SSC ran a regatta again this summer which I took part in. Thirty three boats, five races over two days, each course different with good wind, building up on day two to quite frisky conditions. On the last race the daggerboard was humming in new tones I’d never heard before, it was that fast (grin!). Mine is 239.
There were two other Vareos which made for a bit of sub-fleet racing which was great fun.
Thanks Doug and team for running a fantastic regatta. Thanks Adrian for the fantastic pictures.
I’ve been out sailing loads the last months, racing and practising as well as instructing kids the last twelve weeks as part of my club‘s junior training.
My race results continue to improve and I managed a reputable 3rd in the Spring evening series. There’s still work to do on consistency in stronger winds but I am getting more able in higher winds though at my weight it’s a challenge.
Current practice focus is two fold, firstly spinnaker work and among other things holding tighter angles and keeping speed up on lower angles. Gybes are pretty smooth, the faster the better.
Secondly better control and keeping boat speed on in gusty conditions. It’s all very well practising with even winds, but races never seem to have this perfect conditions (funny that!).
My fitness isn’t bad and I’m able to hike hard for decent periods now and looking forward to the longer out of the bay races. Sheet loads are relatively high on the Vareo which is also good for upper body strength, all good stuff.
So this was a first, taking the boat cover off with actual frost on it and going for a sail.
Observations; fingers were cold and I need better gloves, particularly in light conditions where I’m not working hard and warming up. I switched to skiing gloves half way through which were good, though of course they would be useless if wet. I kept them dry.
I’ve added some more instrumentation to the boat in the form of extra tell tales and added leech tell tales where they’d worn out.
Looking at tell tales is nothing new to me, but having these extra ones really helps see airflow over the sail better.
I’ve made a good start to the year so far with sails in my RS Vareo on New Year’s day and January 6th.
Since I go out on my own I’ve become more safety conscious and am taking out more gear, some items are on the UK’s dinghy cruising association page and it’s good common sense stuff. My boat isn’t designed for cruising but it’s certainly roomy enough to take out some safety gear and luxuries (coffee) including:
I’ve experimented paddling a single handed and it works fine centering the rudder with a piece of shock chord tied to the toe straps. The knife is tied to the pocket of my buoyancy aid, the paddle further tied to the boat with a length of string. The other bits of string and rope should enable recovery from a few breakage scenarios I’ve imagined.
Correct clothing is an essential part and I have the choice of a drysuit and wet suit layers. The drysuit plus over trousers is less fiddly to put on and dries quickly but I prefer the wetsuit set up which is very comfy on the boat. If you have cold feet, I can recommend Rooster’s polypro and thermaflex socks.
Another obvious safety aspect is to choose the right conditions, so I’m choosing wind and tides which reduce risk and avoid overly gusty conditions to reduce breakage risk. I also avoid crazy actions in the chop, so take care to sail up and down waves rather than let the boat slam down. If more of us go out it’s fun to go out in stronger conditions, and generally if I had a newer boat I’d push it much more 🙂
We’re super lucky in Swanage to have a National Coastwatch station looking over us and I’m very grateful to have them there. There’s an RNLI station next door also overlooking the bay, but obviously no sailor wants to cause a call out.
My two hour session yesterday looked like this:
this was my first GPS tracking test, winds were light and I covered about nine miles.
It’s curious how shallow the downwind angles are and it looks like I might be beating better on starboard than port, it gives me more ideas for things to work on. I need to get better at working with wind shifts and choosing the right angles downwind. And I’ve started in earnest with off water fitness.
All in all, a good start to my sailing year.
Frostbite sailing continues and I’m choosing windows between the storms to get out. It’s interesting to see how different the bay is at this time of year, days of persistent wind lead to curious wave patterns, some good for surfing, others not. It reminds me of school physics lessons exploring wave interference but now actually sailing through it.
I’m paying most attention to downwind sailing now and trying to make the most of waves. Upwind seems to have a good routine now.
I’m now much preferring the wetsuit gear over a drysuit. It is surprisingly warm and comfy on the boat.
Yesterday I sailed the Commodores Cup Race, a handicap race around Peveril Ledge Buoy in RS Vareo 239 in testing conditions.
I’d got the hang of the conditions – which saw winds increasing with more chop on the tidal race – by the third lap, but by then battery had died. Getting the kite up on the first lap was a mistake :). Live and learn.
The camera is an Akasao EK7000 at 720p and the battery lasted about 42 minutes. If you live in East Dorset check out Swanage Sailing Club which has excellent dinghy sailing.
I had a rather dramatic equipment failure in my RS Vareo during a windy race mid June with my boom snapping in half. It was corroded around mainsheet pulley clip in any case, the kicker was too loose, a gust must have pulled the boom out of the gooseneck, it hit the hull and snapped. Fortunately a safety boat was close by to get me back and the sail was ok.
I borrowed a boom till the new one was sorted out then got back into the groove, with some success; third and fourth in two cup races. The third position race was a really light wind day and valuable lessons were learned about finding clean air and good practice was had of minimising body movements and rudder. Continue reading “June / July 2018 Sailing”
Klaus Harris 