Correctly stacked boat.. pic courtesy of Mike Millard

I introduced El Ninjario to the real world this weekend with her first exposure to competition at the Parkstone Open. 25 Boats attended and it was time to see just how well set up the boat is. The forecast was dire with winds expected to hover around the 6knt mark. No worries though as I thought it would be a nice gentle work out on both the boat and myself….. WRONG.

Day one and winds peaked at 22 knots! It was totally unexpected but we got on with the racing. I must declare at this point, the standard of sailing has sky rocketed in the last couple of years! I cannot believe how damned quick the front runners are. In fact the entire fleet. I’m not talking straight line speed here, at various points through the racing I was able to keep up with various sailors for varying distances, but by the time I came out of my failed foil gybe, they were round the next mark and on their way upwind again..

I also thought that I’d be much better off in the strong winds as most of the boats would fall apart due to all the crashing going on… WRONG AGAIN..

I hardly saw any of the boats drop a single gybe (apart from myself). Downwind, I think most boats were hitting 20 knots but that didn’t seem to cause any problems for anyone. Both boat and sailor just chewed up the strong winds and went even faster. That surprised me too because when you meet these guys, you would think for one minute that they are speed freaks and turn into lunatics on the racecourse.. Very Jekyll and Hyde!

Ninjario appeared to be rock solid and held together with no breakages despite my best effort with a comedy moment at the leward mark on one particular run where I got hit by a meaty gust and deliberated about rounding up or bearing off more.. that one ended up in a proper stack with the boat dropping the nose, and me carrying on.. The funny bit was my leg hit the shroud on the way out which sent me in to a full cartwheel spin and I ended up 10 metres in front of the boat landing head first! Thankfully, the cameras had finished taking pictures seconds before (at least I hope they did!)

As you can see from the pic above, the leeward mark wasn’t the only place I stacked it! This event was the first time in my two years of moth sailing that I truly pitchpoled at maximum speed downwind. Great for learning how to push it, bad for boat speed!

I wimped out a lot with the ride height and kept on pulling the emergency handle (retractable wand) at the windward mark. Had I been braver, I guess speed would have improved but crashes would also have increased.

The boat is really on the pace which I am really pleased with. Upwind the angles were comparable, downwind the straightline speed was good too. The bad news is I am not and it made it more obvious than ever that my boat handling needs real work.

Thanks to Rod who organised an excellent event with lots of fun had on both Friday and Saturday night although I think Jonnie wrecked him on the Friday night!

Today I am in a world of pain.. 6 races, 3 each day back to back all in 18knots of wind took it’s toll on the body but I am pleased with the results.. Not one DNF, not one DNS and nearly bang in the middle of the fleet. Areas to improve? Gybing… sailing a new boat definately requires subtle changes to the way you gybe which in a way is more difficult than learning to gybe in the first place as you have unlearn a little of what you can do already. Still, by the end of the regatta I was pulling a couple off (somewhat tentatively) but the only way to rectify is TIME ON THE WATER so that’s what I am concentrating on between now and the nationals.

I’ll also be thinking of ways to slow the rest of the fleet down.