Elixir - Elliott 780

An absolutely spectacular day at Airlie today.  Yeah, we are priveledged - suckers.

We had 2 windward leewards today, 3 laps each and back to back.  Breeze was around 15 with some more coming through.  There are quite a few windshifts and they are decent, it is a bit of a trick to try and pick the ones that are persistent and the ones that are only going to last a couple of minutes.

We came home with a 7th and an 11th which doesn’t sound too flash but the actual racing was really fun and close.  We were mixing it with the Melges, the Thompson 7’s and the other Elliott 780.  Our first start was pretty good with clear air, on the line at pace when the gun went.  Pretty happy about that.  First beat we went left first and then got over to the right.  All in all, a very good first windward.  Racing was really close with many overlaps, boats ducking or being put about.  Very exciting.  We lined up on the layline to the first mark just a bit early and shaved it a tad fine.  There was a fair old tide taking us down onto the mark.  Anyway, a couple of other boats sat up on top of us and gave us dirty air.  We were probably being just a bit too aggressive in our line to the mark.  Upshot is we couldn’t make the mark and had to slip in 2 quick tacks - so we lost out a bit.  Then the first kite set was a bit shoddy and we ended up with a wine glass.  Actually, we got a couple of wine glasses today to the point that the guys have decided we have a problem.  We haven’t yet got it sorted out but we’re on it. 

We seem to be nailing the actual kite runs and are doing much better this year (than last year) in catching the waves, driving low and yet keeping our fat porky boat on the plane.  Jamesy, your velociteck showed a top speed of 18.1 knots and best 10 second average of 14.2 knots  (incedentally, the gps is reading much, much faster than the sum log but we have never calibrated it).  The other gps said max speed was 14.7 knots - so something is not really matching up in the technology somewhere.

Our gybes are on fire - the “Y” kite sheets that we made up (it took me a couple of times to get the length of the “Y” right) - we call it our pigs tail.  So we are down at the bottom mark and we do a really, really bad drop - lost heaps, maybe 30 seconds.  But our 2nd beat was awesome and we got right back in to the race.

The second race the breeze piped in a tad.  I don’t think we got a very good start at all but we were able to get cleared pretty quickly and we did well on the first beat.  The wine glasses reared their ugly head some more but the upwinds are pretty solid.  We picked the shifts really well and were able to get back in front of other boats with similar speed.

The Kaito boys had another cracker in this mornings race but we were actually pretty close to them on the race track for most of it and again this arvo, crossing in front of them several times.

The fleet racing is really tight.  It is great to see so many winged boats and just lovely to watch them go like stink. 

Very happy with our starts and our upwinds.  We have some more gains to make on our kite work but the boys are out on the verandah drinking a well earned rum and discussing what the hell they are stuffing up. :) 

The whole crew are hiking like champions.  Dool has fit straight in (even if he does weigh 50 kg lighter than HTFU), Fred is up to his peak in calling the pressure, the shifts and for another beer, The Fox is working the main brilliantly on the runs and with Dool, doing the jib work spot on upwind.  Furcoat is like an octopus trying to put out a fire, arms everywhere and the ropes just beautifully laid out.  We are really happy with the work we have done on the rig set up.  We are trucking and on the pace upwind.  Downwind we have pace in a straight line and our gybes are quick.  Crew work is really coming on.

I have forgotton to dish out the VB Tallie awards - just too much is happening, and we are not making many drastic mistakes that can be attributed to any one person.  I’ll have to work on it.

Anyway, getting RSI.

Hope you are all well and missing us terribly.  Of course we are all missing you.

 Cheers

Duppy