Hi Thomas
I thought I would fill you in on the progress of the Australian 310. Boats arriving in December is not a good thing as Christmas and summer holidays fill 3 to 4 working weeks. So things did not happen until late January, early February when rigging was finished and our sails were finally finished. On our first outing we decided to enter the club race and
came home first. The following week we raced again with the same IRC rating
as you listed for the German boat, again with much luck we won our section. The boat has been displayed at the Melbourne boat show with much interest and a lot of comments on just how good the shape is. On the water we get a lot of favorable comments and people
wanting to sail with us. There are 4 350's in the country with a few more on order but as yet
only one 310.
On a technical point with the spinnaker we are doing inside jibes in winds up to 15 knots and doing outside jibes in winds over 15 knots despite our best efforts in the stronger breezes we are finding that the windward spinnaker sheets are ending up under the boat.
Great for cleaning the boat but very frustrating, do you have any suggestions to cure this.
thanks
Margie
PS
We enjoyed your skiing video and envy of all that snow Attached is a photo of us going back to shore after a race with our number 3 head sail.
1 comment:
Hi Margie, and thanks for your update! Great to see good results on the racecourse!
As for your question about the jibes: I mostly sail shorthanded, so we focus on knowing safe maneuvers that will "always" work regardless of conditions. This means we have been doing outside jibes all the time.
However, we are also considering doing inside jibes in lighter winds (changing the sheets for outside jibes in a squall is a bit tricky though).
I assume that you have a lazy sheet tack batten on the spinnaker like I do?
Anyways, the way we do our outside jibes is we hold a course that keeps the chute filled and gradually feed out the sheet (keep the chute filled!) until the sail starts collapsing, and then the boat is turned and the new sheet is hauled in like crazy. Yes, once in a while the boat gets a cleaner bottom, but it usually works out fine when the rotation of the boat matches the hauling. The trick is to have the chute powered up as much as possible, because this has two advantages:
1) The boat keeps speed through the jibe
2) A filled spinnaker lifts the sheets around much better than one that is collapsing.
Anyone else have tips for Margie?
Post a Comment