So this was a windy one and I didn’t fare too well. I was experiencing a lot of weather helm, couldn’t point highly and on the second lap capsized, couldn’t get the kite back in, ended up removing it and abandoning.

However, I did have two fantastic legs flying the kite up making up ground lost and learned a lot. The boat really is more stable in higher winds flying the spinnaker. At one point I caught a gust and the boat simply took off 🙂 Grin!

I put the weather helm down to not enough cunningham, as the sail draft was being blown way back, and not enough kicker. Also, I used my newer sail which generates more power than the old one, I think it’s best to stick with the old sails for now in stronger winds anyway. I was more in control though and the start was good, an improvement over the last time in similar conditions.

I like more challenging conditions and with safety boats watching there’s no reason not to go for it.

Max Dooley at Swanage Sailing Club took some drone footage which I edited into a short film so you can see some of the race yourself. There were three fleets sailing just behind one another, Dart 18s , Lasers and a mixed handicap fleet. The foiling Waszp is new to the scene and being sailed (flown) by Sam Whaley.

At around 2’40” you can see two Vareos flying spinnakers flying along, I was just behind them and actually beat them to the mark on that leg. I also appear on the right with a blue spinnaker at 3’20”.

The video makes it look peaceful but it was a windy day and hard work.