St George in December

Its been a dissapointing month for racing:
With a few of us at SIRS on the 6th a poor club roll up and stong winds saw racing cancelled.
A week later a big westerly made a cancellation an obvious choice.
And this week the closeness of Christmas meant another small turn out of 5. Too many work and family commitments this time of year.

But I tested a couple of new bits. I have fitted a John Ilett foil to my rudder. I also have a new MSL3.

For a few years I thought my old V Stiff Thorpey mast would not suit a KA sail with their generous luff round, but at SIRS I compared my mast to one of the new small dia HM CST masts and found it very similar in stiffness and weight. So apart from the extra windage my mast has come back into fashion.

The rig felt good, the wind was variable enough to try a few settings and it adjusts well. I did have a lot of lee helm though and the rake needed adjustment.

The foil change was more noticable, whereas with the smaller symetrical rudder foil the boat would sink stern first in the light patches, now it stays level and on the foils much longer. It seemed to me the symetical foil arument was lost but Dave did the reverse and tested a new small symetrical and thought he had found some extra speed, as if he really needs any!


The joys of development and testing?