The Masthead runner taking over the house like the plant from “The Little Shop of Horrors
A week after the last race of the Port Stephens Regatta we are still drying sails. We are not alone as on Friday we found a fellow club member at Greenwich with sails hoisted on every flag mast for washing and drying. We had already dried two spinnakers at home and returned these to Passion X. In windless but sunny conditions we hoisted the wet No 3 jib on the forestay and rolled out the damp Code Zero in the continuous line furler. Every time I hoist the Code Zero it seems easier to set up and bring down and Friday was no exception. That left two very soggy No 1 genoas, the heavy and light ones, which I wanted to wash thoroughly with fresh water so these came home for the Easter weekend. The wash and dry was an opportunity to lay out the genoas on top of each other and see the differences. For good measure I photographed the sails on the back lawn. The new No 1 heavy is marginally smaller than the No 1 light but quite a bit larger than the old No 1 heavy or 1.5 as I liked to call it. The extra area is low down on the deck and with more overlap low down so hopefully it will be good all purpose sail so we can keep the 44m2 No 1 light for lighter conditions. Obsessively I have been weighing the equipment as it comes off Passion X to see what weight we can save for the winter series. So far about 100 kgs is in the house including 5 kg from the front berth cushions which were getting very wet during the racing and will go back on only when cruising with another couple. I have yet to remove the No 4 jib which has not been used since the race management at RANSA has become very cautions and the storm jib which has not been out of the sail bag since purchase. These will save another 30 kg and bring the total up to only 130 kg so I do wonder if it is worth all the effort. We did end up victorious in the Greenwich Flying Squadron Twilight handicap series for the full season. A good Spring series and a late run at the results in the Autumn series sealed the result. Meticulous attention to the cleanliness of the hull was the secret as we have a fair amount of wetted surface for our weight and not a lot of righting moment to use to power up the rig.
The new No 1 heavy, underneath, is substantially larger low down than the old 1.5 off of the old Passion
The No 1 light, underneath, is only marginally larger than the No 1 heavy but is about 4kg lighter.