QMSC inlands

Just had a great weekend at Queen Mary for the inlands. While the turnout was down, the fun was up and some great racing was had with new Ninja rider Chris Rashley taking three wins on the Saturday and after looking for and failing to find my foiling wings I then took the only race on Sunday.

Chris, Ben Paton and Tom Offer had some cracking racing on the Saturday with plenty of place changing and some close finishes in 10-15 knots. I meanwhile was busy with trying to remember how to sail having amassed about 5 hours on the water since October. I missed the first race with a minor pushrod problem, I also had far too much rake meaning whenever I fluffed a tack (often!) the boat would stick head to wind and stay there until I dumped the kicker altogether and reversed off... Regardless, I was very pleased with the boats performance given it was it's first day on the water and by the end of the races I was motoring and rapidly making up for my mistakes.

Saturday night saw the QM Ninja death squad lead us off into Staines for a fantastic curry buffet and as much rum, Jaegermeister and whiskey as Tom could handle!

Sunday looked breathless, but come race time a patchy 5-8 knot breeze floated in meaning we could fit in one race before the sun came out and the breeze evaporated. I was pleased to find the new foils were up the the usual Ninja light air abilities, taking the race by over 5 minutes from Ben, Tom, then Chris.

I'm very pleased with the new boat and will go over it a bit in a future post. A few batten changes have improved the mk2 Ellway sail and improved it in a bit more breeze and it's still excellent in the lighter airs. The new foils feel good and I'm looking forward to getting some hours in and seeing what they can do.

I'm also pleased to see Chris, Ben and Tom all sailing well, having put in a lot of time on the water over the winter and Chris winning his first Moth open.

Meanwhile, somewhere on the south coast, the Wailing Islanders (W.I. For short) couldn't pluck up enough enthusiasm to leave their sandy playpen and drive an hour up the road...

Blokart for sale - NOW SOLD

Realise this isn't Moth related but it is windsport related!

I'm selling my classic Blokart which is one of the early ones with a pretty tired 3M sail and a new 4M and all the bits that go with...

Looking for £900ish - email mike 'at' aardvarkracing.co.uk

Dinghy Show

For the first time in lord knows how long I've watched the dinghy show from the sidelines! I love going, for the same reason I love the silly winter events. Meet buddies from other classes, see shiny toys and ancient hulks of timber with tons of varnish and loads of string that doesn't make 'em any faster!

Well done to Phil for getting a concours nomination but ultimately losing out to the Aardvark built E6 Cherub! I still haven't seen it since it's been finished but everyone who has says it's a work of art...

I was busy in the workshop on my boat. I've finally got all my new pieces of moulding sorted out including the new deck mould for the 2011 Ninja now done. As this was coming off my boat it means I can now crack on and finish the paintwork and get back on the water. Hopefully by next weekend I can be sailing my new boat on my new foils.
I haven't decided what to do about sails just yet so will be sailing on my v2 crazymain from last summer. I still think this sail is amazing downhill but a bit unwieldy upwind. I'm hoping some batten mods I've got up my sleeve will correct this and I guess we'll find out at the inlands in a couple of weeks time...

Better hope that I've been able to develop myself past of the lack of sailing I've done lately!

If in doubt, get out!

If you know you are going to crash - make sure you can leave the boat easily! It's a lot easier on the boat stopping itself than it is for it to stop your 80 kilo self too!

Some excellent crashing going on here and it shows just how windy it was in Belmont at times - 3 years ago at Weymouth people weren't even considering launching in some of those breezes...