Monday 17 December 2007

Weekend sailing

Not much sailing going on for me over the weekend, but Martin finally got a good sail in the Axeman. With all the previous weekends of no wind or monster wind it was the first on in consistent foiling conditions and he was loving it!
Chris Bishop was out and about giving joyrides in his Lowrider Axeman too - nice to see the freezing weather isn't too off putting for the Bristol Mothies!

Saturday 8 December 2007

Saturday sailing

Alan, Martin and myself took to the water again today, despite the dire forecast and pouring rain. It was a very variable 15-20 knots, with occasional squals!
With the weather doing mental things over here at the moment, we decided to take what we could and get on with it, giving us about 40 minutes of sailing time before the wind went nuts again.

The new boat is foiling very well and very stable height wise, just lacking a little in take off capabilities, which I will be fixing with a bit more down flap as it comes up a little short.

Martin took a brief video clip with his phone...



Just need to do a few small tweaks and She'll be ready for the Bloody Mary!

Thursday 6 December 2007

Daily Sail feature

I've made the front page of the Daily Sail! Quality read, worth subscribing if you don't already...

Link here...

Sunday 2 December 2007

Adam Mays launch shots

Thanks to commander May for these shots!






Saturday 1 December 2007

Saturday sailing

Well, the forecast for the weekend had Saturday down as the lesser of two evils... When I got down the club it actually looked pretty good with a peaky 15 knot breeze. I started getting rigged, but with new boat stuff this took a pretty long time.
Adam turned up and it had gotten pretty windy so we went for a nice cuppa (seemed like the civilised thing to do). The wind abated a bit and coaxed me back onto the water and with a solid 20 knot breeze, Edwards first outing began.

Problem number one. I'd already ran out of cunningham - my funky dogbones to attach said item to the mainsail had taken up a bit too much space and the cascade had run into the boom!

Problem number two. I pulled a lot of kicker on quickly from a dubious angle and wrenched part of the cleat flipper off the kingpost. Nothing some new bolts wouldn't sort anyway...

Anyway, the boat foiled nicely and smoothly - its always hard to tell on flat water how well everything is working for you with the controls but so far so good. After a few blasts back and forth, then up and down I'd hit 20.5 knots and decided to call it quits for the day as there were some nasty looking clouds sneaking up.

Pics by Angie Cooke, more to follow from Adam...