Weston Grand Slam - 10th -13th April

[dave_ching]

that lack of breeze that is forecast to be breezy?
And is bending the trees nicely.
I do not expect to see you very much this year then.

[Stuberry]

Sorry, I didn't explain the situation very well. Ross is working today (Friday) and Saturday and I have responsibilities on Monday so the plan was to come down for a drink Saturday evening and race on Sunday. However, my forecast for sunday is 3 knots gusting 4, and we've made the call that it's too far to go and too expensive to justify sailing in that breeze.

[roland_trim]

How did everyone get on?

[Tim Noyce]

The results haven't been put up on the Weston site yet. What happened at the event? There was a lot of talk in the  lead up on here and YaY and since I have heard not a squeak! I'm intrigued!

[Will_Lee]

{removed - a bit rude}

[phil_kirk]

We joined Shiny for some challenging but fun sailing in the mostly light airs  on Saturday and Sunday and a bit more breeze on Monday.  Ronin had been cleaning up on friday but Pete and Roz opted not to sail on Sat. Tim U. came along to act as team trolley dolley and helpfully reminded us to put bungs in before we launched.

Flat Stanley was also out pottering but opted not to join in with the race.

I had finnished with the red ship by friday afternoon and despite being up most of Thursday night Sarah and I decided we had to bring Slippery down for a sail.  It was good to get back on the water and hone our light wind sailing technique.

The Asymmetric fleet had a total of 54 entries with a lot of RS 200's and 400's to contend with.

We were impressed with our performance having not sailed the boat for 4 months and finished 18th and 6th in the first two light wind races.  We got both the starts spot on and had clear air for most of the first beat.  This made a big difference and allowed us to avoid being caught by shiny which had more down wind pace.  The second race saw us sail hard right on the second beat to the finish of the one lap race.  initially this looked to be a bad decision but we caught up with a lot of boats who had met a patch of lighter air.

Sunday was also light and only one race was sailed.  A similar problem as before caught out most of the fleet and we were able to catch up and pass many 200's and 400's etc to finnish 12th.  It was rewarding to see how the boat would react to a slight breeze and pick up from a drift to 3-4 knots.  Sarah spent a lot of time in foredeck'svile and decide that a head rest on the bow would be a good mod.

Monday had more wind.  the first race started off in light airs but the sea breeze filled in and shifted to give beam to close reaching with very marginal kite legs.  We got round mid fleet with Shiny closing us down.
the final race was held in twin wiring conditions with the first leg a beat out to the channel.  The start line was canted round as far as possible but left a biassed pin (starboard end) up for grabs. We got the best start arriving 10 second late at the pin end and sailed off in clear air. More later

[peter_barton]

Great days sailing on Fri, light to medium winds, mostly 1 wiring, sometimes 2, only a tiny bit of fordecksville.

We only did those two races and I still dont know the results as they were late posting them. I think we did OK as we were 2nd on the water in both, close behind the lead RS800. (2 49ers sailed to wrong ww mark in 1st race and 1 capsized trying to go upwind with kite in the 2nd race).
Needless to say our best relative speed was in the windier bits where downwind, with the help the the +foil, we got more weight outboard than the 800 and matched them for speed whilst sailing lower angles.

We also had an interesting unintentional experiment. I turned up with 2 RS800 kites and no Cherub ones. Should have been obvious as they are different colours! I am particularly worried as it was only a month ago I took my Cherub sails to a 800 event, leaving me having to use my old ones. I must be loosing it. Anyway, the kites measure the same @21m2 so we got on with it and were suprised how good the 800 kite was to use. It is higher aspect which improved 1) visibility undearneath it, 2) hoists + drops (less entering chute at one time), 3) gybes (less foot, less clew distance to move. As it was only 2 patch we had to open up the back of our sock drop it fully. Speed wise it was fine and pacing alongside 800s and 700s downwind I couldnt determine any speed difference against our normal kite. Only issue was it seemed twitchier on the luff in the light stuff. Maybe (untested) it would be more nosedivy when windy.

We witnessed Phil & Sarah's nailing a great start on the biased line & beat and fine light wind sniggling on Saturday morning, well done! Sure to be a mighty force when in their new boat!

I get frustrated with the Weston Easter regatta having land based start lines which often leads to biased lines (not fun in a 54 boat fleet) with shallow water at one end and scewed w/l courses. Lymington run a two day, Fri & Sat, Easter regatta and I will probably favour that on home turf next year.

Next up for us is the Glyn Charles race @ Hayling Sat 25th April.
http://www.hisc.co.uk/entry_gc_2009/gcnews_page.htm

[Stuberry]

Interesting view with regard to the RS800 kites. Neil and I always found we had more power from the old nackered 800 kite than the brand new Cherub kite. We found the 800 kite to be much simpler to use whereas the Cherub relies much more on the skill of building the apparent, not always easy when the wind is light and shite and your bogged down.

How did Geoff get on popping his Cherub cherry?

[phil_kirk]

Back now.

After our great start in the final race we reached the windward mark close to the 800's and bore off tried to hoist got a twist got luffed by a laser and capsized.  Recovered quickly eventually got the kite un twisted and set off.  We had a steady race after that but managed to over stand the winward mark on the third beat with a B14 who was looking at the wrong mark.  Got some good down wind speed and finished 18th out of 28.

Sailing off 975 in Slippery we ranked 16th in the overal fleet.

We are a bit rusty in breeze but have good speed in the light.

[peter_barton]

How did Geoff get on popping his Cherub cherry?

Didnt sail due to the light winds. Maybe another time.

[neal_gibson]

hi pete according to toby the 800 kite is bigger than 21m2 but i didnt think they were.
the difference is the cherub kite ala yours is 8148mm in the luff iirc and the 800 is 8435mm in the luff which would account for it being twitchy in light airs.

i've never found mine to be more nosedivy in windy conditions though

[roland_trim]

Maybe (untested) it would be more nosedivy when windy.

We found the opposite with the Trifle, adding a big knackered 800 kite made her much more stable in the pitching sense downwind. Although this may be because the addition of a silly picture on it made Hayley more inclined to pop it at every opportunity and we therefore got a lot of practise.
   
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Allegedly the Trifle was a nosdivy boat, we just woke up in the water and relied on anyone who was watching to tell us which way we went over....
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[Phil Alderson]

One of the reasons that 21m2 was chosen for the kite size was that we all thought that the 800 kite was 21m2 but after the change when several were mesured they were found to be a bit over, Ian cut a wedge strip out of the leach of his to get it to measure, it was only about 5cm at its widest point.

[mathew_harris]

If the original intention was to make 800 kites available as a kiet option is there any way that the rules could be altered a little to read something along the lines of "21m2 kite and for the purpose of these rules an 800 kite will measure to 21m2"?

[MK]

No