Angus, I wondered if you were able to get any races in, looks like it was blowing pretty hard in North Wales for most of Sunday. Maybe the Footy’s need a ‘C’ rig! Look forward to hearing the story. Paul
Well I know Angus doesn’t like to be userped by the punters but my thumbs are worn out being twiddled.
It was windy Paul, very windy but we did sail and we did race several races. There were times when it was more a matter of survival, on my part there were a couple of occasions I just headed up to wind to ride out a violent sustained gust. I hope Angus will be able to give us an idea of the likely wind speed because I am not good at guessing that.
I won’t go into any racing details though until Angus has given his report. Here’s hoping you survived the post race activities mate 
I will say though that I and my pal Alan who travelled with me from Sheffield both had a great day out and enjoyed the good company.
Graham
Slithey Tove – or the Curate’s Egg.
PHOTOS - IN INCREASING NUMBERS - AT http://s111.photobucket.com/albums/n138/angusrichardson/slithey%20tove/
VIDEO (ALL BORING OLD MOONSHADOW) - AT http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0L-uM9Sn-Y For more after the (particularly cruddy) first one, click on Moe from This User
THE RACING
16th September dawned brightish and earlyish (as dawns in September are inclined to do). The Met. Office had been doing their stuff and the forecast 17-18 knots was for real. Entrants throughout the length and breadth of the land peeled back one eyelid and went back to sleep – or else did more enjoyable things involving a small vibrating melon.
So it was a small and hardy band that assembled at the side of the lake – about an hour late. However, it was the first genuinely international Footy meeting ever. Graham McAllister of Sheboygan was there with his SiRen USA 65. So was Per Dahlström, the Swedish Registrar. Unfortunately his Kittiwake SWE 01 had been in his checked in baggage when he changed planes in Copenhagen. He went one way – Manchester: it went another - ???. However, Gary Sanderson very sportingly lent him his spare Razor (razor and toothbrush having come from the supermarket the night before) and this was duly given the temporary registration SWE 75 after deep and meaningful Nordic discussions with the Swedish Registrar. Gary himself elected to sail his new Bug.
Elsewhere things were going less well. Gary Spillane’s brand new Richardson designed Fennec had a glue joint between fin and bulb that had failed to ‘go off’ and the electrics of his spare Kittiwake obstinately refused to function, despite the tender ministrations of the knowledgeable. The Ogre’s Akela (to be sailed by Keven Jackson) had similar glue problems with the new mount for the steering servo. Others had electrical problems.
So – the turnout was just a little down from the dreamed of 20+ or the paid up 12. The course was laid using the fixed mark from the CBMYC internet course (a tub of concrete with a steel tube cast into it), the floating fixed mark from Gary Sanderson’s internet course and two motorway ‘hazard’ cones ‘borrowed’ (honest, your Honour) for the occasion. For a relatively shallow, concrete-bottomed lake like ours, these are positively the best marks I have come across. They stay exactly where they are put, are easy for the ‘Course Kraken’ (more in a second) to move and are highly visible. Furthermore, they have absolutely nothing for a passing Footy to entangle itself with.
Gary Spillane and our redoubtable Officer of the Day, Owain Roberts, pondered long and earnestly over the course, helped not a little by Graham McAllister and Alan Whitworth of Sheffield. The general arrangement used throughout the day was a triangle of something in the order of 100 feet per side and a separate floating mark for the other end of the starting line. Gary then donned a pair of chest-high waders (good fly fishing here in Snowdonia) and became the Course Kraken – the Monster from the Deep.
The fleet for the first race of two laps consisted of Graham McAllister, Alan Whitworth, Adam Jackson, Gary Sanderson and Per Dahlström. Adam promptly lost a deck patch and his electrics – and then there were 4. And that was pretty much how it was over the day. When transmitter/receiver/wiring incompatibilities had been sorted out Mark Holcroft’s pre-production 507 Sun Dog appeared and retired immediately in disgrace. Her clever, hard plastic adjuster sliders – so attractive on a nice day – slid uncontrollably under the influence of drizzle and string winds. The ‘forward spar’ of her Bobabout-type rig repeatedly sprang out of its locating clip. Attempts to sail her with no jib resulted in her bobbing about slowly backwards.
Probably most interesting was the much vaunted New Zealand built Moonshadow, an Akela 2. She made a number of forays under B rig, only to find that the miraculous sticky tape bought to spare her rather delicate side-decks met none of the salesman’s promises. It was not strong, not waterproof and did not stick like s**t to a blanket. Accordingly she cavorted around the lake from time to time under B rig, having a little warm up, shedding deck patches and with a progressively slackening main outhaul (also sticky tape). The fact that she has minimal submarining tendency is well evidenced by the fact that she did not sink! With reasonable tension on the foot of the sail she went to windward like a rocket requiring very little helmsman input, even when caught out by a gust. She appeared to be extremely fast and able: on one of the odd occasions when there was another boat on the water before Moonshadow drowned her electrics again, she was going to windward beautifully while the Bug, also under B rig, was struggling to make any headway at all and manifesting considerable control problems. Sorry to harp on about this but I’m suffering from proud father syndrome with all its attendant boredom for everyone else.
By the time we gave up sailing the wind must have got up to 20 knots. It then rose to, I guess, 30 knots as the front came over and drenched us in freezing rain. At this point, everyone agreed that we were simply going to break boats if we carried on so we repaired to Angus’ house for a defrost and prize giving.
The runaway winner was Alan Whitworth in the Kittiwake GBR 105, followed by Graham in SiRen. Graham beat Alan once, but it was generally a close match. Except for one race when Graham changed down to a B rig (by which he lost out badly), both boats carried standard(ish) Kittiwake rigs throughout. It was fascinating to watch them: both were at or beyond the limits of control up wind for much of the time, but with plenty of twist in the rigs they gained much more in the lulls than they lost in the puffs. Downwind it was all the fun of the circus, ducking, diving and broaching all over the place – but again, the instant acceleration of a Footy meant that they were charging off again, bows buried in the water a fraction of a second later. Overall this rather brutal technique paid off in spades.
Gary Sanderson with his Bug and Per Dahlström were much more conservative, in practical terms using B rigs throughout. Per did better than Gary on the whole, sometimes mixing it with the two leaders. On the whole the Razor seemed to have a reasonable relationship between sail area and stability without getting involved in the thrills and spills of the two McAllister boats. The poor Bug, on the other hand, was generally having a very unhappy time of life. Gary is the first to admit that he has not yet fully mastered the mysteries of her Stollery swing rig. My personal guess is that the rig was pinned down too hard with too narrow a slot and insufficient twist – but it’s easy to be wise from a wheelchair. Whatever the cause, the Bug with a B rig was often being just as overpowered as the McAllister boats with their A rigs.
When the wind speed finally went through the roof (25 knots plus) and it started to rain hard, we poor wimps decided to call it a day and repair to the Ogre House (chez Angus) to reheat and distribute the prizes. Unfortunately most people had to be off home quickly and the post-race party dwindled to miniscule proportions. It has to be admitted that, rather than add up the Race Officer’s hieroglyphics (I had stayed up all night making him pretty recording sheets – but he still used the back of a slightly greasy peace of paper) we awarded the prizes by acclaim –
1st Alan Whitworth
2nd Graham McAllister
3rd Per Dahlström
4th Gary Sanderson
The rest – too ashamed to care!
So a surprisingly good day was had by all. There were moments of humour. A particularly vulgar and noisy i/c powered speedboat appeared at the other end of the lake and simply launched with no care for any frequency conflicts. When taxed with this, he said that he was on ’40 MHz FM’, with the vague implication that no silly 12” yacht could possibly be fitted with anything do magnificent. Now move to split screen: on the lake side of the wind shelter where we had pitched our camp, we have the active sailors preparing their boats for the next race and hoping that Moonshadow (the only boat using 40 MHz) will have been dried out again and restored to the water soon, as there is at least the off chance that she may be on the same frequency as our noisy friend and able to ‘interfere’ him into the wall. On the other half of the screen we see Keven the Demon Modeller patiently drying Moonshadow out and quite unable to understand why the radio system is going berserk!
I must close with our heartfelt thanks to Owain Roberts, the Race Officer. He conducted proceedings in a firm but relaxed manner, and was eternally good humoured. His courses were excellent, and he and the Course Kraken had no inhibitions about moving them as needed. The one moment of problems was when he was heard to be muttering a count down. Alan Whitworth assumed that the ghetto blaster with the starting CD had failed and asked Owain to speak up, which he did. Alan made a beautiful start just as the ghetto blaster burst into life with the 2 min signal. What the hell was going on? Very simple really: Owain, as a good ‘real’ boat man, is used to having 500 yards between him and the competitors and having a team of flag-breakers-outers, canon-firers and whatever to assist him with the start. His muttered countdown was for the benefit of the Course Kraken, entrusted with the onerous task of closing the lid of the CD player!
Excellent race report Angus, congratulations on actually running the event in in those conditions, and as to the fortitude of the competitors, stalwart is the word that comes to mind. Throw that kind of weather at the Florida Footy’s and most of them would probably stay home in bed.
Congratulations to everyone that gave it a go is such stiff conditions. A special award should go to Gary for loaning a boat that finished better than his. This is the second regatta in a row where a borrowed boat beat its owner. Are Footy skippers so generous that we loan the better craft?:zbeer:
Thanks to Angus, Gary, and Owain for hosting. I’m starting to get worried about all the things that can go wrong at one of these things.:scared:
John - you’ve just read the PR version. If you knew about all the things that were almost disatrous …
But ingenuity and determination can do marvellous things. Go for it.
Incidentally, the photos have been updated and we will have some videos of Moonshadow in a second.
:zbeer:
Stick some bouys out and run the races John… it’s not so scary really. Preperation is cheap but worth it’s weight in gold. I am sure you will do a fine job.
I still keep looking at the map and wondering if I can stomach an extra 8 hours return trip from Savannah the day before setting off back home from our Florida/Georgia trip. Not to mention the cost… strewth.
Sigh…wish I could have been there. Though I’m not sure why Footy regattas appear destined to have ridiculous wind conditions that would challenge even a Marblehead!
Kudos to all involved…and to the survivors. Graham certainly proved his designs, but I’d like to see Razor with a bit more sail against Siren. One of these days.
Angus, great job…keep up the good work…at least we’ve proved Footys (properly rigged for conditions) can handle the rough stuff a lot better than people give them credit for!
Bill H
p.s. Moonshadow looks good…maybe I need to get busy on my rebuild of Halfpint!