Yeah all in all it was a good fun day, very blowy and the wind picked up a lot as the day went on, which is why i, and others decided to call it a day. Had plenty of fun and didnt feel like breaking anything in the increased conditions.
The western sheltered area of the lake was a real challenge, as drew said, he cought up to me and 2 other boats who were caught in an area of 180 degree wind shifts, with wind changing in speed from nothing to gusty on and off like a strobe light. I tried at one stage to use to kite to get some speed in due to the light wind which was coming over my sterrn at the time, only to have the kite blown back into the boat as the wind did a 180 to a close haul, to only then have it come back across from the stern, never staying in any direction for longer than a couple of minutes.
The rest of the lake was fairly steady in direction but very gusty, with small gust patches moving across the lake at great speed (as was visible from higher up ashore near the race office).
It was quite a challenge, with very narrow areas which opened up to wide areas followed by smaller areas as the race took us from the wide open areas of the lake it to some of its smaller rivers. This resulted in the need at some points to tack/gibe often across the narrow areas of the lake, which i found challenging as im not yet quick at coming in off the trapeze during a tack, i usually come in early to give my self time to unhook, get in position and tack, but with the wind and the narrow areas of the lake, i had to trapeze to keep speed and the boat from heeling, but would sometimes only be out on trapeze for a minute or so at at a time. As a result, my tacking was quite slow, and due to the large number of tacks needed for the upwind leg, i found my self losing quite a bit of time upwind.
However as drew mentioned, on the downwind, i just took off, with the wind speed, i could heat up the spinnaker easily and gain massive apparent wind and so almost run straight downwind whilst still flying the windward hull and really moving along to boot. Upwind in one part of the lake i must have done at least 10 tacks, whilst going downwind with the kite for the same part of the course, i needed to gibe only twice.
I took some video footage from my phone, the footage it self is ok, but as i had it in a water proof camera bag that was on a rope handing around my neck, it was very hard to get it pointing in one direction for long, as the wind kept blowing it everywhere, and it was difficult to say the least to hold it steady with a hand, as in that kind of wind, both hands were busy trying to keep the boat upright and moving forward. But theres patches of some good stuff and some footage from ashore after i came in of some of the other boats racing out on the lake. Ill have to go through it and do some editing, but i should be able to put something together and show it in a couple of days
All in all it was a great day just to be out on the water with another mossie for the first time, cant wait to go up against drew with his kite. Heres hoping next weekend will give good weather.
And come on, i wasnt covering you that closely, you had room to tack ... just
Michael.