St George Interclub on 1/3/08

We had 9 moths on the beach and a good onshore southerly of 20+kts.
Date Time Dir Knt Gust
01/04:30pm S 19 28
01/04:00pm S 20 27
01/03:30pm S 19 28
01/02:57pm S 19 30
01/02:37pm S 18 28
01/02:30pm S 17 23
(from BOM for Kurnell)
Like we get every time the NSW moth interclub comes to St George, but at least this time the sailng committee were going to run the race.
Launching was difficult, a long wade out to assemmble the boat then another one after it drifted half way back again to the deep water, all in the waves and wind.
Doink broke his wand in the process and big Bruce did not make it out at all.
Then Luka had a big crash and destroyed his 2 year old Prowler centreboard and foil. Bad time with two weeks to the states.
Donosan was having great difficulty keeping his new Zero on the water and opted to bail out and change a few things.
So at the start was Dave, Peter, Alan, Grant and me. I had some hairy rides with very little height control so I figured something was disconnected and wound the tiller to keep the bow down and the boat in the water.
Dave got away well but at he first marke Grant, Pete and I were close together, then surprisingly I was still with Pete at the lee mark while grant headed off in another direction and got lost.
There was a lot of swimming. I saw Dave in at one time and Pete was having a few more than me, so we stayed in touch. Dave broke something and went home, Alan struggled and departed, leaving only Pete and me still racing, and since we were quite close it became a real race.
I figured I was less than a swim behind him so was determined to stay upright and rely on him having a dip. But for the last two laps we had only one each and although I got inside him on the last windward he was faster to the line and won by 50 seconds.
I was pleased that the sail mast combo worked well. The slight luff curve adjustment to the P&B have matched the old stiff Thorpe mast to a T and I am now happy with both light and heavy shape and control. The low drag head certainly makes tacking easier in the blow in comparison to my old sail.
Sailing low in those conditions was only a little slower than flying and the stability from the big foils make it much easier than the prefoil days. It meant I enjoyed the race and made the finish so it can not be all bad. I can see some advantage now in being able to disconnect the flap and wand in extreme conditions as well as in the very light. I have some ideas for a simple method to achieve that so stay tuned.