So I got down the lake early and got it rigged, there wasn't a lot of wind, but I thought it would be handy to tag onto the end of the race to get the feel for the controls in race conditions and such that if anything would be the boats worse performance.

So the gun goes and I'm stuck on the only shallows in the entire lake and they go 'oh forgot to tell you stay away from that post' as they drift off towards the 1st mark in the faint breeze which dwindled to nothing by the time they got there. We eventually got ourselves off the sandbank or whatever it was and drifted up to the tai lenders by the first mark, but it was such a raft, I thought better than try and barge through so I hung back and dwelt on other issues, one of which was trying to sheet the kite in, it was catching in the shrouds, because of the angle of the pulley I'd sighted on the racks.

Then the mainsheet came totally undone, and by the time we'd drifted down to the bottom mark and hardened up it was difficult to see any airflow, even the tell tales had stopped fluttering. Eventually a bit of a flurry filled in from behind which got us round the 1st lap, this eventually strengthened sufficient to get some directional stability, this bought with it other problems.

The stronger the puffs, the more weather helm became apparent, I didn't get that much last week in the quite strong breeze, but this light barely force two, had me constantly fighting which meant the brake was on the whole time and I'm now puzzled as to what's different. OK last week I wouldn't have been block to  block so the main power would never have been that fully sheeted and when it was I do remember a bit of weather helm, so I'm convinced I need a bigger jib, and the mast needs to be a tad more vertical.

I had a bit of a measure of that main, when I got home and even at two thirds base times height on a boom vee height measure only gives 8.8 sq mtr so I'm suspicious of the power of this rig, I don't think it's big enough. I barely got a hull flying last week and that was breezy, so I'm having a think at the minute. Brought back the Alto main (my small one) and it's way bigger than this Vortex 10.5 even on the same mast height, the Alto has a bigger foot, that in itself means it'll be more efficient, these high foot big aspect sails are only any good in a breeze, so it makes the acquisition of a more powerful jib more necessary if I'm going to have any traction in low wind.

I had one incident when the merlin that was being sailed by Neal and his crew came pouring past, they had a strange looking kite up on what was close to being a windward fetch and round bottom boats do well anyway in that stuff, but they shouldn't be coming past as fast as they did, well not and make me happy. So right now I'm thinking more power is required and of course less braking action from the rig being out of balance again.

Having met a real gem of a guy down the lake last week, Neal Gibson, he's a sailmaker, works locally has a small loft, and he came down today to measure up to get a proper spinnaker sock made and some decent tramps for the racks, measured up for a see through jib and talked about different ways to rig things, really interesting.

So I had a few things to sort anyway, the angle of the jamming cleat for the main sheet needed lowering, I wanted a second anchorage point for the lowers, so all the stress wasn't going through that one bolt, so it was off to whitstable with a list.

Got myself sorted with a rear mast support which will make travelling easier, all things being equal I want to do a few events with other boats to get an idea of where the handicap should be, and every time you go to one of these you learn so much about the boat bumbling stuff that I now need big time.

The spinnaker will still jam if I use it as it is, but that'll have to be a chance I'll take, it doesn't look that windy tomorrow and it's been fairly mild today, so off down the lake tomorrow, to see if i can get it rigged and ready in time to enter it's first race. Light conditions will be it's worse scenario, all that flat surface is likely to drag and on fresh water, unlikely there'll be enough volume to clear the rear, so it'll be a good test.

I'll try and get some pics this time if I'm not in a mad pfaff and I'll take my phone get some gps tracks maybe, if I remember it all.

Finally got on the water single handed today, literally breaking ice to do so, but a clear crisp February day with a brisk North Westerly and no trade shows to attend or other diversions, saw me trundle down there and wrestle with the entry procedure.

Too cold for photographs, too cold to bother with the spinnaker halyard that got itself half way up the mast, just warm enough to two sail about to get the feel for dealing with stuff alone. It's not the easiest layout to operate, can't say I like the floating bridle mainsheet pulley. 10 yards off the jib bridle untied itself, but being a floating platform a simple enough job to hove to and re-arrange both the main and jib sheeting.

There was a race going on that I was too late to join, but she seemed on the pace with most of the boats there and it was only later on once I'd found my 'lake'legs , re routed the mainsheet so it didn't keep jamming, (the angle's all wrong) thereby managing to risk a couple of legs 'flying' the windward hull the crafts performance potential really became apparent.

She doesn't like riding flat in fresh water, I'm almost of the view she's a bit under canvassed, hardly managing to venture onto the tramps in anything but the bigger gusts and it must have been 15-20kts in the breezier bits with 8 -12 average, difficult to say, it's a small lake, no gust could last a couple of minutes without a bank looming close.

I managed to bury a rack once, easily borne off from once I'd unjammed the cleat that caused it, I'm going to get a bigger see through jib made there was just a hint of weather helm I'd not experienced on the last outing so a bit of room to manoeuvre there, I need a better solution to the main sheeting, I'm minded to take the kicker take off closer to give a bit more room up front, I also find myself considering rear sheeting again.


All in all an enjoyable morning and I didn't even get my feet wet such are the joys of a slip from the grass straight into the drink. I guess I ought to mention 'the lake' and Redoubt SC who permitted my 'invasion', I'm going to join this year, nothing like sailing here to quicken up your handling technique.