RC Club - Marblehead Championship #2
WOW! (Wind ‘O Wind)
That was the theme for the rest of the day and what a day that was! We started racing half an hour later than our normal 10:00am start time, this was after deliberating course directions and final tweaks to boats and rigs.
We started race 1 with 5 boats and skippers (Bob, Les, Trevor, Mark, Stuart and later followed by Bruce our RC co-ordinator) with “A” rigs set and with some mumbles of “maybe we should have set the B rigs”. As the race progressed the winds strengthened from a light breeze (7-10 knots) to a fresh breeze (17-21 knots) with an associated swell of about 40 to 50cm. Haven’t seen that for awhile at the Lake. There was even a bit of boat “wave surfing” going on.
At this stage between races the breeze really picked up and we were left pondering our next move. Which we decided would be an early BBQ lunch and see what the wind was going to do.
Starting race 2 found all of us with our “C”rigs and some with “C2”rigs (smaller sails) fitted. For those that don’t know, on RC model yachts, instead of Reefing the sails in overpowering wind conditions we simply change to a smaller suite of sails. Much easier on a model to change sails. “A” rig is the largest (usually standard) and C3 is one of the smaller sets for when “dogs blow off their chains” (thank you Jeremy).
Despite the strong winds, we had very few rigging failures. My Jib stay attachment braid line wore through and failed requiring Rescue boat attention. There was one other Jib failure and some other minor problems on other boats. Overall the Marbleheads handled the conditions well. Wind and currents had stirred up an extra serve of weed to garnish our fins and rudders. I don’t think anyone escaped some weed on the day. Some of the weed streamers wrapped around our fins were up to 180cm long. The scale effect on boat speed just about knocks out any chance of winning a race. Hence the need for frequent weed checks.
The wind stabilised for the remaining 7 races with our C rigs fitted.
Congratulations to Trevor for his wins on the day and very close following in second place was Les. All up it was a great day sailing with friendly skippers, some challenges not unexpected and 9 races completed which took us up to race finish time. At that time of the day I think we had all had enough of the wind, till next time anyway.
Stuart Boughton
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