Turned out that my crew was indisposed for sunday. I had rigged the boat fully up, jib and all, only to find out at the last moment that she was not going to make it. So I encountered one of the more endearing quality of the F16 class. I rushed to pull down my jib and stuff it into its storage in order to switch my boat from a doublehander into a singlehander. The others had left for Velzen already where the racing was to be held and I pretty much tried to catch up. Took about an hour of upwind work to get there.
The racing was of the fun-race kind, with an unconventional race course mixed with a obstacle course.
The start and first leg was close to the beach on a beam reach. The A-mark was layed right in the corner of a big pear and the beach with leasure vessel anchored and people in the water swimming. The starting vessel had only one flag, a blue one, so it used this one for all signals. Try to time your start with that singlehandedly in a fleet of about 22 boats while on a beam reach. I missed both starts by 30 to 60 seconds. I never figured out which blue flag meant what. Luckily I positioned myself upwind to the fleet so I could upwind myself out of bad air and overtake the bulk of the fleet to windward while ducking motor vessels, swimmers and fishermen. Both Blades got caught in the fleet and ate heaps of bad air. I hugged the pier after rounding the A-mark, this was a spi leg that was layed down under a 90 angle the the first leg. I rounded the larger weather pin out to sea as 3rd or 4th boat overall. Then it was an upwind leg back through swifty and unstable winds where I simply took a bad tack. I was still racing a nacra 6.0 for 5th place on elasped time when I approached the last mark before going on a long reach to the finish. The Nacra beat me to the finish and I came in 6th on elapsed time in a fleet of 22 boats. Not bad I say considering the course and the conditions. I was 4th out of 10 F18's and F16's on elapsed time.
Sadly under Texel I have the second fastest rating in the fleet where the course was for 30 % a beam reach where I can't pull a spinnaker. I tried very briefly as I had to do something to close up on the leaders but with the shifts and large gusts the spinnaker was impossible to control singlehandly. So I pulled it in and plain beam reached to the finish. On handicap I finished the first race 10th overall. No wonder as the big reaches always favours the spinnakerless boats like Hobie 16's and Prindles. Still a good result considering my noteworthy bad start and the fact that I beat most F18's and both the 2 other F16's to the line.
I never tuned and trimmed so much during a race as in this one. Wind could go from 5 knots to 15 knots in a matter of seconds.
In the second race I got the worst start of both races but pulled the same trick to pass the fleet again. This time I was less succesful in getting out in front and into clean air so I race 1 Blade F16 with Geert and Karin all the way back upwind to the A-mark. On this leg it looked like I had the upper hand and that I would reach the last mark before the finish first. I was pointing high and had decent speed. A gust came and I went out on the trapeze only to find that suddenly my leeward hull was liften out of the water with me sinking in the drink. Still confused I pulled myself up to the sidestay on the other side of the boat prevent the boat from capsizing to windward. All the while kicking and hiting the mainsheet to uncleat it. Finally it released and the mast came back up again. I looked around, seeing my battens had popped, pulled my sheet in and I continued sailing in exactly the same direction but now on another tack. Yep I just had witnessed a 90 degree windshift in 10 knots of wind. My competition, the blade had experienced it too and was no blasting towards the mark. No way I could stay ahead, their jib now providing lots of power and my pointing ability being made useless. I rounded the mark right behind them only to find that the anchor lines of the mark weren't weighted down. This is great for hobie 16's but a real pain for any boarded cat. So I had to clear that off as well. All the while the Blade fast beam reaching to the finish. This was quite a long leg and it took my several minutes to complete bobbing around in what seemed 5 to 6 knots. So I'm trimming and trimming to make the boat go but without much succes. So I pleasure cruise my way to the line with the last 50 meter suddenly finding a good breeze to make some true speed. I then look behind me and I see a whole fleet of Hobie 16's and Prindle beam reaching to the finish line while lifting their luff hulls. Yep, I'd rode the lull between two gusts. So in race two I ended up 16th on handicap. So I wasn't to pleased to have thrown that race.
But all in all an enjoyable day. But more importantly I had a really great weekend.
Wouter
