Too much wind again today. The Race Committee postponed ashore until 1130 then all fleets were sent out. The wind was in the low 20's. But as we sailed out to the race areas, the breeze built to 30 knots plus.
At 1300, the scheduled start time, the race committee's for all four courses abandoned racing for the day and sent the fleet in. Since it was a five mile beat to windward for the Farr 40's, we used the sail in as an opportunity to train in the heavy air. We sailed in race mode with Peter de Ridder and his Mean Machine team as well as Joe Fly from Italy.
We all had our coach boats following us, observing who was doing what from a sail trim standpoint and who was going better. We sailed on both tacks and even switched sides to see if there was any geographical influence on the results. As we approached the harbor the wind had moderated to 25 knots so we set our fractional spinnakers (Farr 40's can have masthead spinnakers now) and went ripping down wind. It was good to get a few gybes in those conditions when it didn't count. It was pretty exciting but we did not do any serious damage.
We got back to the dock about 1530, had our little debrief on what we learned, bailed the water out of the boat, hosed off the wet weather gear, loaded the dehumidifier onboard, fired her up and headed back to the house. - Paul Cayard
At 1300, the scheduled start time, the race committee's for all four courses abandoned racing for the day and sent the fleet in. Since it was a five mile beat to windward for the Farr 40's, we used the sail in as an opportunity to train in the heavy air. We sailed in race mode with Peter de Ridder and his Mean Machine team as well as Joe Fly from Italy.
We all had our coach boats following us, observing who was doing what from a sail trim standpoint and who was going better. We sailed on both tacks and even switched sides to see if there was any geographical influence on the results. As we approached the harbor the wind had moderated to 25 knots so we set our fractional spinnakers (Farr 40's can have masthead spinnakers now) and went ripping down wind. It was good to get a few gybes in those conditions when it didn't count. It was pretty exciting but we did not do any serious damage.
We got back to the dock about 1530, had our little debrief on what we learned, bailed the water out of the boat, hosed off the wet weather gear, loaded the dehumidifier onboard, fired her up and headed back to the house. - Paul Cayard
