The British contingent had a windy session with big waves yesterday in Dubai. Adam launched only to bend his push rod within the first 5 minutes, he then spent the next hour and a half trying to get downwind back to the club .... apparently he tried signalling to me a couple of times that he was in distress, however I was too busy screaming like a girl and pitchpolling to notice .... sorry!
Alex suffered a crack to the hull and so had to come in early, however when I briefly sailed upwind with him the boat was looking very high and fast. Tim Penfold returned to shore rigless after tearing out the forestay plate.
The waves were tricky, long like Saundersfoot but with the occassional hole or messed up chop to trip you up. I think I was getting the hang of them by the end, partly by putting more trust in the boat. With the Bladerider in these conditions I tended to sit right up by the shrouds downwind in waves. The Mach 2 doesnt seem to like this as the nose pitches in, it seems to go much better with more ride height and then aggressively steering to avoid the holes ....
Anyway here is a video of calmer conditions from the other day. Myself and Adam had a great downwind run at the of video averaging 22 knots with a max speed of 23.7 apparently.
Wednesday 3 March 2010
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