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Not our finest hour on Sunday.
We had a good start but I chose the wrong downwind sail to take us out of the River Orwell. The asymmetric spinnaker went up but I should have gone straight for our symmetric spinnaker.
Surrounded by other competitors we were forced to gybe however seconds before we did our lazy sheet fell off of the prodder and vanished under the boat. This meant that although we had gybed we could not sheet the sail in.
Things then went from bad to worse as is in the mayhem that followed I got smacked on the head by the mainsheet system during an uncontrolled gybe. The block on the fine tune had done what it always does and had got far to high (towards the boom). I really need to resolve this as its very dangerous.
By the time we had sorted all of this out and I had come off the helm for a bit to hold my head in my hands, curse and take some tablets we were dog last on the water by a long way.
Things did improve, we managed to catch some boats up and even pass a few. Our upwind performance was good, very good. Assuming we can steer clear of disasters and I start making the correct sail choices I am confident things will improve..
Jan, Neil, Tony, Phil and our new guy Ben were all on board in fresh conditions with a average wind strength of 17 knots true and a few bigger prolonged gusts.
Jan, Neil and I were joined by Martin on New Years day for the Haven Ports Yacht Club Ice Bucket race. A total of 9 yachts turned out to compete. Our start at 1100 was a little before low water and Pete, our race officer had warned the fleet (at least twice) that there were very shallow areas in the river. This unfortunately didnt stop some of the fleet grounding, we were fortunate enough to avoid any such issues.
The race took us into and out of the River Stour before bouncing back n forth across the club line a couple of times and finishing. After 1.5 hours of racing we managed to place 3rd (again) on corrected time.
Full results can be found here.
It has been a tradition for some time at Haven Ports Yacht Club to race for the Pete’s Pot Trophy each year on Boxing Day. This morning Jan, Neil and I arrived at NINJOD ready to do our best.
There was an impressive 13 yachts on the start line this morning. We had a very good start, in fact I’d go as far as to say it was one of my best starts ever. We were the 2nd yacht around the 1st mark, just off the stern of Kiss (an X35) and just ahead of Cheap Thrill (a Cork 1720). We then hoisted our asymmetric spinnaker and sped off towards the 2nd mark.
We sailed a pretty good race and managed to stay at the sharp end of the fleet for most of the race. The day however was not without incident; at one point we lost a working sheet on our asymmetric, it just opened on its own. It took us a some time to sort it out.
Niggles aside we were pleasantly surprised to be told we came 3rd on corrected time, our 1st significant placing on new NINJOD and in our last race of the year. Our manoeuvres were good and it was nice to mix it up and be competitive in a predominantly fully crewed fleet.
Full results can be found here . Well done to Roger Harvey on Dash for his impressive win.
Last weekend saw some sailing action on NINJOD. On Saturday Michael and I hooked up with John Parker and Mike from One Sails for a sail. The original idea was to take at look at each of the sails that had been built by One Sails, our sailmaker. On the day however there was a fresh 17 to 20 knot breeze so we stuck with our new No 3 and a full mainsail.
NINJOD No 3
NINJOD No3
As we headed out of the river we managed to get some pretty good boat speeds, so much so that I thought the log might have been over reporting. I checked this by looking at our SOG (Speed Over the Ground) and was pleasantly surprised to see we were in fact going well, very well.
As we came onto the breeze and wound in our sails in John got his camera out and got busy snapping. We were enjoying ourselves and then thought we’d pop the CZ (Code Zero) up. After a bit of fiddling we unfurled the sail and watched our boat speed increase to over 10 knots.
Haven Ports Frostbite Number 3
On Sunday Jan, Neil, Will and I arrived on board for 0900 ready to prepare NINJOD for our 3rd race in the Haven Ports Yacht Club Frostbite series. We had missed the 2nd race in the series as Jan and I were busy training in the Lake District for next years Lakeland 50.
The race itself was a little frustrating. Our start wasn’t too bad but our (my) sail selection in our No 3 was the wrong choice, we should have used the larger No 2 headsail. Knowing we had made the mistake we rounded our first mark, unfurled our Code Zero and then switched the headsails. Unfortunately the choice of Code Zero was also incorrect; we should have hoisted our Asymmetric spinnaker.
In our beat up the River Stour we made good progress and had managed to take back some of the ground we had lost in the early stages of the race. As we turned and ran downwind in the Stour we flew our symmetric spinnaker. We turned left back into the River Orwell and had planned to put our Code Zero back up however a halyard issue prevented us from doing so and consequently lost some of the ground we had reclaimed earlier.
With my poor sail selection and our halyard niggles during the race I wasn’t really expecting anything exciting in the results. I was however pleasantly pleased to see that after 2 hours and 13 minutes of racing we had achieved 4th position. Furthermore there was only a 1 second difference between our 4th position and 3rd position and, there was only a 39 second difference between us and 2nd place. I found this all very reassuring and all I need to do now is get my head around the right sails to use.
Full results can be found here
With help from Roma and Michael, Jan and I motored NINJOD home from Burnham to Levington in little or no wind on a grey rainy day during the 5th of November. Yesterday we participated in our first HPYC race.
Conditions were fairly light and slowly built throughout the race with a top true wind speed of 11 knots. My father Phil, Will, Jan and I were on board as we prepped the boat. The course took us out of the River Orwell, into the River Stour and then back to the Orwell with a quick bounce back and forth between 2 marks before finishing at the club line.
Our start was not great as I managed to end up below everyone else and in the combined bad air from the entire fleet. As we headed up wind towards the River Stour we used the shallows to minimise the effects of the tide that was running against us. Our kite hoist as we turned into he Stour was pretty slick. We ran towards our turning mark gybing once and making as much use of the tide as we could.
The beat back to the River Orwell, again against the tide and in the shallows, went without incident and as we turned into the Orwell we hoisted our asymmetric spinnaker. Unfortunately it didn’t stay up for too long as we were headed. We then bounced up and down the Orwell between 2 marks before finishing at the club line.
In the results we finished 5th on corrected time in a fleet of 7 yachts. We still have lots to learn and I am confident we can improve and get NINJOD flying. We had great fun with David Card and his crew on Demijon 2, a Sunfast 37, they provided us with some close racing.
The picture above is recorded from the local AIS station connected to the Internet. Ninjod constantly transmits its position speed and course over AIS. It’s nice to know it works.
