The forecast for the breeze on Sunday for the second West Harbour Winter Series race was perfect. By that I mean it happened just as forecast because right on cue the wind dropped to nothing leaving us drifting to the line. What was less than a few minute arrears on the leaders ended up eight and without that lost time we might have been second placed thanks to an improving handicap. On ORCi we were less than two minutes away from the third placed Flying Tiger and while the ORCi fleet is tiny the corrected time differences are a good gauge of how we are improving.
We did get to fly the big yellow mast head spinnaker twice and while still slow on the sets are getting the take downs closer to the mark. Notable we made up time on the beam reach which was a bit too tight for the symmetric spinnaker.
In the light conditions it might be possible to drop the sock into the hatch leaving the clews attached to the sheets ready for the next hoist so there is a thought to play with.
In the light airs the sail settings are still a compromise as we need forestay sag to get flow near the luff of the genoa but need the backstay on tight to bend the mast and free the leech of the main. The next project will be to see how we can sit the boom on the vang strut so we can sag the forestay.