‘Tiny Tim’ 
That was a good one!!! 
Actually should be Tiny Tor (small door) super nice guy, gather you must know Torsten, Wolfgang ?
Well Wolfgang, Tiny Tim i[/i] didn’t show this year, much to my personal disappointment, I was looking forward to seeing him again but understand he had another commitment. All the same a few of us took on one of his giant wiener schnitzel for dinner in honor to his absence.
For the Autumn Sprinta RC regatta for 2013 16 boats gathered on Saturday 19th October for practice where we had light southerly winds and temperatures of over 20 °C, fun was had trimming and optimizing comparison tests with amongst the Sprinta skippers until the wind died around 14:00 hrs when everyone retreated to the beer garden to enjoy first cold one for the day and share and exchange boat details.
I personally had very good day on the water with excellent light wind set-up and feeling confident in keeping up with the more experienced Sprinta veterans for the racing for the following morning.
We finally found ourselves at the dinner table with beautiful sunset autumn views of the Ammersee to end the day exchanging experiences and time fly by as Christian Ramoser gave all skippers an update on boat development where he had tested (on request from some skippers) 3 cm keel extension and found it to be unsuccessful for the Sprinta RC however to increase sailing capability in higher wind speeds he had just finished testing an new storm blade jib that when used with the main reefing option worked extremely well up to 22 knots of wind speed :reyes:….now is a lot of wind for RC model, I’ll be taking one those thanks ! 
Sunday morning and Ammersee once again turned on its best autumn sunshine with a light southerly wind & no fog this year. Reports forecasted the wind would swing to the north at 10-12 knots off the Alps in the afternoon which generally creates wave conditions.
20 Sprintas were signed in for race day with one of the largest fleets to-date and I pulled Steinlager out of overnight storage to do final check before hitting the water and …. the electrics were dead ! (why does this have to happen on race day 
) after trail and elimination looking for cause finally tracked it down to the on/off switch had internal melt down, unfortunately the wiring was soldered to the switch, thought about cutting them and hard wiring it for the day but was uncertain if my battery would last the entire day hard wired, so wrapped rubber band around the switch that gave switch on/off capability and crossed my fingers it would hold.
First race and around the top mark and then transmitter temporarily lost its binding to the receiver, letting sails in & out … then transmission reconnects again … :scared:panic ! what to do, keep going or retire ? I ended up slogging it out for 14th place with the problem and then back to shore to hard wire the electrics & while doing this I accidentally lost the drum position on the RMG winch and ended up dropping two races before I could get back on the water again :weeping: for the 4th race and ended up taking 3rd place form back of the fleet start….ok now looking good to make up for lost points.
Then it was lunch break and then after the wind completely died putting further racing on hold to until 16:00 hrs when it was then decided to call it a day and have prize giving from results coming from only the four races held in the morning … bugger I was done for this year 
Funnily enough no sooner had the prize giving ceremony ended and that forecasted wind from the north arrived at a weakened 4 knots, but it was wind all the same and most of us jumped back on the water for some fun sailing until the sun set.
A very special thanks go to the race organizers: Christian, Andrea , Katrin and Christiane for what is always a great event.
The date for the next autumn regatta is penciled in for 18 & 19th October 2014 …if you are in this neck of the woods; put it in your diary now and join the excitement of sailing the only RC sailing boat in the world with a Genoa, it’s a great experience! :jump:
Cheers Alan
N.B: Photos courtesy of Christian Ramoser as my camera did not have chance to get out of my bag, I’ll post more photo’s as they come to hand.
Hi all Sprinta fans, congrats on a successful regatta, wish I had been there. With regards the smaller headsail, I have been using one I had made here in Cairns for sometime now and with a full main the boat is sailable in winds up to 12 knots. I did have to fit another set of fairleads forward the existing ones to get correct sail trim. I have sent photos to Christian and Alan. I have also tried a 20mm keel extension and also found nil difference in performance, what works better is additional lead ballast on top of the keel inside the boat secured with Velcro.
REgards Lordy from Oz.
Sprinta RC 076