Our first race was on Saturday just gone, and it was also our first sail since rebuilding Charlene. We had Donna and I, and Mark, our new friend from Contender sailing, and we also had Jimmy aka Skinny) aboard, who is a friend from my skiffing days. Jimmy still races his 12 foot skiff and Mark is a very good Contender sailor/racer. So I was pretty happy to throw the tiller at the other boys and just tinker with the boat and enjoy, while the other two told me what to trim to make them happy.
We had a really good sail.
The 'new' carbon mast was exceptionally good and we put her through her paces by putting up our big black kite and our fractional in breeze approaching mid teens at times, great pressure for testing her out.
Charlene seems smoother and happier to windward now with her new bow shape, she was happy to try to go through small chop rather than pounding over it.
There was a bit of a scare well into our 10 odd nautical mile windward leg of our race. The keel started pounding fore and aft with the choppy waves. At the time I didn't know if the lead bulb was trying to work itself loose or whether the new weight had coursed the nylon shims to show themselves as not being tight enough in the keel case and was allowing the movement. Thankfully it has turned out to be the latter and I have screwed in new thicker nylon sliders.
The main sail was re-cut in the luff to suit the new mast. But it just wasn't happy and looked like crap, and it also behaved like crap. It was very average at best on the old mast, the sail hinges at the 1/3 length battens. With the new mast the hinging is just shocking. I have somehow also managed to make the new mast about 100mm (4inch) taller than the old mast so that also makes the sail look even worse. The main is now at least 200mm short of a full hoist.
The guys enjoyed themselves and Mark is coming back to sail with us for the rest of the season. Which is great because we have ordered/committed to a brand spanking new main sail. Hopefully we will have it before the end of the winter series. Because we were pretty quick with the kite up but we got absolutely, and understandably, left behind on the windward leg.
We had a really good sail.
The 'new' carbon mast was exceptionally good and we put her through her paces by putting up our big black kite and our fractional in breeze approaching mid teens at times, great pressure for testing her out.
Charlene seems smoother and happier to windward now with her new bow shape, she was happy to try to go through small chop rather than pounding over it.
There was a bit of a scare well into our 10 odd nautical mile windward leg of our race. The keel started pounding fore and aft with the choppy waves. At the time I didn't know if the lead bulb was trying to work itself loose or whether the new weight had coursed the nylon shims to show themselves as not being tight enough in the keel case and was allowing the movement. Thankfully it has turned out to be the latter and I have screwed in new thicker nylon sliders.
Donna must have been at the cabin entrance.
Notice the big creases in the sail?-Bad!
Notice hope much mast we're Not using?- Bad!
Fractional kite looking pretty crap, not sure what was going on there, I think we might have just set it and are still getting ourselves sorted. It's not the greatest kite anyway.
The kite looks much better in this shot. That's a 7m sportsboat with the blue kite, nice guys and a very quick boat; and no we didn't come close to beating it.
The main sail was re-cut in the luff to suit the new mast. But it just wasn't happy and looked like crap, and it also behaved like crap. It was very average at best on the old mast, the sail hinges at the 1/3 length battens. With the new mast the hinging is just shocking. I have somehow also managed to make the new mast about 100mm (4inch) taller than the old mast so that also makes the sail look even worse. The main is now at least 200mm short of a full hoist.
The guys enjoyed themselves and Mark is coming back to sail with us for the rest of the season. Which is great because we have ordered/committed to a brand spanking new main sail. Hopefully we will have it before the end of the winter series. Because we were pretty quick with the kite up but we got absolutely, and understandably, left behind on the windward leg.
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