Race 4 of the Skate Nationals at St.GSC and the breeze is back to full blast seabreeze from the N/E...and the Skate guys are in heaven...this is what its all about...enjoy the video highlites...the first few mins showing the guys leaving the beach on the beautifull Georges River with perfect blue skies and great breeze...thats us with the yellow hulled boat and grey mainsail
the fun part of the vid is at 5.55...the yellow boat crash gybes...not one of my finest moments, but hey shit happens...i dont mind having a swim now and then, but i wasnt planning to be leading the race at the time, i think more gybing practice mite be a good idea!!!!.... and with the current National Title holder and leader of this series so far with 3 wins from first 3 races had a coming together with a kite boarder, and got the full tangle of ropes and bits around his Skate, so that slowed him down enough for the rest of the fleet to have a share of the race lead...when we swam on first lap there had allready been 4 leaders...so i got back onboard and tried to keep chase with leading pack...by second kite run we had gained lead again, and held on the last lap from the fast finishing leader Dave Luck on the blue hulled Skate...a magic day that was tailor made for these awesome little boats...the smiles on everyones faces as we hit the beach after the race said it all...and we got a race win...YEEEHaaa
After surviving the Race 1 fresh conditions fairly well and having a great day remembering how to tack and gybe a boat with planks again..and working out what to do with a tiller and mainsheet and plank while tacking, our day one finished with a fighting 5th place...after rounding the first mark with only a few boats behind me, the day proved to be a great training run, and our last work to the finish we picked up 6 boats...and im thinking, finally the years of local knowledge made a huge difference to what couldve been a very tough regatta start
so onto race 2...and the officialls decided the local boats had things a bit easy on day 1, so lets go out into the middle of Botany Bay with a 5-8knt easterly...truelly my least favourite conditions...but at least in these conditions i could fine tune my boat handling without worrying about falling off the plank
as the video below shows, we got a perfect pin end start, but bad luck for us, it was called a general...start 2 was, to say the least, terrible and we were buried...and now with the lite wind conditions all the Skates were all very similar paced, so it made for a very long day floating around the Bay...we fought hard and made up good places all day, and finished up with an awesome 4th place
so after 2 days back on the planks im beginning to find my feet again, and im realising im on a fast boat with probably one of the best skate crews around, and im totally enjoying being in a fleet of great boats and great people...some of which have been in the class since i left it 20 something years ago...and i beginning to know why...these are fantastic little boats, wether its upwind or down or 20kts plus or 8knt easterlys, its a very close racing fleet full with a bunch of guys and gals that are here for the fun...
day 3 arrives and the N/E seabreeze is starting to look nice with racing to be held back near the St.G club house at the mouth of Georges River...luckily for me its a ebb tide, so no crazy huge waves to contend with, but after my cruisy 8knts day in Race 1, im thinking, please just another easy day to find my feet...by the start time its over 15knts and im nervous...but as it turned out for no good reason...the memory banks kick in and its just like i was a kid again...beautifull blue skies and warm temps and a perfect seabreeze...couldnt ask for better Skate sailing conditions...allmost like these boats where made for this...i get of line fast and in the top bunch around the first mark...kites up and these boats are fulling cranking down the river...and im in heaven...sailing doesnt get much better than this...this didnt last long, my forst gybe was super sketchy, all arms and legs and ropes and planks everywhere...not to worry as my new crew is super cool and helps me out of trouble...no worries as i throw the little skate into the second lap and we are in the lead...yeehaaahhh...untill the big gybe crash...i got a bit too carried away with my growing confidence and take a slip mid gybe...not to worry as im having way to much fun to worry about what place we finish...in the end we pull a few boats back and take a 3rd palce
so 3 races down and and we have a 5,4,3 score card so far...im stocked, and very pleased with our improving places...unfortunatley no video of race 3 to show my gybe crash...but its beginning to make sence why a lot of Skate sailors have been in this class so long...there is nothing else like these boats...they do have common traits of an 18, but in a scaled down version...without the hassle of choosing rigs or lifting heavy boats in and out of the water, and being at a huge club like St.G, once the racing is done, just wheel the boats in the shed and upsatirs to the bar...im beginning to wonder why i ever left this class...not to mention the super bunch of people involved, with everyone happilly chatting away after each race on the balcony with many beers to help wash away the saltwater...great times indeed
more to follow in next few days as my Skate race week continues
Over the last summer i had the opportunity to go back to my sailing roots, as they say...the Skate Nationals were being held at my old home club down on Botany Bay...so i thought, that could be fun, 19 crazy Skate sailors all zooming around the confines of Woolooware Bay and Georges River...for the uninitiated, the Skate class goes back along way, this was the 55th running of the class Nationals...and these boats are a little bit different...with 2 leaning planks hanging over the side, the crew on an extended version so his feet are nearly a metre off the sides...basically a very high powered, high leverage, lite weight speed machine...why so fast?? well the hull weight for one thing is only 55kgs, and the hull shape can best be described as a "coffin"...slab sides with hard chines all the way to the bow...so they "Skate" across the water...very short at only 14feet long and less than a metre wide
over the past years the Skate class has modified its rules and stayed with modern sailing trends...carbon rigs and square top sails and of course a bow pole...so a bit different from when i first sailed Skates many moons ago
so i found a boat with built in crew, and so the story of my first Skate Nationals in over 20 years begins...watch the vid for highlites of Race 1...im on a yellow hulled boat sail no.983 with white kite, red around edges...and wow what a week i was in for...breeze, breeze and more breeze...would i be ready for 7 races???
lets see what happens hey...any guesses??? yes involves some crashes and some great rides..all on video
more to follow in next few day...enjoy the vid of this classic Australian sailing dinghy
what i will say about Race1...we had planned some training days before the week long Nationals, sadly didnt happen, then too fresh to sail on Invitation Race...so it came down to Race 1 and im thinking, ye ok i sort of remember how to do this, hope its a lite wind day to get things going...oh no its NOT...day 1 on the beach and breeze is building from the south and hitting around 18knts...and im shitting myself...this, i was thinking is not what i signed up for
at least i didnt have a massive wipe out like some...see vid at 5.13 for one of the best crashes filmed...my crashes come later in the week
as allways, comments welcome
heres an interesting video Sam did a few months back...filmed on the awseome GoPro cam mounted at back corner of wings, linked to GPS and tracking data, with some G-Force info just for fun...all this in only 10kts of breeze...best veiwed on full screen to see data in top corner...not bad speeds from a 15 year old skiff...top speed is 36km/h...love the big wing ex GP skiffs
Yes, its been a while...time to get some skiff blog happening again
Heres the first pic of what the team has been doing for the last year...with loads of new vids and pic and info to come...there is plenty happening out there in skiff world, and i thought its time to get skiff sail talking about it all...stay tuned for more
The last 2 days before New Years Eve we got back to basics down at my favourite sailing spot... Botany Bay With 2 video cams running, one on top of the mast the other on the boom, we got some perfect small rig training in beautifull 20knt conditions and had the entire Bay to ourselves, apart from a few windsurfers looking for a race The video looks awesome and should be ready in a few days time... The guys had some great training time and we got a few rig issues sorted out with the boat now really happy and sailing easily in the groove, and with a bit more centre board case issues still to be fine tuned we are very happy with how the boat is performing GPS top speed reading 20knts Day 2 on the Bay was a little lighter, so back to No1 rig, but this time with a 3rd video cam from my neice who happily walked to the middle of Captain Cook Bridge and got some birds eye view of our rigs. Perfect sunny conditions helped us really get lots of small issues sorted with plenty of perfect and not so perfect gybes and tacks and some moored boat dodging practice to simulate Harbour traffic. Just a great day to be on the water and now we have hours of video to check over and edit, and see how things look from different angles and perspective... really helps when you dont have the luxury of coach boats All I need to do now is work out how to use video editing software... should be interesting... stay tuned and have a very Merry New Year... enjoy
With the year almost gone me, Sam and Benny have had a great last few weeks of the decade on the water... we got a quick one lap dash at our first race against the League guys a few weeks back, where we ignored the forecast and went big only to sail into a 20knt s/e breeze that just seemed to get fresher all day, and with only 3 other big rigs to match up against at the League, this was going to be super fast or super dead. And it turned into a little of both, we started about a min or 2 late, so not to ruin the League guys start... well thats what im telling everyone!!! In reality we just didnt hear any guns or see any flags cause we where too busy just trying to stay upright in the freshening breeze, as well as waiting around for about 40 min as the starter decided to wear out his favourite flag-- postpone start!!! With nearly all small rigs to race against we decided to sail our own race and to our surprise by the first mark we had already passed a few boats, rounding the top mark and trying to stay away from the huge tanker parked off Point Piper it was 2 sail all the way down the Harbour, most of which fully out of control, half way down we crossed paths with the notorious Manly Ferry and apparently it doesnt know about port/starboard rules!!!! So with both our bows pointing directly at each other and closing fast, and the GPS reading around 19knts, we pushed hard to get to windward of the green big steel bastard. Another 20 odd feet to leward and we would be asked for our boarding tickets. So with this game of chicken over and watching most of the League guys go to leward we had picked up more boats by the bottom mark rounding and we sat nicely mid fleet On the long windward leg back up to Shark Is the small rigs were very fast and we lost a couple of boats, then as we rounded Shark I decided to really push my young crew to the extreme... kite up boys, and they turned back and looked a little stunned... but up with the kite and full speed down past Bradleys Head for one of THE fastest rides this boat has seen for a very long time... GPS top speed reading of 24knts... and the boys handled it, but we still had to gybe back to round the mark and with the breeze pushing easily over 20knts this didnt go too well, on the gybe drop we hit the piss... not to worry as we knew what went wrong, so we rested on the centreboard and watched 3 or 4 League boats with small rig put on a show of daredevil crash test dummys. At this point we where having lots of trouble just getting back uprite, finally we got going again but now we were having trouble bearing away, so a few more swims and we had broken a few mainsail battens... so we called it a day... and what a day The following satday back at SFS the weather gods where shining again and with almost a carbon copy of the previous week we made the same mistake... not listening to the weather forecast, so big rig in 18knts from the S/E , hot sunny and clear blue skys, but this time we could take it a bit easier and do some practice runs of where we went wrong last time. And this time we had the video cam strapped to the boom which Sam seemed to enjoy very much... video edit coming soon!!! So after 2 perfect Sydney Harbour, near identical, top end big rig days the boys were smileing and i was very happy with their performance as well as how the boat was responding and handling the fresh stuff with no broken bits, apart from some broken battens that can easily be fixed
