Come fly with me

Yesterday the skies turned blue both literally, and in the case of others, metaphorically in yesterdays pursuit race where the Moths started 14 minutes after the International 14's and won with ease. We flew past boats, some of which were a bit surprised to see us so soon, but for me it was an easy relationship between the old and the new, and great fun for my first race in my new boat.

9 Mach 2's were on the beach as Hayling resembled Benidorm in the hottest Easter for 100 years. All of Mike Lennons practice is paying off and he overtook me on the 20 odd tack first beat up Emsworth Channel as I struggled to change gears as the wind died at the top and shifted around. He was gone as I rounded the windward mark. I was half dead.



Still it was nice to race again, my first race since the worlds and I did settle down a bit. I've had a nice long rest but its time now to rev it up a bit. I'm using this part of the season to try some new things, I'm pretty familiar with the MSL10 rig and so I'm currently using an MSL13 with a medium mast and also very little gearing Moth squad style. I find it fast when you are set up, harder to sail (newbies take note) and it does make the Ride Height Adjuster much more critical and I'm a bit late on that string right now. Anyway Mike won. I pulled back a lot, he nicked it on the line but I'll take that. He deserves the win, I don't yet.

I'm looking forward to getting my new smaller front horizontal that should be along soon enough and hopefully in time for the Hayling open, an event where the Abarth stunt plane will perform in front of the club on Sunday lunch time!

Hopefully I can raise my own game before then.

S