Boycott

Deciding to boycott :-) Balmoral on Saturday, I went down to St George to race our point score.
Julian, Clive and I went out to race with Bruce coming down to say hello as he is on repair duty.

Clive arrived late to the club and started well behind us, he played a few laps with me and he has improved a great deal staying with me through out these laps, more tacking and Gybing practice and he will be fast.

Julian finished his first race ONLY 50 minutes behind. The queen of Sheba lying on the cockpit floor down wind and sitting on the wing bar looking like he was roasting marshmallows and holding a beer (nice combination) upwind.
The toe straps are there for a reason big fella.

Jokes aside well done.

So it was an empty win for the gybing Zoo Lander, Thanks Bruce ;-)

Bruce and Luka have released the next pod cast with Phil which is a great listen you can download it from Bruce's site or off I Tunes.

Well, gotta go, there is a hot chick on t.v.

Butter Feet

Any day but a club championship.

Perfect SE'er on Saturday for our first club/champs. nice pin end start behind Dave at the top.

Going into the second gybe I noticed my back foot was tangled into the shock chord to the control lines. Already committed to the gybe I went across and ended up in the piss with the shock chord snapped and control lines every where. With the boat upright again i was off then into the piss?????

What happened was when the ropes snapped it damaged one of the vang cleats and the cleat stopped gripping the vang, usually not a huge deal, the problem is with the smaller dia masts the camber induces won't stay on the mast without vang tension. Every tack they would pop off so i pulled out of the race.

Dave won by an enormous margin. Luka did not even get to the start with rudder pin issues. Donosan was second with Phil in third and Kylie fourth.

Out this Thursday for repair and training.

Just the two of us

It was only Bruce and I that arrived at St George choosing not to go to Sunshine. Shigemi came down as well to finish us but with only two on the water there was no point.

Bruce and I started with the skates and joined in with the race, the MG's were four minutes in front of us.

By the top mark I had over taken all the MG's and was first down hill. By the start of the third lap I was lapping the MG's and the skates. The boat was handling fantastic.

I went through the finish and de-rigged hosed down the boat had a quick shower and went into the finishers box to give John a hand as he was by himself the second boat across the finish line was a Skate 35 minutes after me.

Bruce had mad a few wand changes and it was great to see him up and foiling about. Three red boats in the club should confuse the finishes.

lunch break

Sitting at home staying out of the wind looking up the weekends forecast.
BOM states Saturday will be NE 14 and Sea/b has it for SE 8-10 might be one of those shifty early season St George races where it is blowing light SE on the southern side of the river fighting a NE up near the river club for those of us not making the trip to Sunshine.

The rest of this week is out as I'm waiting on new wing tramps to be made.

It does not look so good anyway.

18/10/08 Race 1 (for me)

Nice 10-12 NEer greeted us for the race. A small turn out with Dave, Luka (on Clive's boat), Kylie, Lea and me.
We all had a clean start with Dave leading then Lea, myself then Luka, by the top mark I made up ground and Dave turned the mark 10sec before me in second.

Down wind to the wind mark we had half meter swell with the run out tide but the boat felt good. unfortunately I had to put it in the piss at the wind mark as the mark was a mess with Skates and a cruiser to the starboard who refused to either stop or move away from the race coarse. I rounded up to pass him on the other side digging the wing bar and putting in.

I always love it when the driver of the cruiser abuses you for being in the road, Dick head.

Any way up and off to the bottom mark with Luka up my ass. Upwind I made ground on Luka (a testament to how well his boat is set up).

At the top mark Dave decided to turn around and round the mark again apparently he was getting bored being upfront by himself. :-(

We headed down wind and for the rest of the race it was Dave and me in the lead with Luka pulling out with a broken mainsheet. Kylie also retired with a broken bridle.

Dave won on scratch by three minutes then I came in on second nine minutes in front of Lea.

I won on handicap which i'm pretty happy about.

I am extremely happy with the boat it is fast up wind and down it is stable with minimal ventilation. I could get more out of it down hill, I was a little conservative in the wave keeping it low when I did not need to but a great race in general.

Luka's new boat is due this week.

AHHHH Noosa

We are currently on a family holiday up here in sunny Noosa.

Today it's 29degrees with a water temp. of over 20.

I am watching a few Hobie Wave's out on the water in the NE breezes they have up here most of the time by about 10am. Sensational.

This of course makes me miss my boat. oh well we are back on the 11th.

Not to sure how the first race went at St G on the 27th can any one fill me in.

Season starts

Saturday's registration and practice race saw the start to the St George SC's race season.

Unfortunately only 6 or seven moths, 2 16's and a couple of MG's hit the water. Maybe the 20-30nt coastal warning turned people away and we were lucky enough to see gust's of up to 20 at most.

I didn't make the start of the practice race and was left behind on the first lap. once I got into the first lap I was more than happy with my speed both up and down wind.

I had a couple of problems that have to be sorted through out my laps i lost vang with the port side cleats not closing on the rope and Tacking, which has never been a problem for me is turning into a small problem that needs some adjusting.

Gybing though, is great which is a turn. mostly off starboard though :-)

I'm off to Noosa for the next three races so no racing for the meantime.