Wednesday, July 6, 2011

July 6 - Training and Measurement

We have been continuing to train here in Helsinki. Yesterday we sailed in really light wind and did some tuning and some small races. Today we had a longer session in more light wind. It has been cloudy for the past few days with gradient breeze, and the same was forecast for today but then we woke up to sun which pretty much killed the gradient. We had a really good session working on starts and racing. You know the session was productive when you find yourself mildly frustrated the entire time! Our starts improved greatly over the course of the day and we had good communication in the boat but we still need to work on it a lot. We tend to either get the timing right and accelerate poorly or mess up the timing but have a good acceleration. Obviously the ideal situation would be to arrive at the starting line at full speed at go! We did some small races again with several other boats and this was good until the end when we were sinking! We had loosened the centerboard bolt a bit because the centerboard was a bit stiff but we loosened it too much and the gap slowly let water into the boat. It was less of an issue earlier in the day as we could go fast enough to drain the boat but once the wind died down again we started filling up.

Once back on land we prepared the boat for measurement, always an enjoyable experience! Measurement is when they inspect the boat and equipment to ensure it meets the class rules. We had to do full measurement again, and our centerboard and spinnaker pole did not pass, even though they measured in fine last season. So we had to add 1 mm to the centerboard and take 1 mm off the spinnaker pole. Once this was done we got the sticker of approval.

It was a long day in the sun but a good one. We train again tomorrow and then take Friday off before racing starts on Saturday.

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