Finally got to give my 2003 Goodall spinnaker a try last weekend. I'm very happy with it. Much better than the series od several years back. A difference from day to night. or should I say night to day. She is well behaved, trims well, does not collapse just curl on the luff in a nice, slowmotion way so that you can pull on the sheet to keep the spi flying well. She fills nicely and doesn't fill with a bang at least not in the winds we were sailing in.

We had to move the mast gate to the maximum F16 allowed height as Goodall gives the spi a long luff these days. That and even lower the spi pole a bit more. It is definately a long luffed sail. Sheet loads were very mild but than again we only encounter some 2-3 force winds. The load did not really chance with the fullness of the luff; something that I did experience with other spis over several years back. The sheet loads remain constant while effectively adjusting the draft.

I made a mistake at running the retrieval line through the patches so I can't really comment on how the patch on the foot of the sail works. It is supposed to help retrieving easier. I can tell you that running the line through the patches teh wrong way really doesn't help.

The tiller loads are non-existant. My skipper was actually quite impressed to not feel any leehelm under spi. He dropped the tiller for 10 seconds to proof it. The boat just tracked under spi. I did not feel any significant weather helm when I steered the boat upwind on several occasions. The setup of the baot was pretty much neutral both up and down. Similar comments are expressed by the other parties working on and with F16 spis. The modern cut spi's, rather flat especially in the case of the F16's, seems to leave teh helm trim of the boats (largely) unaffected. In light wind no shift is noticed as we experienced as well. The older spi we had did produce a shift.

We did 2 races. We did very well in the first race finishing 6th out of 10 F18's with the 2nd place F18 being only 42 seconds ahead after 75 minutes of sailing. When the F18 (+similar boats) and F20 (+similar boats) fleets are combined into a 20 boat fleet we ended up at place 7 out of 20 boats with only 1 out of 10 F20's ahead of us by 90 seconds. (On handicap).

The second race we stuck to the port side of the course that had service us so well in race 1 when clearly the starboard became more and more favoured. We placed 18th out of 20 in that race. We were not alone as 2 I-20's and an A-cat finished minutes ahead of us after almost 2 hours of sailing. This score will hopefully be our strike-out.

The races on the first sunday of april were cancelled due to high winds. In this spring Cup (8 races on 4 sundays in April) we still have 4 races left and tomorrow looks like being a good day with windforce 4 winds. Just right for the Taipan and our weight.

Together we sail the Taipan at 165 kg = 365 lbs, which limits our topspeed in heavy winds and seastate a bit. Windforce 4 (just double trapezing) and flattish water would be perfect for us.

We must really mind the windmill park next to the race course this time. We were right in the first race that there would be a area of less wind behind the windmills. However de wind shifted about 30 degrees in the second race creating a canal of stronger wind right next to the windmills (of wind trying to go around the windmills) that allowed the boats there to power up to the marks. Lesson ? Don't be stubborn when everybody moves away to teh starboard side of the course after rounding the C-mark for the first time.

Tomorrow another day, This time with a new snuffersystem that we except alot of.

Wouter