Carriage repairs were sucessfull. I gave it a pretty hard work out yesterday. Wind was solid 15 with some 25 gusts so it was also a test of my boat handling. That did not come up so well.

My excuse was the failure of my Ratchet block which meant I was physically wrecked after a couple of works and consequently spent a lot of time in the drink from bad tacks and gybes.

Only my pride damaged though.

I have listed the boat for sale on the IC Marketplace: http://www.intcanoe.org/forum2/viewforum.php?f=20

$A6500 after McCrae if you are interested.

Another brief day's sailing. A good breeze and even another canoe to sail against as Seth finally got past his family commitments.

Unfortunatley my carriage failed again like it did in February so it did not last long.

But we did have 10 minutes of upwind sailing and at least I was on the pace with Seth, unlike when I sailed against Hayden last Month. Hopefully is this as a result of my work on the boat, battens, technique etc and not because Seth is out of form.

He also showed me some better ideas to improve my carriage and so this week I have some rebuilding to do.

It sure helps having some proven Canoes and canoe people about rather than winging it. Seth even bought Eric with him to add canoe heritage.

I had a good outing yesterday at Balmoral. Due to continued lack of canoes I raced 10 moths at their first NSW interclub event.

A patchy 10-12 kt S-SE was ideal for me but not enough for most of the foiling moths. I lead for almost one lap until Dave Lister got enough to slip past, after which he went further ahead. No one else got close and in the end I lapped most of the fleet. They all seemed to be able to fly for most of the time but when they get light patches they park while the canoe just glides on. It was good to see such moth numbers with a few new faces.

A nice confidence booster with no handling or apparent speed problems. The new gloss finish on the board and rudder might have helped too. Stils ome fiddling to do with battens.

Seth is tied up with his family for another couple of weekends so no DC/IC tuning just yet.

Sailed the moth last weekend instead, at least I had a fleet to sail against. Its obvious that the moth is where I should be putting the effort once the Canoe Worlds is over. The young guys who have been out every week are now legs ahead of me.

I hope to get out on the canoe mid week for some more solo practice, but without any other canoes I have no idea how fast it is going. At least all the UK and US competition are without their boats while in transit.

So who wants a cheap DC after January?

I have had a few sails against the moths at St George. I can sort of hang in with them upwind even if they are foiling, going higher and slower but getting there with the second level boats. But downwind they are twice as fast and I have to wait to be lapped to get another go at them.

Have been playing with battens a lot and have the sail looking much better than at Albury, when there were some hard items installed. I seem to have regained the lost light air speed and height and have found a way to get upwind more comfortably when the wind comes up.

Next Sunday Seth is coming for a sail, and since he is one of our top ICs I should get a better picture as to whether I have improved since racing Hayden.

Canoe Rendeveu Albury

Visted Albury to race a few canoes including National Champ Hayden Virtue.

He won 4 out of 5 races with vastly superior upwind speed. I beat him only once with a downwind finish speed burst, and on only one other occasion got past him at a leeward mark.

But I was happy with my stage of development knowing that Hayden is the best in Aust and up there near the top of the world as well.

At least I managed 3 full races without swims in some challenging and gusty conditions, only relapsing once I got very cold and a little tired.

Speed improvements are needed to the LOG. We found that the similar rig on my former Moth, Chainsaw, improved dramatically with some diamonds to prevent side bend, so this will be my first experiment. I have to sort out the luff zip / unrig requirements, but first I will see if it makes the required difference.

Report on:
http://www.internationalcanoe.yachting.org.au/?page=32413

Another sail last Saturday. Openning day at St George.
Had a race against 4 foiling moths. Stayed with Luka's Prowler (No 2 in Aust Nationals) up the first work but then downwind he shot through in pursuit of Dave's new boat who had blitzed us all from the start. Lea caught me at the first gybe but in the 10-12 kts he cold not get low enough on the downwind and I ran away never to see him again. Grant was back a bit further on Revelations, unable to figure what adjustments had changed over the winter as he was barely foiling.
On the last lap Bruce appeard late again with his monster and we sailed together for a while. We were even closer matched than last week, until he gets clumbsy and rolls it over.
Happy with another day without swims, despite some poor gybes.
Sail is back with Ben Gemmell this week for some repairs and fine tuning. He will get a look at it next week when the 12s come to St George for a visit.
Then its down to Albury to race the ICs again the following week.