Elixir - Elliott 780

What a stunning day on the bay!  Chuckles, you would have loved it.

 We ducked out with the full ABRW racing crew for a bit of blast and some circle work.  It also happened to be the start of the RQ to Kepple Island Yacht Race so we headed out to join in the spectacle.  But we were a bit late.  BOM had issued a strong wind warning and so most people stayed at home.  Missed out on a near perfect winter’s day on the bay.  A pretty steady westerly with periods of 15 knots plus but mostly a quiet 10 or so knots.  Warm sun, one of the clearest days I have seen for years.  The Glass house mountains were clear and Mt.Cootha, Whites Hill, Mt.Cotton and the city all clear as.  Magic.

 Given we were a bit green and still believing in the strong wind warning, we popped the small black kite from the harbour and promply dropped it for the orange baby.  Sat on 8-10 knots with a few gybes to clear Hanlon and Lockyer lights.  The yacht race start was out east of Green Island and we heard over the vhf that they had started.  We kept the kite and shied up a bit on a course that would have us converge with the fleet as they headed north.  It looked great and we settled in.  Stuff all breeze really and just the ride where if only there was another 5 knots, Elixir would have picked up her skirts and smoked.  As it was in the odd squirt we bettered 10 and happily sat on 8.5.

 The dropping pressure meant that the bigger boats got away from us but we were pacing the Farr 40’s and came down onto their line (half of them were 2 sail reaching and the rest had flat kites on).  By this stage we were nearly east of Mud Island so we dropped the kite and started to do some upwind work.  Playing around with settings as we settled in the rigging.  As a result, we ended up doing a good number of tacks, kite hoists, gybes and drops.

 In the best pressure of the day we were kite up and just beginning to blast when the bottom came up under us and doing over 10 knots in shoaling water caused us to try to go too high.  Rudder gracefully sucked in air and we spun around.  She came up straight away and we were back in control but the puff had left us and we were left drooling over the next puff that never came.

Final beat back to harbour was the best pressure of the day and it would have been superb to pop a kite and bolt.

Foxy was very disappointed that we did not just keep on going with the Kepple fleet but Fred had a house full of family to entertain.

Boat went beautifully, we tried a heap of settings with the rig and have a couple of parameters to play with.  That alloy stick is soft and whippy but is held up really well.  We could do with someone else to play with to check on speed and height but it felt good.

Elixir is pulled down and and tied up.  Furcoat took her back to his place and that is where he and I will head out from Tuesday week.  I have the rudder and stock to do a bit of fairing on otherwise, she is fully tricked.

It was the first time on the boat for a long time for Foxy, RH and me and crew work came together well.  Next sail will be on the Thursday before Race 1 in just under 2 weeks time.  We will see if the Kaito boys want to have a bit of a play with us to check our numbers.

Cherio

 Duppy