and me close behind. I break tacks with Chuck beating to the finish, he covers, almost too loosely. I make up some ground but he wins by a few boat lengths. A close race all the way, and typical of the day!
