89er

[JulianB]

Great day yesterday, 90 min sail in the afternoon, 17:20 - about 18:50.
Windy had the wind at 9-10knts, Seabreeze a tad more. 12-13knts, no white caps or "lambs in the paddock" so that collaborates. I'm guessing max gust was 11-12, most of the time 9-10.
Crew weight, under cooked, think we were at 410kgs so 20% down.

GT steer initially, so I could play, OK hard to believe but tacking angle was around 70°, we did 2-3-4 tacks at that, both Jack on his watch and the Veliciteck confirmed 70ish° tacking angle.
We did look at the boats around us, yachts, Lasers, couple of 29ers and we were out pointing everything by a considerable margin.

(these are SOG directions and resulting tacking angles which makes it even harder to believe because Yaw° is factored in)

BS was mid 6's, so 6.4-6.7 and given we were 20% down on grunt, I can believe that. I was playing mainsheet, asked for some adjustments on the rigging, mostly easing D2's, moving jibs up and down, and altering jib-sheet angle, we got speed to creep up to just shy of and occasionally into the 7's. Tacking angle widened out to hi 70's, almost 80.

Downhill run, all good, no bangs, 12-13knts BS, got to the bottom, GT handed the tiller over, probably stupidly, we wanted low to hi 7's so more D2 off, drop the traveler down and hauled the mainsheet on, we did start to get BS in the low 7's, but Tacking angle was now mid 80's°.

Wind was dying (as NE'ers do) so last ride home down the Nth shore, hit 14.5knts BS at some stage under kite when we stacked the crew right aft.

Couple of really interesting things

a) upwind, crew sitting normally, BS low to mid 6's, I could see the Fin Wake, and my guess is it was 240-260mm off CL (the fin is almost exactly 4m fwd) so that's about 4° of yaw.
Push the crew fwd, get the nose in, and speed rose to hi 6's. Fin wake moved in 40-60mm.

b) Down wind, crew sitting normally, BS 12-13. Stack the boat aft, get Alex to come aft behind me (Alex is 90kgs) speed rose 1-1.5knts. In this configuration we hit the 14.5 max speed and not in some gust, just refining and refining, main in, so leach ribbons just breaking, camber up the bottom, let out-haul go, let downhaul up, trim the jib and so it exhausted properly, all that stuff.

c) the fin wake, when we started hitting 7's uphill the fin wake certainly narrowed, down under 200mm (off CL) and it was much easier to stay at or above 7knts, once you go there. Maybe that is the fin going laminar, and just like you can feel it on a 49er, it's happening also on a 89er, but it just has to much mass to notice.

I'm not sure that best VMG was achieve by going after 7 knts, more than highly likely we would have been better off targeting low to mid 6's and getting the really hi pointing angles. Water was very flat. It's a nice arrow to have in the quiver!

BTW, shroud tensions when we got back to the beach, Primaries were around 310-320kgs, D2's were negligible (we came off atleast 2 turns while sailing) D1's were up there, maybe 240-260kgs. Caps where also around the 170 mark.
At the 310-320kgs, we did have very slight F/Stay movement up-hill, and a bit more down-hill but nothing alarming. The Dynema shrouds are live up to or beyond expectation.

This is sails down measurements, what could be refereed to "Dock Settings".

We have to back the D2's off (5 turns) to get the lifting sling on.

We also back the primaries off 15 turns (from dock) to overnight, just good husbandry!
We have about 60-70kgs on the primaries and similar on the caps, over night on the hard.

Saturday is the Island Super 30 race, (up under the bridge, around a bunch of Island), it's very much a passage race, should be fin.

Go to Noumea on Sunday for a week, so there will be radio silence.

jB

 

[Stanno]

Great day yesterday, 90 min sail in the afternoon, 17:20 - about 18:50.
Windy had the wind at 9-10knts, Seabreeze a tad more. 12-13knts, no white caps or "lambs in the paddock" so that collaborates. I'm guessing max gust was 11-12, most of the time 9-10.
Crew weight, under cooked, think we were at 410kgs so 20% down.

GT steer initially, so I could play, OK hard to believe but tacking angle was around 70°, we did 2-3-4 tacks at that, both Jack on his watch and the Veliciteck confirmed 70ish° tacking angle.
We did look at the boats around us, yachts, Lasers, couple of 29ers and we were out pointing everything by a considerable margin.

(these are SOG directions and resulting tacking angles which makes it even harder to believe because Yaw° is factored in)

BS was mid 6's, so 6.4-6.7 and given we were 20% down on grunt, I can believe that. I was playing mainsheet, asked for some adjustments on the rigging, mostly easing D2's, moving jibs up and down, and altering jib-sheet angle, we got speed to creep up to just shy of and occasionally into the 7's. Tacking angle widened out to hi 70's, almost 80.

Downhill run, all good, no bangs, 12-13knts BS, got to the bottom, GT handed the tiller over, probably stupidly, we wanted low to hi 7's so more D2 off, drop the traveler down and hauled the mainsheet on, we did start to get BS in the low 7's, but Tacking angle was now mid 80's°.

Wind was dying (as NE'ers do) so last ride home down the Nth shore, hit 14.5knts BS at some stage under kite when we stacked the crew right aft.

Couple of really interesting things

a) upwind, crew sitting normally, BS low to mid 6's, I could see the Fin Wake, and my guess is it was 240-260mm off CL (the fin is almost exactly 4m fwd) so that's about 4° of yaw.
Push the crew fwd, get the nose in, and speed rose to hi 6's. Fin wake moved in 40-60mm.

b) Down wind, crew sitting normally, BS 12-13. Stack the boat aft, get Alex to come aft behind me (Alex is 90kgs) speed rose 1-1.5knts. In this configuration we hit the 14.5 max speed and not in some gust, just refining and refining, main in, so leach ribbons just breaking, camber up the bottom, let out-haul go, let downhaul up, trim the jib and so it exhausted properly, all that stuff.

c) the fin wake, when we started hitting 7's uphill the fin wake certainly narrowed, down under 200mm (off CL) and it was much easier to stay at or above 7knts, once you go there. Maybe that is the fin going laminar, and just like you can feel it on a 49er, it's happening also on a 89er, but it just has to much mass to notice.

I'm not sure that best VMG was achieve by going after 7 knts, more than highly likely we would have been better off targeting low to mid 6's and getting the really hi pointing angles. Water was very flat. It's a nice arrow to have in the quiver!

BTW, shroud tensions when we got back to the beach, Primaries were around 310-320kgs, D2's were negligible (we came off atleast 2 turns while sailing) D1's were up there, maybe 240-260kgs. Caps where also around the 170 mark.
At the 310-320kgs, we did have very slight F/Stay movement up-hill, and a bit more down-hill but nothing alarming. The Dynema shrouds are live up to or beyond expectation.

This is sails down measurements, what could be refereed to "Dock Settings".

We have to back the D2's off (5 turns) to get the lifting sling on.

We also back the primaries off 15 turns (from dock) to overnight, just good husbandry!
We have about 60-70kgs on the primaries and similar on the caps, over night on the hard.

Saturday is the Island Super 30 race, (up under the bridge, around a bunch of Island), it's very much a passage race, should be fin.

Go to Noumea on Sunday for a week, so there will be radio silence.

jB

You racing past us on Saturday then? Will try and keep an eye out!!

 

[JulianB]

You racing past us on Saturday then? Will try and keep an eye out!!

Yes I will, hope you bring out my long awaited beer!

 

[JulianB]

Hi, and thanks to all those that have rung/texted/whatapped in and congratulated us.

Basically this was the 1st real race today, what they call a Island race, so

Start of Clark, its was a beat in a freshening NEer up to the pigs (12-15knts), 180° turn, kite up, then sth of Shark then nth of all the other islands all the way down the harbor (under the bridge) to the last Island (Goat) and back up (again under the bridge) to Taylor bay, 11nm tight string course.
Lots of fun.

Had not started a serious boat race for 10 years, anyway, did the 49er thing, found our spot, planted our self there maybe 1 min out, Tasty decided to play silly buggers, and they have every right to do that, 30 secs to go quick tack onto Pt, only 5 sec, back onto stb, hit the line at probably 5 knts on STB, right at the boat maybe 2 secs late. Quickly sailed over Tasty, Clewless and all the others into Bradley's. Bit of argy bargy on board as to whether we should go to the east or hang on the west, GT won and was right, we tack off Shark, and were 10 lengths clear ahead of Tasty. We should have taken a hitch up to Nelson, but we hung on, and got to the Beashal buoy (the Pigs) maybe 1 min clear, popped the spin and we were off. Made it around Shark with not much margin, hung on to long into Point Piper, so we gybe and just cleared Garden Island, but had to drop for Pinch-Gut, re set and then we learnt that running 10° lower (so a gybe angle about 80°) was better than doing another 1 knts and more gybes, still it was tricky, lots of deep angles, but still up around 12-13 knts BS which aint shabby.

Poor boys, occasionally we had 3 on the spin sheet, shit its got some load!

Back up-hill for the run home, west of the Bridge it was fickle and bullet-ly, lots of 45° heel moments, but also lots of 7 and 8 knt uphill, most of the time 6.7-6.9 at 80° TA.

Back under the bridge is was fresh, 20 -22knts NE.

Jack said he would kill me but just near Pinch-gut on the way back up, we were doing hi 8's and low 9's upwind, got on a wave, but even after it left, the boat was a rocket ship.

Cut a long story short, we won by 12 mins across the line, 4 mins on handicap in a 2hr race in fickle conditions. Not really any opportunity to stretch it's legs. So really looking Fwd to PL.

Max speed was 14.5 knts, average speed was 8.2knts.

Nothing broke, primarys were up around 1/2 tonne, and we went higher, probably hi 500's maybe into the 600's (kgs), eased the D2 again, that made a massive difference to BS, it took off. Yaw, when I looked (and I was busy, Syd in a full working harbor, lots and lots of boats) 150-180mm of CL.

Stanno, looked for you, a few 29ers but no beer to be seen!

Few boats did not come to play, (Cape 31) but I'm very happy boy.

Mast is down, fin is out, Dee and me are off to Noumea for a week, unlikely to be sailing the boat until 9th, another Super 30 on the 11th, possibly last SYD sail (before PL) on the 14th, head to PL, (19-23rd) then I'm off to London (24th) and Italy and Swiss so lots happening.

And we have our CBH BTW, its 0.9183, so it will be all guns blazing.

 

[JulianB]

For those who have already pinged me.

I look after the boat, as in screw fitting son, and make bits.
GT dose all the paper work, and as he and I are both members of SASC, his gets billing.

The crew was,

Jack Guanard
Alex Bethwaite
Martin Mok
Jim Beck
Graham Turner &
Me (and I had the dummies stick in my hand)

Alex was hanging on to the spin sheet 90% of the time, and if he was not hanging onto it, he was helping who ever was.
Jack was in the beck, playing Jib sheet and that was an extraordinary job in testing condition.
It was GT's call to go East, and he was right, not sure who decided not to take the hitch to Nelson (further East) but 6 of 1, 1/2 dozen of another.
Jimmy was sensational up under (west) of the bridge, it's his stomping ground.
And Martin was everywhere doing everything, calling gusts and helping where needed.

All I did for 99% of the time was look at 2 tufts on the jib (& call for easing of D2's)

 

[DickDastardly]

Hi, and thanks to all those that have rung/texted/whatapped in and congratulated us.

Basically this was the 1st real race today, what they call a Island race, so

Start of Clark, its was a beat in a freshening NEer up to the pigs (12-15knts), 180° turn, kite up, then sth of Shark then nth of all the other islands all the way down the harbor (under the bridge) to the last Island (Goat) and back up (again under the bridge) to Taylor bay, 11nm tight string course.
Lots of fun.

Had not started a serious boat race for 10 years, anyway, did the 49er thing, found our spot, planted our self there maybe 1 min out, Tasty decided to play silly buggers, and they have every right to do that, 30 secs to go quick tack onto Pt, only 5 sec, back onto stb, hit the line at probably 5 knts on STB, right at the boat maybe 2 secs late. Quickly sailed over Tasty, Clewless and all the others into Bradley's. Bit of argy bargy on board as to whether we should go to the east or hang on the west, GT won and was right, we tack off Shark, and were 10 lengths clear ahead of Tasty. We should have taken a hitch up to Nelson, but we hung on, and got to the Beashal buoy (the Pigs) maybe 1 min clear, popped the spin and we were off. Made it around Shark with not much margin, hung on to long into Point Piper, so we gybe and just cleared Garden Island, but had to drop for Pinch-Gut, re set and then we learnt that running 10° lower (so a gybe angle about 80°) was better than doing another 1 knts and more gybes, still it was tricky, lots of deep angles, but still up around 12-13 knts BS which aint shabby.

Poor boys, occasionally we had 3 on the spin sheet, shit its got some load!

Back up-hill for the run home, west of the Bridge it was fickle and bullet-ly, lots of 45° heel moments, but also lots of 7 and 8 knt uphill, most of the time 6.7-6.9 at 80° TA.

Back under the bridge is was fresh, 20 -22knts NE.

Jack said he would kill me but just near Pinch-gut on the way back up, we were doing hi 8's and low 9's upwind, got on a wave, but even after it left, the boat was a rocket ship.

Cut a long story short, we won by 12 mins across the line, 4 mins on handicap in a 2hr race in fickle conditions. Not really any opportunity to stretch it's legs. So really looking Fwd to PL.

Max speed was 14.5 knts, average speed was 8.2knts.

Nothing broke, primarys were up around 1/2 tonne, and we went higher, probably hi 500's maybe into the 600's (kgs), eased the D2 again, that made a massive difference to BS, it took off. Yaw, when I looked (and I was busy, Syd in a full working harbor, lots and lots of boats) 150-180mm of CL.

Stanno, looked for you, a few 29ers but no beer to be seen!

Few boats did not come to play, (Cape 31) but I'm very happy boy.

Mast is down, fin is out, Dee and me are off to Noumea for a week, unlikely to be sailing the boat until 9th, another Super 30 on the 11th, possibly last SYD sail (before PL) on the 14th, head to PL, (19-23rd) then I'm off to London (24th) and Italy and Swiss so lots happening.

And we have our CBH BTW, its 0.9183, so it will be all guns blazing.

View attachment 570595

Great to see. Didn’t see you in action except paying that little pre-start visit (I was keeping Guanaria amused for the afternoon) but the whole package looks the foods. Must be rewarding.

 

[kelly]

First off let me say that any Super 30 yacht that can beat Tasty and Ophir by 12.5 mins across a 2 hour Windward / Leeward course is a rocket ship . I was sitting on my balcony having lunch in Birchgrove near the top end of the course when I saw this little black boat off the air heading towards the top end ( NW ) of Cockatoo Island when I thought this is an interesting little boat, what in the f*** is it .
I only wished I had checked the time but I have got to say it was close to 20 mins before Tasty and Ophir appeared and I realised I was watching a Super 30 race , not so much a race as a follow me.
This evening I checked out the results and so was a little surprised that the little Black Boat had only won by 12.5 mins across the line. Now my times could be off the mark but I would be surprised if the 20 year old Hick and 15 year old Tiger did not take 5 mins or more out of " Dont Panic " on the way back home .
It was interesting to watch the crew on Don't Panic through an upwind tack right in front of my balcony. It was definitely like watching a seven man 18 footer. Compare and contrast with the crews on Tasty and Ophir who looked more like the crews on a super maxi in comparison.
I am not sure where I am going with this Post other to say I am not sure what Chris Sligar would say if he was sitting here with me having lunch.
Maybe 8.9 Sports Boats/Yachts are the future of Super 30's who knows , I don't think it was Chris's vision 20 years ago when he and Guy Irwin promoted the beginning of Super 30's .
Will be interested in others thoughts , are modified Sports Boats like Reo Speedwagon and Don't Panic the future of Super 30's and will this division become a home for ex 18footer Skiff Sailors. Not there is anything wrong with that but will be interesting in any case.
Certainly my preference is to see Super 30 for Super 30 Yachts preferably carrying Asymmetric Spins . Its hard enough to Handicap a fleet of almost similar Hicks. Tigers , Melges, F30's , J9.9's, Fareast 28's etc , its almost impossible when you throw in Sports Type boats . Just look at Reo Speedwagon over the last 5 years. One week they are first and the next week last. Its all about the Wind Direction and strength. That's not the way Super 30's should be heading in my mind.
Congratulations on a great win ... loved the Green Sun Hats.
Grahame , can I have that Tiger Kite to fit to my new/old Hick 32.

 

[JulianB]

Just BTW, it's only called a 89er because that what it was referred to by most deck-chair-commodors. It is infact 8.2m long. Can't be longer than 8.5 to qualify as a Sportsboat.

And I doubt 79ers or 89ers will take over from std Super30's for 2 reasons a) 79er/S8's have been around for 10+ years and b) a 79er/89er are not for everyone, it's not a beer can type of racer.

In the same light, Tasty is not your normal Hick 30, it's heavily modified and they seems to all have a great time racing it.

Regardless, the monkey is off the back, WRT DP's first race, plenty of learning ahead, and with the same crew, and multiple races, really looking forward to the next 4-5 years.

 

[longy]

Congratulations. Looking forward to more updates.

 

[allweather]

Poor boys, occasionally we had 3 on the spin sheet, shit its got some load!

Is this an actual issue or what you consider par for the course when it comes to boat handling?
I'm mainly asking since I've been on boats before where sheet loads were barely possible to handle(for average, not that fit, crew) and trimming suffered as a result. More than once improved by changing the system in place.

And I wonder where you stand in regard to this on your boat? Spinnaker trimmer just has to suffer the loads or does it become unpleasant on a longer leg?(during less healthy times I struggled with trimming the 49er upwind which made everything so hard even when just out for fun. Which has nothing to do with you guys now that I think about it.)

 

[JulianB]

This was a Island race up the gutters that are the waterways west of the bridge. The ride from the Pigs to Garden Island, though, plenty on, was a one person ride with the steerer (GT & me) steering to the kite, and plenty of runway to come away.
Not so off Drummoyne, scrapping past ferry wharfs.

The ride out to Double Cone (Airlie) or inside the bay at PL there will be runway, plus this was the first real race, we are very green on the nuances of acceleration of the boat, best downwind angles, even tweaker trim positions.

As we learn how to sail the boat, I have no doubt that it will become faster and easier.

As I said, fun 4-5 years ahead!

 

[JulianB]

BTW, I'm in Noumea.

Just thinking about this a bit more, Sportsboat sailor tend to opt for the single longish race. 3,4 even 5 hr normally passage race, so out around Double Cone, or top to bottom of Lake Macquarie or Bay to Bay. The boats are not optimised to Super30.

Dave Lambourn and Rob Bridge commented last week when they did City to Surf ( another passage race that took 5 hrs) that they ran out of manpower to trim the spinnaker and had to tie it off.

I may have overcooked it, the spinnaker is a A2 verging on a A3. I carry a code zero as a chicken chute. Yet to put the #1 jib up yet, and sure we will need a #3 jib.
Maybe we go for a A2, verging on A1 spin, and get re rated without the #1 jib. (Then you have the 70kg bulb that I pick up in PL). Then there is the new Fin with movable TE. As I said next 3-4-5 years should be fun.

Not sure what I'm saying either other than I expect some great racing and more importantly comadarie with the likes of Skeeter and Vivace.

Super30 against the likes of Tasty, Clewless, will be a great leveller, and I respect & appreciate it.

 

[allweather]

What's I've got was that you're playing around and aren't seeing this as an issue but also won't ignore if some adjustments could turn out fruitful which was the answer I've been looking for.

It's cool to see what kind of thought goes into the choices, especially when it's all about having a great time on the water, racing and all.

Heck, even cleating off a sheet can work out to an advantage, though I'm not really expecting it here compared to medium distance racing.(up to 500nm)

 

[sheeting yarns]

BTW, I'm in Noumea.

Just thinking about this a bit more, Sportsboat sailor tend to opt for the single longish race. 3,4 even 5 hr normally passage race, so out around Double Cone, or top to bottom of Lake Macquarie or Bay to Bay. The boats are not optimised to Super30.

Dave Lambourn and Rob Bridge commented last week when they did City to Surf ( another passage race that took 5 hrs) that they ran out of manpower to trim the spinnaker and had to tie it off.

I may have overcooked it, the spinnaker is a A2 verging on a A3. I carry a code zero as a chicken chute. Yet to put the #1 jib up yet, and sure we will need a #3 jib.
Maybe we go for a A2, verging on A1 spin, and get re rated without the #1 jib. (Then you have the 70kg bulb that I pick up in PL). Then there is the new Fin with movable TE. As I said next 3-4-5 years should be fun.

Not sure what I'm saying either other than I expect some great racing and more importantly comadarie with the likes of Skeeter and Vivace.

Super30 against the likes of Tasty, Clewless, will be a great leveller, and I respect & appreciate it.

The #1 jib should be great when you are at full crew weight and it will be fantastic when you are able to explore its upper ranges. That will be easier as the crew come to terms with mainsail control.

 

[JulianB]

Courtesy of Adrian Gruesome

 

[pqbon]

Courtesy of Adrian Gruesome

View attachment 571156

That is one sexy little beast.

 

[JulianB]

Few questions so a few answers.

It's Adrian GRUZMAN Who owns the FT "Fortune of War" from were the photo was taken.

Jimmy Beck is steering, we are fooling about before the start.
Jack is right up the front, I'm behind him tweaking things, Martin (white shirt) is sitting on the floor, probably looking at the leach of the jib, knowing Martin, Alex is behind me and GT is mostly obscured by the leach of the main.

Getting lots of questions about ratios, not so much from the photo, more from the 1st race.

The general answer is it's way too early and that 90% of my tweaking is gut feel. Jimmy and Martin are really good at this also. The big upside is its my boat, so I rule, but I'm anything but shy to admit when I get something wrong.

Far more than 1/2 the fun will be winding this boat out, and then making changes that are quantifiable.

Let me embellish in a few hours, 28c here, humid, time for a swim.

jB

 

[JulianB]

On Saturday, as you can see in the photo, we have big windows.
Had a fight with North (49er&FX) and also with Doyles about the inappropriateness of sending someone down to leeward to look for other boats. Yah got to be able to see if you want to have confidence to push it.

If you look closely at that photo that Adrian took, just above the bottom white speed strip on the jib, you will see a red leach ribbon!

Pretty obviously while sailing, it very visible, through the window.

Going up wind, particularly on the way home, I noticed that 90-95% of the time that leach ribbon was flying upwards. If I had to quantify it, I would say between 45-70 deg upwards.
(On the first leg, I had other things, front and center, so can't comment if it was or was not happening, I'm guessing it was)

Sure occasionally we had a fair bit of heel, and we would have had span-wise-drift but most of the time, we were within 10deg of flat. And even span-wise-drift, if you do the apparent wind vector would not account for the degree of verticalness! (new word)

So where is this vertical gradient of air flow coming from?

If it is, as I suspect, a vortex going from the hi-presure windward side of the main, the extent to which that is happening and how quickly it has formed, as this leach ribbon (it's a self tacking jib so right behind the mast and out 450mm) is surprising.

One of the things that is to be measured up and made as soon as I get back is a Cuff. We first did this with the late, great, Ian Bruce and the C2-Byte rig. My son mirrored it on the 18teen and they are now quite common. I'm doing it because it hard to reef a Cuff-Luff main quickly. Ian did it because he believed it would be hard to sell the technology of a Cuff-luff and possibly he is right.

We have done a lot of research on Cuff-luffs, initially we stumbled on it in 1996, (49ers) Dad had a not all together harmonious interchange with a Harvard Prof but empirical trumps theoretical. Now they are common place from Moths to AC.
The new 49er/FX mains have a very deliberate increased cuff size and the 49er sailors "close" the TE (of the cuff at the bottom) where as the Moth sailors leave it open and wide. That in itself is interesting.

If it is a vortex, and if a cuff minimises it then think of the benefits ;-

a) if you have vertical flow at the TE of the jib one would think that has to reduce the performance of the lower jib significantly.

b) if a vortex is forming that early that low down and that far fwd, then likewise, that has to reduce the performance of the lower main significantly,

c) That all lifts the CoE which reduces the SCP and therefore reduces available drive/speed, &

d) If the jib and main are working as seperate elements and not as one wing, that again reduces the efficiency and increases the drag of the whole package.

I was always going to put a cuff on! I find halyards exiting masts right at the point of max airspeed for 10 secs of ergonomic benefit a very screwed sense of priorities plus the evidence of cuffs reducing drag and increasing efficiency are so overwhelming I just was going to do it, but now I have a "right in you face" tell-tale (excuse the pun) indicator of whether its working or not.

I will close it, probably with velcro, (so I will follow the 49er route, but they do it by shackeling the downhaul tabs together), right behind the vang but it could be a interesting experiment to leave it open, like a Moth or the top of a 29er/49er and see what happens. Maybe there will be a flow through to the 29er/49er with velcro and maybe a tie 50mm below the boom.

That's the sort of thing that I am really looking fwd to quantifying.

All while having fun drinking quality Van Rouge (I am in French speaking New Caledonia after all) and occasionally sailing with some great mates against other great mates!

jB

 

[Varan]

 

[Speng]

JB, Congratulations on the race result it must be gratifying when a plan comes together...
From a couple years of religiously watching the 18'er skiff races on YouTube I can visualize the course in my head and it seems like there will be a lot of tight kite reaches in your crew's future... Short of putting winches on the boat what could be a solution to the sheet load issue? I've never seen 2:1 spin sheets.

On a separate note: where I can read up on the developments in the 49er and (especially) 29er? We bantered back and forth on this a few years ago and it was super interesting... Kinda like Joe Greasemonkey (me) having a chat with Adrian Newey about the latest Red Bull F1 mods, but this is the glory of sailing...