New crew member for Silverminken

This latest crew member didn't have any documented experience, but I am told he likes water so maybe the foredeck is the place for him. He follows orders, but doesn't really stay in one place for very long. Also, the different sounds the boat make seem unusual to him, so I don't know if he has a lot of suggestions for tuning the boat or if he is just leading us to believe he can do a good job. Anyway, the first trip went well, but I can't really remember if he actually helped in any way or just walked around. :) I'll try getting him to hook up the spinnaker next time, to see if he gets it right.

Elan 310/320 IRC rating discussion

Hi everyone, and sorry for the long delay between posts. The winter is over here in Norway and spring is here, and most people are preparing for the season. Silverminken has spent the winter in the water, so will need a lifting to get the hull up to speeds, but haven't gotten around to that yet.

Margie has asked before about experiences with IRC rating and how well the boats sail to that potential.

Silverminken has an ORC Club certificate, which gives it:

GPH 652.8
Offshore Time-On-Distance 627.8
Offshore Time-On-Time 0.9558
Inshore Time-On-Distance 708.3
Inshore Time-On-Time 0.9530

I personally feel that I still have a lot of boat-handling issues to resolve before I could actually comment on the figures themselves, but racing against other boats I feel that for longer races, especially offshore we are really competitive, whereas more constricted courses (plain windward/leeward) it is a little harder to keep up. Though this I feel is more due to the nature of the boats than the rating.

So for those of you who have gotten your boats rated/measured for IRC - could you please comment with what rating you have and if you feel you are able to sail up to (or above, if that is the case) this potential?