Largs Files

[Phil Alderson]

We had quite a week of sailing at Largs last week, including the relaunch of the Flying Kipper with a shiny new paint job.


Largs Regatta Week started of with the Cumbraes Regatta, round the cans on Sat, we sat on the water in Pocket Rocket for three hours while the start was delayed till David finished bolting fittings to the Flying Kipper, or possibly till the wind got up. We started in 5kts and were mid fleet at the windward mark, just after we hoisted the wind picked up to 15-20kts and with flat water we shot off, ended the race 5 mins ahead of the next boat on corrected time. The Kipper had some teething problems which meant that the kite did not fill properly which slowed them down.

Sunday was scheduled for the Round Cumbraes race, however the wind meant that they decided to go for the alternate course in the channel. We made the schoolboy error of launching too early and after half an hour of blasting up and down the race started. With some serious wave jumping going on up wind we were getting battered so decided to head back in after the second swim.

There are some great photos of us by Marc Turner on his photo gallery.

If that was not enough there was racing on Tues, Wed and Thursday nights. Unfortunately they were mostly light wind so not as much fun as it could have been.

There are some pictures of us and the Flying Kipper taken by Alan Henderson that can be seen on www.fotoboat.com Have a look at Thursday to see the Kipper's new colour, and Sun for some interesting pics, watch out for one of the 300 pointing at the sky.

We then had racing on the following Sat three races in the channel on a W/L course, It was up and down and just windy enough to get going properly in the gusts so we needed to look for pressure all the time. Still we did OK for the first two, the last race went wrong with a General recall delaying things till the wind dissipated to sub cherub winds.

A very tiring week but good fun.





 

[Tom K]

From the photos the sailing looks spectacular! Kipper is looking v mean too!

[Will_Lee]

Marc Turners 6th photo is covershot material of you two!

[roland_trim]

The later one was a really effective capture of what looked like a really fun sail. Rediscovering how wet 97 rules single wire boats are.

[Phil Alderson]

I think that my favourite is the later one of Marc's with all the spray. It was certainly fire hose sailing.

I am trying to find a picture of the Kipper that really shows of the fine paint job that Dave has done. It has purple decks and a silver hull, and looks really neat.

[Phil Alderson]

It was the Scottish Champion of Champions event at Largs at the weekend, as the default Scottish cherub we got an invite.

There were 26 boats at the event from Optimists, to a Hurricane 5.9. At 941 we should have been the third fastest in the fleet, which was split into a fast and slow fleet, with the results combined.

Saturday dawned wet and windy, with gusts over 35 Kts forecast all day, and measured wind in the high 30's there was no chance of sailing, so racing was abandoned early enough for people to do something with their afternoon.

Sunday was little brighter but the wind had moderated, so racing was back on.

Heading out to the start with dark low clouds in a 5Kt easterly did not fill us with much enthusiasum, but just before the start of Race 1 the wind picked up to 15-18kts, and despite being completely burried at the start, once i got clear air there was enough wind to get right to the back with the T-foil working well, giving us phenominal up wind speed. We got to the windward mark with just the 5.9 and a Contender infront of us. It was a square course, so there was a long, and interesting beam reach before the bearaway and hoist. The wind stayed up for two laps, and we finished 4th with just the Contender, and two 420's ahead of us on corrected.

Race two was not so good, the wind had dropped to 5-8 kts, another attrocious start left us burried, we never recovered and finished last.

Race three was slightly better the wind had increased slightly to 8-12 kts, The first beat was light and we were mid pack, there was a split on the first downwind leg, but we were stuck just on the back end of a group consiting of Ospray, RS400, National 18 and Contender. For the second beat, it was clear that we needed a bit more wind, as the gusts rolled through we would pull back a couple of boat lengths, but when it dropped so did we.

In the end we were 13th, which given the std of the competition, and the 941 handicap I was happy with, although I do need to work out what to do to get more speed in the medium winds. Also worth a mention is long time friends of the class Viola and Mike Scott from Keilder Water SC who finished a very creditable third in their Ospray.

[Will_Lee]

Excellent job!

[Hayley_Trim]

Well done! Sounds like with a bit more consistent breeze you'd have cleaned up.

[Hayley_Trim]

And there are photos
http://fotoboat.thirdlight.com/gallery.tlx?containerid=192293

[dave_ching]

Well done!
Sounds like a good event.
on a square course aswell.
Sounds like the key will be getting better starts in mixed fleets.
When either the quality of the fleet or there are a lot of boats we are not a great boat to get of the line well.
I have always had the same problem.
We have reasonable light wind speed but if you have to pass a fleet that counts for nothing.
The only thing I was think of is doing the I14 thing of a board that is designed to be lifted just after the start.
Little point for our normal sailing though.
Are you sailing with an 05 rig now?

[Phil Alderson]

There were a range of courses Square first, which I think was actually benificial, as we were planing properly on the reach, whereas most of the other boats were plodding. Then M course, then triangle.

At the moment I am sailing with 97+ I have a bigger mainsail that takes upwind sail area to approx 14m2, but am still using a 97 rules kite and sailing the boat single wire.

In the light we are just shocking, generally about the same speed as the RS200's up wind.

I am planning to build a new centerboard as the one on PR is very short and fat, a new larger kite is also on the list, and possibly doing something to stiffen up the mast.

[Neil C.]

Good on you Phil, it's good to keep Cherubs on the radar North of the border.

[phil_kirk]

It sounds like you were underpowered in the lighter stuff relative to other boats . It could be that a low rocker, short waterline boat is harder to sail well in lighter winds than the other classes which probably sail quite well in light to modrate winds in displacement mode.

E-numbers has 14.6m^2 and performs well in light winds with 120-140kgs crew weight.

I have found that starts are very important. In a mixed handicap fleet where other boats can point higher it is very difficult to stay in a lane.  Our starts were one of the things I was really happy with at the inlands.

[Phil Alderson]

Good blast today at Largs, it was the first of our winter series, and we got going nicely in a strong westerly. There were some interesting squalls as the rain came through, and one particularly memorable one between the races was massive hail stones, Just for survival I headed upwind max de powered but still flogging the main, I could hardly see where I was going, and you could not hear anything but the hail, still there was an impressive double rainbow just before it hit.


Some nice photos by Alan Henderson on www.fotoboat.com

 

[Tim Noyce]

Great effort Phil. Always nice to have a photo to remember the day by.