Well a relatively interesting season racing at Datchet, without breakage. Despite my best efforts at knocking the main cleat out repeatidly and forgetting to release the downhaul, the A mast is still intact.

Another racer commented on just how flexible the top of the mast above the hounds was one night whilst racing, for me to realise that I had been both forgetting to release the downhaul and the mast rotation and having problems with the main jammer seizing open. Virtually every reason to break the mast.

Changed the mainsail as the sail I had clearly was not suiting both my porky frame and the older style stiffer mast I have and what a revelation. Very much now able to fly the hull from about 6 - 8 knots of wind and downhauling pretty hard now when into the 15 - 20's. Despite only 14msq in area, the high aspect and the years of design knowledge far surpass the F16 compliant sails I had been used to.

This really is something the class needs to address or should consider perhaps within its rules to help the solo sailor. In direct comparison to the equivalent sailor on a Nacra F16, Bitsa probably is faster upwind, something it shouldn't be and I put that down to the sail mast combination. I am very much a believer that we should be allowing the A mast and sail combo on single handed F16's. Cost is not the issue with there being very little difference in price between an equivalent F16 and an A carbon mast. The upside is all that free development that has taken place. On handicap terms it makes virtually no differnce with the higher aspect rating cancelling the 1 less sqm of sail.

Learning all the time and really starting to notice the angled dagger boards. Bitsa is probably too old fashioned in hull design and has too little volume, but at speed with both upwind and downwind, I need to move far less around the boat than I did with the Stealth and one would seem to be further foward in the boat. That could be due to a number of reasons such as the beam and COE is further back, certainly upwind I have to be nearly as far foward as the front beam to get the bow down and use the full water line length, which seems to get the boat into a nice groove, downwind its faster to stay off the wire and fly the hull going more downwind than to try and hot the boat up on the wire, again probably something to do with hull volume I would suspect. What is very evident though is that you cannot be more than a foot out of position in the boat as it simply will either lift the front out or try and dive the bow, those angled boards are having quite a bit of effect.

Lots of design ideas going on in Bitsa and it is quite contrary to a lot of modern design, but its no slouch and certainly the Nacra and Bitsa are pretty evenly matched with the Nacra being faster downwind. The snuffer is certainly causing a lot of head turning and seems to work very reliably when going downwind and doing everything as a single hander should. The minute you turn upwind that fraction too much such as leaving it a bit late at the mark, it turns into a real horror story. The need to bring the spinnaker around the stays just slows the retrieve enough to suddenly wet the sail and then cause it to drag just slightly. The boat then over runs it and you end up trying to pull in a great big wet blanket. I have a simple mod, that of fitting a snuffer ring just ahead of the stays on the spinny pole, that should solve it, but then we are suddenly increasing wind drag.

So learning Bitsa's foibles, and probably in all truth its a better sailor than I, very very balanced now that I have shortened the spinny pole a tad and can upwind, almost put the tiller down whilst adjusting the downhaul etc,downwind a bit of lee helm but not significant and probably means that I have put the dagger boards a touch too far to the rear.

But and a big but, its bloody great when someone asks is that an A Class and I say no, an F16, upon which they will immediately ask, which make then, upon which I say Bitsa. "Never heard of them" they often reply and I guess that must be the case as there just aren't many around.