Last weekend

[roland_trim]

Born Slippy finally got on the water at her new club this weekend. Turns out that that the Wilsonian and sailing on the Med had a few suprises in store:
1) The friendliest welcome I have ever experienced.
2) A monster sail on Saturday.
Highlights Twinning upwind with Slippy jumping between wave crests, hitting a wave wrong and seeing the bottom of the CB (landed crew/helm first) and some magically long kite runs.
Lowlights Hitting the mud whilst gybing resulting in a very messy capsize, getting upright and then having to two-sail 3 miles downwind in a F4 with no kite and rolling speedhumps. Total capsize count for 4 hours sailing approximately 20, roughly 15 after we lost the kite - next time we'll stop and re-rig...
3) Racing on Sunday on tidal water. Getting the tide so wrong that we started after the medium handicap fleet. Catching up and then retiring after failing at the game called "hunt the next mark".

Was there any good wind elsewhere?

[Phil Alderson]

Took the Flying Kipper out for the first time on sunday and did a couple of races.

Highlights:
Hoisting at the windward mark and engaging warp speed. The acceleration and bouncyness seems more with the 90's rig than the 05 on Primal
Planing quite happily up wind
Rigging in quick time thanks to haliards.


Lowlights:
Realising that dropping the kite on Starboard is not an option.
Torrential rain, that just kept on getting heavier and eventually killed the wind.

All in all a good first sail but with a long list of jobs to get things working just right.

[ross_burkin]

I sailed FS solo on Monday at Datchet. I couldn't wire as I needed two long extensions as opposed to one short one I had. I was over powered upwind about 50% of the time but downwind was fun! Showed those 4 tonners how it's done 

Phil could the acceleration different be due to the dog's very flat hull compared to Primal's 'lots of rocker, so much so you can see it when it’s sailing" hull?

[Phil Alderson]

Phil could the acceleration different be due to the dog's very flat hull compared to Primal's 'lots of rocker, so much so you can see it when it’s sailing" hull?

I think there are a number of things that affect the way the kipper felt. You are more attached to the boat when you are hiking so you feel each of the waves and twitches from the hull, when on the wire things are more damped and you are further away from the spray. No T-foil means less pitch damping

With the smaller rig we would not be going as deep so are probably sailing across the gusts more making it seem gustier. It could also have been windier than we thought thanks again to the smaller rags.

Had another sail on the Kipper on Wed night, I was crewing which I have not done for a while It was fun apart from pulling the pole launch block and part of the front bulkhead off. Out with the Epoxy again.

[smight at bbsc]

That happened to me on comfortably numb at the nationals

[Neil C.]

I reckon it's also got a lot to do with the narrower post-'97 hulls. The pre-'97 boats are a lot fatter up front, so they tend to launch you over waves, or stay flat and blast them apart, where the newer boats are more inclined to slice neatly through the oncoming chop. Makes for a faster, but ultimately much less dramatic boat (boo).

[roland_trim]

Born Slippy ventured out on the Medway again this weekend. Pleased to report that a week in Wales appears to have done the trick.

Good Points
Although we got to the club late, we made the 2 mile sail to the start and finished the race we started - after mistaking the committee boats one minute gun for a late finishing boat.
Having to weave around stationary boats with the kite up is very good fun.

Bad Points
Stupidly I rigged the kite with the port ratchet the wrong way round leaving Hayley no chance of holding it. For racing the reach leg - post gybe - was a bit tight, so 2 sailing was possible. Born slippy seams very happy with this and paced an RS200 who was 3 sailing. This was strange as we poodled along the reach feeling a bit bored whilst the RS200 looked like they were at terminal velocity.

For the way home (faced with crew mutiny - hoist or swim home) the helm had to suffer a 2 mile reach pulling against the ratchet blocks and a fully loaded kite whilst the crew lounged about on the tailpipes. Great fun, but helm needs new arms this morning Am wondering how many others out there find helming with the kite sheets gives amazing feedback?

[simon_jones]

Glad you guys had fun . We were out on sunday and had an real blast in Loco, average 15 knots downwind twinning all the time and not a single swim

[phil_kirk]

Phil,

I had the same trouble dropping the kite on Starboard before I changed the chute using the technique that you documented on Primal.  It now works well on both gybes.  See latest photo's on our boat page taken last autumn.