i550class.org

Shazza has had a win today in the first two races of the 2011 Winter Series.
2 races, and two line honours wins. We had a 5th and 1st on handicap on a day with less than 5knots. Who says I550's are slow in the light stuff

Thank you, yes concentration and the ability to ignore the fact you're getting a sore bum from staying still

Well done Josh, were you running two up or three? Winter Series? Sweet, dose this mean snow is on the way? Good sailing!

Two up Jon, which was amazingly easy and fun

Wonderful job Shazza! It's great to hear that you're doing well in a two up situation, I guess Donna finally has you trained to be good crew!

Hey Rocky,
Donna was our Shore Manager yesterday.
Catherine was a quick study and had our kite up and down pretty quick considering it was the first time she had raced on Shazza, and only the second sail on Shazza.
The only draw back yesterday was there was no one to tidy up all the halyards etc and we ended up with a bit of a birds nest a couple of times. The third would be needed at sorta 10+knots I reckon just to tidy up if nothing else and lack of weight issues may come in around that time. Donna and I have sailed over 10 with kite no problem but I don't know about racing.

Congratulations Josh on those great results. Nice to see you winning !

Hi Josh,
Do you think the water ballast would be useful over 10kts and two-up? Or would it be just one more thing for a short handed crew to have to deal with? Have you given any more thought to putting tanks on Shazza?

Hi Rocky
For two up cruising in 10 to 15 knots I wouldn't bother, for over 15 maybe.

For racing I am still divided, It would need to transfer super quick and the problem I see with the two-up scenario at the moment is not necessarily weight initially but the birds nest of halyards etc that no one has time to tidy up.
I still think the ballasting would be very good but it also needs to be absolutely idiot proof, when I've come up with that I will look at it all again because to do the system properly means building it into the hull (which for Shazza would mean taking of the deck bits we sit on and I'm not willing to take out the axe just yet)>

Congrats Josh

Cant wait to start building and get racing myself

More races today #3 & 4 of the series.

Race #3 was all to plan, first over the line and 1st on Handicap
Race #4 went to S&^%T. I discovered it was not a fast way to sail by having a main batten puncture the spinnaker and not want to come off so we had to sail into the breeze to blow it back off, we had to have a few goes at this and a few minutes later we were sorted again--Oh and the race, yoiu can't give away that sort of time. Over the line we managed 2nd and a 5th from 8 on handicap.

Not too shabby!
Way to go, Shazza, I really enjoy reading about your race results and it serves as inspiration to get this thing DONE! (not that I am having too much luck with that, lately).