Interesting days in November

Over the last several days I sailed 3 different boats. The DF 95 at the Cock of the Millpond in Emsworth on Saturday, The Marblehead at the newly established Littleton sailing club for the Mermaid Trophy on Sunday, the IOM at Gosport for a morning of club racing on Tuesday, then a morning at Emsworth on Thursday and finally the open at Chipstead.

Emsworth, DF95 Cock of the Millpond

The Mill Pond at Emsworth is the perfect venue for racing when the wind is not blowing off the houses. On Saturday it was blowing down the pond form the NE with the RO setting up a near perfect windward leeward. The full report is here

https://www.emsworthradiosailing.org/post/a-cock-is-crowned

My learning from the day sailing in light wind is to sail the DF fast and free to maintain speed and make sure you are first off the line, otherwise you are dead if you have the remotest chance of disturbed air.

After racing we retired to the bar in a delightful setting of an old Mill which was rebuilt by the members themselves.

Littleton, Marblehead

Littleton was born out of the demise of Guildford sailing club which fell victim to vandalism. It a nice venue with a warm clubhouse right by the lake. The control area is positioned so you can cover a wide range of wind directions. The racing was on the standard windward leeward course and our two young rising stars, Lewis Wyeth and Oliver Stollery dominated early proceding. Lewis in his Starkers with his swing rig perfectly set up and Oliver Stollery who sailed round with a C rig but proved to be quicker than all the opposing swing rigs. Lewis maintian his pace for the whole day and sailed clean and fast to beat me by a couple of points. I was so pleased for him and hope it encourages him to do more radio sailing in the future.

Gosport, IOM

Then on Tuesday it was back to Gosport with the wind down the lake. You can see the result on their website. The VISS was showing good speed except for the race where I forgot to tighten the kicker and suffered upwind. Other than that it was business as usual, good speed, pointing high when needed and quick downwind.

Emsworth, IOM

We arrived to find the wind offshore but the team were able to set up a windward leeward. The racing was a bit of a lottery depending on where you started on the heavily port bias line. One race you could start successfully at the starbourd end, sail up the lake in wind whilst those to windward end sat in a calm. A race later you could try the same and be left for dead by the boats to windward. It was great fun and a challenge to catch up where you got the start wrong. On the plus side there were always opportunities to catch up. It was a good one to win.

Chipstead, IOM

The final open meeting of the year and the challenge was to beat Craig Richards only he had other ideas. He is annoyingly quick off the start line and first to the shift. After 16 races he was 6 points ahead which all things considered wasn't a bad result. The positive news was he was just as capable at falling into the holes as I was, only I did it on the 1st beats and he on the last beats of the race. Dave Allinson in third kept us both on our toes.

Summary

Thinking back over all these events the message was key. A good start in clear air with speed is critical and be able to tack promptly on the shift. How easy it is to say that. Practicing time on distance is essential. The Radiomaster transmitter is working well and the programming helpful. It is nice to have a stable well engineered platform to work with (boat, rig and transmitter).