Still ventilating the rudder

Although I finished a close third to Lea I really did not have a great race. The rudder continues to ventilate at high speed, despite careful fairing and sanding with an accurate profiled template.

Again we had 9 moths starting but again only three finished with a mixture of gear failures and lost enthusiasm from those who withdrew. It was a gusty westerly which started out at about 12kts with big holes and ended up as a solid 20. Lots of fun and plenty of swims.

Dave who usually wins each week had an off day. Not only did a few of us cross him up the first work, followed by Andrew and Luka putting on a fair chase, but then he managed to break a centreboard brass pushrod and so pulled out of the race. From my point of view it was a good feeling to be with a few fast boats at least up the first work.

But then my ventilation problems returned? Swims from spin outs and some from poor gybes, but I did nearly catch Lea as the wind freshened towards the end.

Analysis with Andrew concludes that my rudder is more vertical than his, the same molding and he does not have a problem, going very fast at last. So this week's exercise is to adjust the T joint connection for a few more degrees of forward rake. Not so hard with the detatchable T. And the rudder box has plenty of scope for more range.

Next week we have an interclub at Balmoral. Most of the StGeorge crew are going. It will be good to mix it with the Balmoral Bladeriders and Woollahra fleet. At this early stage the forecast is for a moderate southerly, at least that tends to keep the yacht and skiff fleets clear of our race course, othersize its very crowded.