Time to think.

I’ve been on a short holiday over the last few days and loving the extra time I have been having to exercise, think about the boat and sailing plans in general. Still no closer to decision about Gorge, but that’s probably a little out of my hands anyway. It’s all about the moolah. or there lack of…

In the meantime, the club had it’s annual presentation night and the AGM is on next Saturday. I think it would be a good time to think about introducing windward leward courses as the club has all foilers now. We have at least one Assassin joining the fleet and should see similar numbers to last year. Probably about 13-14 registered.

Also, as few would know I have been working at CST Composites for a little while now in a Marketing/PR role. The company is happy to announce the sponsorship of the 2009 Worlds and I will be working closely with IMCA in promoting the event. I think the announcement is great news for both parties. The sponsorsip support will insure adequate funds for running of sucessfull and professional event and CST will once again be in the forefront of our technology leading class. 

Speaking of technology, CST Nano TM spars will be hitting the market in a short while. I have been testing these with Dave and will have the new mast out again this weekend. Then there is sail development in progress as well, hopefully the wind will be good for some testing.

Trailer, anyone?

I’ve just put my trailer for sale on the IMCA AUS website.(I now have two so one has to go).. Here is a photo for those interested. It’s Galvanised, 98 built and registered for 12 months. $600

Season ends…

With last race sailed on Anzac day,  this officially concludes the 08-09 sailing season.  I read an article yesterday where it mentioned taking time off after mayor regattas and winter time to reflect on your achievements and avoid “burning out”. … I’m finding it hard to do this as the weather has been near perfect last Saturday and looks  pretty good for tomorrow’s sail at Woolahra as well. Rumour is that Rohan and Rob Gough are flying in today to continue their training program with Nathan. Should be a good weekend with plenty of fast boats around…

Speaking of fast boats, I did some sailing with Dave recently and I reckon he is faster than ever. I can match him for upwind speed, but downwind he just charges ahead. If he decides to go to USA he should be a real contender for the tittle.

I still haven’t decided if I am going. For me  it’s only worth going if I have a realistic chance of being in the top few. Unfortunately I can’t afford to do it for the experience or a great holiday, as the aded costs of boat freight, insurance, regatta fees etc make it an expensive one at that. It’s also possible to imagine someone rocking up with a kick arse piece of equipment and winning on boatspeed (and skill) like Fastacraft boys found out at Garda. But than again, things have luckily changed now as I don’t think my boat is all that slow…(just take Dave out of equasion).

Lots to think about, and I will have to make a decision soon with little over 3 months to go.

NSW States

One day to go!

I have been busy again and only managed to squeeze a one training sail with Dave last night. Wind was light, but for the 1st time in a while I felt I had good boatspeed in under 12kn range. The rig tweeks I made have paid off and with a bit of luck this will be handy in forecast light winds for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Last weekend, I opted not to sail in a 20kn Southerly at St George with no time to fix anything if it broke in time for the regatta. Probably a good move as Dave broke both his centerboard and gantry.  He did manage a top speed of 28.4kn, a fraction of the current record.  Impressive stuff…

What goes around comes around

So when you sell a boat, you are meant to get a better one, sail that and hope the old boat doesn’t beat you. Yeah? Then you go and buy your old boat back…. aarr, no …of maybe yes? if it pops up for sale at a good price and your girlfriend wants to get foiling. So the boat in the banner is back home. We are back to having 4 months now which I feel is a minimum really. : ) Sure it has a lot more dents than it did when I had it, but it’s still as original as before. Quite unbelievable really, after 4 years it still has all the same ropes. I somehow don’t think it was sailed more than 10 times.

On the racing front, congratulations to Dave who won the St George Club Championship on the weekend. Since my last post I scored a win in heat 5, however Dave won the race on Saturday. I had to pull out with a broken wand, and the weekend before broke my bell crank. I think lack of boat maintenance due to lack of time is really starting to show. It’s 2 weeks before the States now, so might have to get things sorted sooner rather than later.

Interesting…..

It seems my life is either flat out or the extreme opposite. At the moment it’s flat out, hence the lack of posts. I did however get a chance to sail last two Saturdays in between work at CST and Sunday Moth coaching.

Bruce has some nice data on his website of the race from 1 week ago which for the record was won by Dave by 4 minutes. The tide turned (literarly) at St George this weekend after I won by a 2 minute margin. It good to see the 10 year old Dave v’s Luka rivelry still lives on. What would be even nicer, is to get a few others in there to mix things up. It’s been tough going though, with Lea braking his foil for the 2nd time and Bruce doing the same. Chris is out with a broken gantry, so the fleet is looking quite wounded.

Another interesting thing was talking to Julian Bethweite at Woolahra about the foiling 49er last Sunday. I have seen the powerboat prototype and the final configuration (at this stage) is a centreboard hydrofoil (no flaps) with a forward canard foil which will also act as a rudder sporting a small flap controlled by a wand. No rudder at back.

Certainly an interesting configuration and Julian seems adamant  it will work. It has been tried by few on a Moths too, however  all I can say if this is the final configuration this will be interesting. Launch day is in about a month.

Back to club racing

So I’ve had a bit of a break from it all… I think I needed it after so much sailing, however after the race last Saturday I’m itching to go out again.

Perhaps I’m addicted??

We did have nice, although rather light conditions with a 7-12kn SE breeze. It was actually very close between Dave and I, and after some very good racing I won the race by a big 15 minute margin. Admitedly helped by some breeze on the way to the finish while Dave low rode all the way in.

Fingers crossed for more breeze this coming weekend for heat 4 of the Club Championship… Perhaps a better turnout too?

Nationals Wrap-up

After my camping de-tour, we are back in Sydney with things back to normal…. It actually feels great. No boat work, late nights carboning….etc

I’d like to congratulate Nathan on a great win. It just goes to show how profesional and talented our best sailors are, being able to step into the class and beat guys that have been doing it for years.

Simon and Mach2 also had a great regatta as did Dave Lister whose hard work and preparation paid off.

I finished 8th all up, which is quite good considering my comeback from 13th with 3 days to go. My light weather performances really hurt, but I was able to win a race and finished off with a 4th.  I’d like to thank ‘the coach’ (Lea) for his help, I certainly improved through the event and was more focused than in any other regatta thanks to his advice.

As most would know by now, the ’seacret’ bits appearing on St George boats have been seen by most. I wasn’t going to come out with it, but the ‘Damic Stic’ also known as the (Luka Wand) worked a threat. Basically it’s an adjustable ride height control on the go through wand lenght adjuster. I’ll be making and selling these shortly after getting approached by lots of interested people. There will be a Bladerider, Prowler and Zero model but I’ll go into more detail about this in later posts.

I also used a home built rudder to Dave Lister’s design but contrary to most peoples believes, wasn’t the reason for great downwind speed. There were other parts that remained un-noticed, but that’s a story for another time.

I’d also like to thanks the Geelong Club for a very well run series, it certainly is a great place to sail..

For now, it’s back to club racing and some Woolahra sailing before the States.

Heat 5,6,7 update

Light non foiling conditions once again dominated for the morning heat 5. I was off to a good start, but lost out on the left hand side of the course along with Dave as others foiled in more pressure on the right.

I reckon this was the most frustrating race so far. The breeze seemed to be coming from every direction in gusts that would last 15seconds making picking the right spot to be in more good luck than anything else. I fell from 7th to 2oth in one work and came back to about12th before falling out of pressure while foiling and alowing lowriders to sneak past to finish 22nd. Aghh..

The winner of the race was Simon.

So with 2 afternoon races to be sailed, I hoped for my 15kn and flat water. Well, I finally got it! I had a good start on port and rounded the top mark in 5th. Downwind I gained and was now in touch with the leaders. This is more like it, I should have been here all regatta…. Up the last work i picked up a nice lift on the left side androunded the top mark in 1st. Dave chased hard on the downwind leg, but I came 1st by 20 seconds.

Heat 7 was another good one. I spent most of the race in 5th untill I hooked a lump of weed on my rudder. Most people managed to get some on their foils that afternoon, and if you did you were out of it. I slipped to 7th up the last work, but gained on Scott once the weed fell off and crossed the line in 6th. Simon won again with Nathan in 2nd and Dave in 3rd.

So with a good day yesterday I’m now in 10th. The 22nd and 19th are really hurting my standings, but I’m happy to have won a race at least.

Lay-day update

With 4 races finished the fleet is resting as a 35kn Northerly blasts accross the bay.

As you might have noticed I’ve had a pretty average regatta so far. Fair share of mistakes and lack of pace in the big breeze are probably to blame.

We seem to either get 5kn or 25kn. Nothing in between. Water is flat so control in big breeze hasn’t been an issue though.

I still think I can make a bit of a come back if we get a few 15kn races in. The boat is fast enough to win a race, however mistakes are costly with lots of fast boats around.

I’m currently sitting in 12th, which is way lower than my expectations and after coming 2nd and 3rd in the last two Nationals it’s something new to get used to. The game is getting tougher.

Anyway, I’m still confident and feel that I can perform better in the next few races.