Tuesday, April 21, 2015

NWF Weymouth pics / no pain no gain!




Monday, April 20, 2015

Weymouth NWF speed event

Challenging conditions at the NWF speed event. Stacked on 7m Evo and Patrik 110 yesterday in 3' chop. Then an explosion that ripped my sail in two. Big thanks to Moatt sails​ for repairing the sail within 1 hour of receiving it.

The rest of the day was on 7.8m Evo and Patrik 110, the wind had died a bit by the time I had got out on the course but quite happy with a 7th, a 100 ltr board would have been easier to handle through the chop.

Very close racing between the whole fleet. Today was 8.6 Evo and Patrik 135, should of taken the 9.6. Ended with a fourth today and 4th overall for the event. It has been my first time sailing on the Evo 7's and the first time on slalom and cambered sails since November. It took a bit of getting used to but very pleased with the way everything is working. Carrying a bit too much timber at the moment but as usual that's a work in progress.

Great event and what speed is all about. sometimes speed can come across as too elitist and that is not whites about. Speed has always been about all ages and abilities chasing their personal goals. Hats off to Alan Cross for seeing this and promoting speed.

The whole event has done what i wanted it to do for me, i have learnt a lot about the sails and fin / board combinations that i wouldn't have learnt free sailing in Guernsey. Now it's done to water time in Guernsey preparing for the next adventure.


Thursday, April 9, 2015

SPEED TIME!

Just finished numbering up the new race kit.

Only one side this year, almost every speed strip I can think of is Starboard tack.

Wave gear has been taken out of the van and now it is time to concentrate on speed.

Big slalom sessions planned up and down the coast for training and the odd speed session when conditions arise. (not that often in Guernsey)

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Speed board volume


Interesting findings today when I measured the volume of my 43 and 41cm speed boards. Always wondered how big my custom Patrik Diethelm​ 41 was compared to the Patrik production 43.

The 41 is 233cm long compared to the 43 which is 228cm.

I haven't used the 41cm in Luderitz during the past two years because the wind hasn't been great and I have been on the "bigger" 43cm.

Bigger turns out not to be entirely true. I constructed a plywood box 2.445m x 60cm x 14cm, filled it up and then pushed my speed boards under the water. The amount of water they displaced then tells me their volume.

The 43cm, to my workings, displaced 54 litres of water and the 41 displaced 58 litres.