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4 foiling R's out on 17th October, 2009
October finally put on some decent Saturday weather. Almost all the fleet turned up and a variable 13kts NE made for some nice early season sailing.
Steve and Dave launch the 3rd R Class foiler
So far this month.
Saturday 3rd.
Ugly NW. Most people didn't bother even going to the club. Some of us rigged, but it just wasn't worth it.
Saturday 10th.
Very cold SW gusting 35kts around race start. At times there was light snow around the tops of the hills, pretty much everyone stayed home. No one sailed.
Sunday 11th.
Unsteady 15kt NE and sun. 4 boats out, 3 foiling, and Aaron Jeffries and Matt Bancroft out for the first time together on the Subwoofer. Dave Pairman launched Merde on foils, Tim was away so Steve MacIntosh crewed. The boat foiled straight away, but had to retire after pulling a centrecase strut off the hull. This wasn't entirely unexpected, but there's no sense strengthening everything just in case. Dave's spectra wand control line and retractable foils seemed to work well during their brief sail.
Sean Milner and Andy Gallagher on L3 opted for the smaller rig (reefed main and small jib) to see what effect it would have relative to TheVirtual with their full rig. There was enough wind to easily get foiling. They were slightly underpowered, but the boat still foiled easily. Before we could get any real trialling done they damaged their control cable due to a rigging error. So Jess and Paul, on TheVirtual, spent time on increasing ride height and just enjoyed being out in such nice conditions.
Saturday 17th.
8 Boats, 4 foilers. Variable 13kt NE, overcast but nice sailing.
Danny Folter launched the foiling L4 making 4 boats on foils with 3 different hull shapes. Paul MacGibbon had damaged himself and couldn't sail, so Dan Leech was roped in to crew at the last minute. Merde was back out again, Dave had spent time battle hardening the hull ends of the front centercase struts during the week. So he and Tim set off on the foiling Merde for some more testing. We did a couple of races, but they were largely irrelevant.
Race 1
Due to most and possibly all the fleet doing either the wrong course (several different wrong courses in fact), not starting or not finishing. No one is quite sure what happened, but it doesn't really matter. 
L3 broke their morse cable, which had been weakened the previous weekend, so had to go back to the shore and grab a centreboard and rudder for the second race.
Race 2
At least now everyone knew the revised course. TheVirtual lead up the first beat. Dave and Tim had good speed and caught TheVirtual when they capsized while dropping their kite at the bottom mark. L3 was not far behind in third. TheVirtual regained the lead up the next beat, but Merde then broke the opposite end of the centrecase strut and had to retire before the top mark.The Dans on L4 seemed to be just cruising around having fun on the foils and not really racing. As there was only one foiling boat left, it was really just a matter of how hard they made things for themselves. A penalty at the top mark for an indiscretion with the laser fleet allowed L3 to close enough to win if TheVirtual had another swim. That didn't happen, so Sean and Andy remained a safe second. Things would have been much more interesting had Merde lasted the distance and L3 stayed on foils. Hopefully next time we get some real racing.
Its was great to see Richard Burrows and Paul Patrick out again on a very tidy looking L2. New crews Malcolm Snowden sailing with James Collet on Chemical Weapon and Matt Bancroft sailing on Subwoofer with Aaron Jeffries. Stalwarts of the squadron, Tony Park and Steve MacIntosh, on Apple were out and as always getting the best out of the oldest boat in the fleet.
With four foiling boats now on the water, several more to come, and 3 new crews, things are looking up for the season. James (Chemical Weapon) and Doug (IRB) really just need to get baking. Hopefully we can procure some more prepreg for another few sets of foils.
