Our race on the 6th September was a forgettable one. Out problems started when Alibi on port refused to tack until dead in our tracks. It was Gold medal racing at its finest and my only regret is that we did not have an international judge waving flags for penalty infringements. Maybe they did get around in time and maybe they did go to a close hauled course before pinching up but for our amateur crew the action was too fast to get a crew down to release the genoa so we went to a hove to position on port in the line of oncoming starboard tackers.
From there it got worse as we were now deep in the starboard tacking fleet and the only option was to take a few sterns and get away from the chaos. From here we were not going to win any prizes and to make matters worse a Div 2 boat who was left lots of room to tack for the mark insisted on putting us about before they reached down to the mark. This was pretty senseless as we reached over them on the next leg anyway.
Boat wise we were satisfied with boat speed and put our misfortune down to choosing a start position with too much traffic to cross.
Our result was another drop and a third drop in four races where the only result we carried was a seventh.
Our race result on the 13th was entirely our own doing as we were amongs the leaders half way up the first work. We tacked away from Allegro as we entered a light patch while they carried on for another 100 metres into a nice shift lifting all the way to the top mark. Joli very astutely tacked to the Steel Point shore even further into the progressive shift and came away with a good result.
We were in good breeze and on a progressive lift and based on the forecast were confident that the breeze would oscillate. Poor deluded fools that we were, we gave up hope as we approached the lay line and tacked away into a header when if we had gone well past the lay line we would have reached in with good breeze.
In the small fleet and with the tail becoming becalmed we managed to salvage a sixth place and only drop a further two places behind Alibi who were on duty.
That leaves us three places adrift of first place but with a big handicap disadvantage to overcome. Still miracles do happen and we hope for one in the last race this coming Wednesday.
Away from the race track progress has been more rewarding with the cabin top two layers of 6 mm ply laminated in place and the hatch and window openings cut out. Inside the engine bed area has been epoxy primed with three coats of high build and the seacocks for the engine intake and galley outlet installed.
To make installing the engine more comfortable I added an additional support under the transom area, which I did before going under the hull to install the seacocks, and cut, epoxy primed and installed additional flooring.
While epoxy priming the engine bed area I mixed up extra paint to touch up the V berth area, the chart table and the deck underside in a couple of lockers. It does make quite a difference having the extra white areas and less bare plywood.
At 10:30 am today the engine arrived and as I had a couple of crew primed to help I made the calls and it was all go go.
While waiting for help to arrive I drove the engine which had been delivered onto the top of my trailer, around to the back of the house and backed the trailer up to the transom of the hull. I then prepared the lifting gear and took a deep breath waiting for help to arrive.
With great care we lifted the engine on two chain blocks and by repositioning the chain blocks we manouvered the engine into the hull. The last step was to install cross beams through the window openings and to relift the engine with one chain block and then swing it onto the engine mountings.
All went to plan and the engine is bolted down to the engine beds waiting for the galley furniture to be built around it.
With that out of the way I could remove the flat top from my Laser trailer and put the Laser back on ready for the weekend sailing.
