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| First day on the water, let alone first race, no worries two starts, two wins, up against some of the best boats in NZ, this boat was so easy to set up, great down hill speed and lots of tuning yet to be done, was sure to go even faster on the wind as well!! |
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| This is how I used the boat in the NZ 2005 IOM nationals, not quite tuned to the minute, and not with all the mod's I would have liked to have fitted, never mind the boat ended up 3rd fastest NZ boat, beaten into 6th place overall by some very smart Australian visitors with world class credentials. I did not sail well and made some very poor starts, not the boats fault! Never mind there is always 2006!! |
| At the head of the jib I quite often use a piece of sticky tape to pull the forestay wire closer to the head eye, this gives the jib more fullness at the head, ideal for those light days when the boat is always under powered. Simply remove it when the wind increases. |
| Time moves on, by now I had fitted the 10.9 tempered mast, and also a jackstay or mainsail luff line, what a difference! The boat was much faster to windward, oh how I wish I had fitted this for the 05 nationals. Note in the picture above I also like to tape the jack line to mast to hold it close so it will not gap away from the mast, using the mast as actual sail area you cannot afford any gap between mainsail and mast, a problem when you use rings or ties, one of the main reasons I like the jackstay idea. Groovy is fine too but you can get better quality stiffer round masts than you can groovy masts. |
| Summer 2006 |
| The next test was to try the heavier 36 micron mylar jibs, up till now I had been a fan of the 24micron material in all conditions, but after testing both in a fair breeze I could see the 36micron had an edge in anything over 6 or 7 knots, but how much would I loose in lighter conditions? Every one else that was worth listening too was saying that the heavier the better, even up to 48micron weight jibs! But I don't like the idea of going that heavy. I seemed to be back to square one, as now there is only two weeks till the 2006 IOM nationals. Which jib would I use? |
| Summer 2005 |