Aside from Chipstead, it was great to see top fleet action and Birkenhead and Lincoln along with Gosport, Emsworth and other sites. Facebook is full of reports and its so good to see the competition is working itself up for the ranking events in preparation for the worlds at Datchet next year. Qualification is going to be extremely fierce. The ranking events are set up for Scarborough, Datchet and Woodspring with the national at Lincoln.
It was an extremely difficult at Chipstead on Saturday. The lake lies in a shallow valley running east west, surrounded by trees and the wind was blowing across it. Sometimes the wind would blow down the lake, sometimes the other way as well as across it. All in all an extremely frustrating day as one moment you could look golden in wind, the next you were stationary and boats would sail around you.
In the morning I was on fire and had good starts and got lucky with the shifts and ended up with a 1,1,2 against Craig Richard's 4, 1, 5. So 6 points to the good. Lunch was a fine affair at Chipstead with Peter Crisp supplying a very nice Stew for the competitors to warm them up.
Post lunch the wind had shifted and the course re-aligned. Craig had a stellar afternoon and the difference between he and me was the fact he could get off the start line fast and get away. But it could have gone either way.
Craig was sailing a new version of the Nemesis which gave a good account of itself in the light weather. I was sailing the Proteus. A newer version of proteus will have more buoyancy and adjusted rocker to conteract the noseyness of the current design version.
There are a couple of nice videos and galleries from Gillian Pearson on MYA downwind.
On Sunday I went down to Emsworth because there was a southerly wind force 2-3 and a good opportunity to test the design in light to mid A rig conditions and small waves. Unfortunately the waves did not appear, but what I did confirm was the boat was high and fast upwind. There is something about booms being on the deck when sailing upwind. It is not an end plate effect but it does enable you to point high whilst going fast. 8 wins out of ten secured the result for the morning.
Next weekend is the first of the DF TT events up north so likely to be windy. Should be fun.
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