Having received a distress call from one black hawk down, we made our way over to Hayling yesterday to have a blast around our new home for next year.

Upon arriving, the winds were really light and gusty but the one black hawk (aka Graham) was out and about already and had sent out a false SOS. Once we rigged up and headed out, Graham had come in having been on the water for ages. So we missed our opportunity to sail together still, as luck would have it, the sea breeze decided to kick in and we enjoyed a couple of hours of flying around the harbour in 12 – 15 knots. What a sublime joy it was too! No string weed, no swell, no shore dump and plenty of gybing practice.

I have made some small changes to the setup and they have made a big difference in the handling. Changes were to things like pushrod lengths and the bias adjuster. The main difference in handling was that the boat now “floats” through gybes and tacks and it’s only my handling that needs working on.

My gybes are 3/4 there with the error coming on exiting, steering out and switching hands. If I am brutally honest, I am pulling off 10% of PROPER foiling gybes with clean exit and full speed/ no touch down. Otherwise the remaining 90% are ok and I get through them but either drop off the foils whilst fumbling with the main/ tiller or dip in to leeward on the new tack and have to let go of everything and lean over the wing to recover and avoid a full capsize.

Jonnie and I swapped boats and it was great to see Ninjario from a 3rd person perspective, riding nice and high (could still go a little higher) and level (after tucking the rudder in loads)

No more fiddling now before the Euros. Just another session next weekend before heading off.