Halveway in the F20 and F18 fleet (25th out of 47); about the same as last year when I was solo, but this time the proper F18 crews were about.

I sailed as crew on a F16 owned by a fellow club member. We are quite pleased with this result. We have only sailed 5 times together (incl. these days) this whole season and this is about all of the sailing either of us did the whole year. We expected to do worse because of it, especially since the beam reach under spinnaker of the first 15 km really doesn't favour the F16.

We also started on sunday but we had to retire in the first race due to a dislocated shoulder of my skipper; no fun I can tell you. I had to climb over him to reach the tiller and mainsheet to prevent the boat from capsizing and gave him some additional hurt that way. I figured that going over was worse in this situation then causing him some more pain. Now you also know the reason behind the DNF, DNS and DNS for the second day. I have got to admit though I've rarely seen a guy so though and pain tolerant as my skipper; he never blamed me for making the least bad choice in a bad situation.

I see Macca did really well in final results. Still doesn't mean a darn thing when its comes to engineering though.


With respect to the other comment; if you hull raises to high under spinnaker then you have turned down too late. You can correct this of course by letting out some mainsheet but you can also learn to spot the gust sooner and take quicker steering action. For any solo F16 sailor this skill is an absolute must for lack of manipulators at the ends of your arms. I found the same skill really helps when 2-up requiring much less mainsheet sheeting. Result same downwind speed and depth but achieved by a different path way this time with the main cleated. Hence my earlier disagreement.

Wouter