300 log: Champagne sailing at TISC

Date: 6th June
Venue : TISC
Race : Evening handicap race, about an hour
Tide : Flooding
Conditions : F4-5 gusty NE, flattish water in the Thorney channel, but reasonable chop in the main harbour (wind over tide).  Bow burying completely upwind.
Result : Might have sneaked 1st of about 12, 1st 300 of 3. And remembered to sign on!

Fantastic sailing conditions in the harbour today.  Bright sunshine, 15-20 knots, and a course that took in all points of sailing.

A couple of off-the-water cock ups marred an otherwise perfect sail.  Firstly I managed to scrap the back of the boat along the concrete pathway to the slip, more gel required.  Second I wrapped my newly varnished mast around the post that marks the end of the slip, giving the post a jaunty aspect in the process.  Third, my new boom survived less than 10 seconds on the water before getting scraped along the barnacles on the same post.  No lasting damage, but annoying nevertheless!

Very close race with Dave around the whole course tonight, separated by less than 10 boat lengths for the full race until he decided to go for an additional lap at the penultimate mark.  Of course, 300 sailors look after their own and I hailed him back to the course, but had sneaked out enough of a lead to keep ahead at the finish ;-)

Positives:
- Very pleasing upwind speed.  Had a drag race of about 3/4 of the mile upwind from John Davis to East Head, lost nothing to Dave and might have even reeled him in by a few lengths. 
- Very pleased with the new gybing technique (new to me anyway, making space before a mark and going into gybes flat out on a broad reach).  5 or 6 gybes without incident in some breezy conditions.
-Good (but not exceptional) downwind speed.  Managed to get planing by the lee for the best part of 1/2 mile.  No dicey moments in some challenging chop.

Points for reflection:
- Downwind start.  Started out of the tide at the windward end of the line, first across the line.  Dave started mid-line, and took 10 lengths at out me in the first 500m.  The ability to go high/low and the cleaner wind in the middle of the line outweighed the tidal advantage. Interesting.
- Need to sort out settings for the new boom, hadn't realised the extent to which I depended on the graduation numbers on the old boom.

So another great evening sail out of TISC, makes working Friday's more tolerable.  Next race at Slipper on Saturday, training session with Matt on Sunday.