As good as it looks!

It was as good as it looks!

The wind was easterly F4 with gusts well into F5. The further off the beach the more steady and heavy the wind. We got Wild Goose planing and it was just brilliant. We even had the odd sensation of surfing upwind on port tack because of the NW waves, that was just weird! The windward quarter would lift and the wave would throw the boat foward, it made sailing on the tell tails hard work!

Jo was away for the weekend so my eldest Son crewed for me. He did well considering that he hasn't raced in an Enterprise since 1997 when he sailed with the scouts.
We had one close shave with a gybe that didn't go too well but we just about kept her up.

We were going quick upwind but offwind we struggled to keep up. It may have been the extra weight and the combination of Paul's inexperiance but I was also using old (1999) North sails, the mainsail is exceptionally flat which was great upwind but we lacked power off wind, even with the foot loosened. I had difficulty getting the kicker tension right off wind so all of these may be factors. The upshot is that whilst we could make ground upwind we lost it off wind.

So for April we managed 6 races, 5 with just 2 boats and one with three boats. I have 2 x 1st, 4x 2nds giving second overall, decided in the last two races!. The racing has been really close, so even though we have been down on numbers the competition has been great and that makes it good fun.