February 28th 2010
Light, shifting winds on Sydney Harbour saw the fleet race today and Project Racing, after an average start, held on to take third place.
click the title for more race news.....
February 21st 2010
PROJECT RACING, THIRD IN THE WORLD!!!
Congratulations to Andy, James and Matt!
Sydney produced some fabulous racing conditions for the final of this year’s JJ Giltinan. 12-18 knots NE, sunny and hot, what more could you ask for?!
Sturdy trapeze wires???
The start was good, they were leading....
(click the title to hear the full race report)
Well Done Team Project Racing!
February 20th 2010
With only one race to go and only one point separating first and second place in the overall standings, tomorrow’s final race of the 2010 JJ Giltinan is really going to go to the wire.
Project Racing takes fourth place and closes in on the trophy.
click the title to see Sydney Harbour action and to read today's race results....
February 19th 2010
It’s all about the 3’s today it would seem.
The third race this week, the re-sail of race 3 and a third place for Project Racing!
This race was postponed on Tuesday due to excessive winds and was re-sailed today in barely any wind. The race started in a 10 knot ENE.
Click the title for full race news and photo....
February 18th 2010
A light, variable SE wind saw a divided fleet on the harbour for todays race.
Project Racing made some tactical decisions to keep them up in the top boats and sailed a good race to finish in thrid place.
More more news click on the title.....
February 17th 2010
Project Racing back on the podium!
After several days of testing weather conditions and the postponement of Race 3, the fleet were greeted with the perfect racing environment out on Sydney Harbour.
Read on by clicking the title...
Images from the racing so far have been added to the gallery- 2010 JJ Giltinan World Championships.
February 14th 2010
PROJECT RACING TAKE THE WIN!
A great start saw Project Racing take the initial lead to then open it up over the course and finish top of the fleet with over a 2 mintue gap on second place.
For more news and photos read on by clicking the title...
February 13th 2010
Difficult weather conditions greeted the fleet for the first race of the JJ Giltinan 18ft Skiff World Championships.
Driving rain and barely any wind at all saw only 16 boats finishing the race within the time limit.
read on to find out how the boys fared....
A very interesting set of conditions for the practice race of this year’s JJ Giltinan World Championships. The wind, at one point or another came from every direction possible with a very hot, dry heat.
This didn’t seem to affect Team Project Racing as they had a fabulous start with good boat speed and made a great line up the first beat in the lead.
(For action photo and more news click on the title....)
A light south-easterly breeze greeted the fleet on Sydney Harbour, and with this being the last race before the JJ there was plenty of anticipation in the air.
Gotta Love it 7, the recently crowned 2010 Australian Champions, showed that they are a force to be reckoned with as they led the fleet around the course and took the win by a very tight 49 seconds.
However, the Project Racing boys were right up there. After their win on Friday in the twilight race and all things looking good with the number one rig, the boys sailed a great race to come in very closely behind Gotta Love it 7 in second place. Third and fourth place went to Rag & Famish Hotel and Appliances Online respectfully.
For more news and action photos click on the title.....
Friday 5th February 2010
YES!! Project Racing are winners.
Leading from the top windward mark through to the finish, the boys sailed well and finally got the position they deserve!
After a bit of a shower we headed out onto the harbour for a 6.30pm start, the only evening race of the season. Light winds 4-8 knots from the east.
Several starts with general recalls turned out to be quite helpful for our starting practice. And in the end it came down to a black flag start.
The number one rig has been worked on and used a lot over the last week and so it was good to have it up today. The speed off the line was good and after some fine calls on tactics, the boys were first approaching the windward mark with Smeg and Asko close behind. Good news for the team was that there were big gaps in the fleet between those up front and the rest.
click on the title for more race news and photos......
Project Racing fought through the fleet, over taking boats and stormed into 4th place!!!
A great result and a good start with the JJ coming up in just over a week.
Welcome back to middle man Matt McGovern. More news coming soon .........
Australia Day
Tuesday 26th January, Sydney Harbour
Hot, sunny, but very light winds greeted the fleet for this national holiday race.
With only one more race of the Australian championships to be sailed the overall scores are changing each week and looking to be an interesting finish.
click the title for more news and pics.......
Sunday 24th January
Another Sunday on Sydney harbour and a good result for Team Project Racing.
5th place today ahead of Asko, sees Project Racing lying in joint 3rd place with Smeg in the Championships with 2 races still to be sailed.
click on the title for more news
18ft Skiffs Sydney Harbour Sunday17th January
Since last Sundays race we have been sailing hard and have been on the water for 6 days out of 7.
The only day we missed was because we broke the pole on a bit of a windy downwind day before.
Dave has now been sailing with us for 4 weeks and we are starting to come together although it is very difficult to build consistent racing performance in such a short time.
Highlights from our training week were top speeds of 25 knots average over 10 seconds on the gps---just before the pole gave up.
Wind was 25-30 knots from the south....felt a little faster than a sigma 38 downwind especially when we took off.
Sunday was forecasted to be windy from the south so everyone went for the small rig----We ended up with 10-18 knots which could have been the big rig. Sunny of course. 23 starters
We were hopeful of a good result as we felt we had good boat speed and boat-handling!
Unfortunately we were rolled over after the start and went the wrong way up the first beat which left us virtually last at the windward mark.
After a good reach , ( An area we were working on after being a bit slow the week before), beat reach and another beat we had got back to about 6th and the leaders were not
that far ahead...Good VMG boat-speed although not pointing high, good boat-handling and thankfully some good tactics got us back in contention.
On rounding the top mark at rose bay I pulled away a bit quickly, which put us into a pitch pole ( Barker Hitting the fore-stay) …….....dam or words to that effect.
We managed to get back up and overtook several boats to finish a disappointing 12th but we did have a few positive moments and the speed we could pass the mid fleet sailors
was impressive.
Seven sailed well to win the race , Cocko came back after a bad first beat to finish second, putting Appliances online 3rd.
Looks like cocko is going to be very hard to beat in a series and seven are still looking good. After that the fleet is quite open so we are getting the
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Race 1 SP-High Modulus Australian Championships
January 10th 2010
It’s been four weeks of no 18’ racing, but that has not stopped the team from getting out on the water. This time off has given Team Project time to tweak up the new boat.....No 2 Rig especially.
Sailing as much as possible has been high on the agenda and as usual it has come with a few setbacks. Breaking the no.1 rig and Bowman James needing 7 stitches in his hand after a knife accident have not been too favourable.
Dave O’Connor (ex 49er Helm) has joined as mainsheet man and is doing a fine job, and is with us up to the JJ Giltinan in February.
click on the title to read more and see Project Racing in action!
The past three weeks have been a mixture of strong wind, no wind, gusty direction changes, obstacles on the race course and the ongoing problem of finding a third man.
Through October and the beginning of the race series saw Project Racing sailing well.
They were getting good starts, boats speed was decent and some great results were put in to see them on scratch handicap.
However, November has not been so good to us.
Having to sail each week with a different third man has been hard for James and Andy as they cannot get into a proper rhythm and get the boat sailing really well.
Here is an insight to what has been happening over the past few race Sundays.
Sunday 15th November
NSW Championships, Race 2
Michael Coxon, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas won today’s race showing that they are going to be this year’s boat to beat and setting a high standard of racing for us all to follow.
Harry Bethwaite joined the boat as sheet hand for the race and although the general boat coordination was a little up in the air, Project Racing were on a better lay line to the top mark.
After an unfortunate crash tack at the windward mark due to a tussle with Yandoo Project Racing found themselves in the second grouping of the fleet along with Asko, Kinder Caring and Pure Blonde. . Having said that, they worked their way up to be the first boat in that second grouping and gained 7th place overall.
Not bad considering they came in minus a tiller extension.
Sunday 22nd November
NSW Championships, Race 3
Bizarre is a word I would use for this race. The wind was coming from everywhere, swinging from between NW and NE with no wind gusting up to 25knots and a scorching 35 degree heat. This all made for some very interesting conditions.
The boys were sailing again with a new guy, Locky.a 65kg 29er sailor.
There is an unwritten rule that if you cannot lift the boat in the water then you can’t go sailing......not sure if he would have made that criteria!
(Click on the title to read more...)
A very average result for project racing in a light and tricky easterly breeze. Oh well there is always next year.....
Still finishing 7th overall is a good performance with a boat that is 15 years old.
Giltinan Championship –Race 7 (Final Result)
Sunday, 22 February 2009
Sydney Harbour
The Southern Cross Constructions crew of Euan Mc Nicol, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas became the 2009 Giltinan 18ft Skiff champions today after one of the “craziest” races seen on Sydney Harbour.
Although the talented trio could do no better than fourth placing today, their overall pointscore of 18 points was just enough to defeat Active Air-2UE (Matthew Searle, Dan Wilsdon, Archie Massey) by one point, with Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton, Tom Clout) three more points back in third place.
The final outcome was almost unbelievable as Southern Cross Constructions looked to have absolutely no hope for more than three-quarters of today’s race.
Trailing the leader by four minutes and ten seconds at the first windward mark (and almost totally at the back of the fleet) Southern Cross’ crew could only watch as most of their main opponents were vying for the lead.
Victory today went to the 2000 Giltinan winner John Winning with crew of Andrew Hay and David Gibson in Yandoo.
They defeated the young Panasonic crew of Jonathan Whitty, Dan Higlett and Tom Anderson by 1m12s with Active Air-2UE a further 15s back in third place.
A lack of wind at the scheduled start time saw the start delayed for more than 20 minutes before he elected to go with the four-lap windward-and-return course.
appliancesonline.com.au (John Winning Jr.) won the start and led by 20s from Smeg (Hugh Stodart) at the windward mark.
Gotta Love It 7 was third, closely followed by SLAM (Grant Rollerson), Active Air-2UE, Panasonic, Macquarie Real Estate (Micah Lane), Yamaha NZ (Scott Kennedy) and Yandoo.
Macquarie Real Estate grabbed the lead on the spinnaker run back to the twi
Race 6
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Sydney Harbour
Another win by appliancesonline.com.au and a dramatic last minute manouvre by the Gotta Love It 7 team have set the scene for the closest finish in the 70-year history of the Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship.
With only tomorrow’s race left to be sailed in the championship, the leading five teams are separated by just five points and it will be almost a case of whoever wins the race will win the title.
Southern Cross Constructions (Euan Mc Nicol, Aaron Links, Trent Barnabas) leads with a total of 14 points, followed by Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton, Tom Clout) on 15, Active Air-2UE (Matthew Searle, Dan Wilsdon, Archie Massey) on 16, appliancesonline.com.au (John Winning Jr,. Dave Ewings, Tim Austin) on 17 and Rag & Famish Hotel (John Harris, Peter Harris, Scott Babbage) on 19 points.
After a slow start to the regatta when appliancesonline recorded only one sixth and two seventh placings, their last three placings have been two wins and one second placing.
A continuation of this form will see them seriously challenge the three teams ahead of them now on points.
Today’s race was yet again sailed in a light breeze and the appliancesonline team was quickly in the lead as the fleet worked its way from the start in Taylors Bay to the Rose Bay windward mark.
Appliancesonline led Panasonic (Jonathan Whitty, Dan Higlett and Tom Anderson) by 20s as spinnakers were set for the spinnaker run to Robertson Point.
The American team of Obama-Nation (Chad Freitas) was in third place, ahead of Southern Cross Constructions, Gotta Love It 7, Active Air-2UE, Yandoo (John Winning), Pure Blonde (James Francis), SLAM (Grant Rollerson) and Asko Appliances (Evan Walker).
Little changed on the run although Southern Cross moved into third place ahead of Obama-Nation.
Appliancesonline increased her lead to 1m at the Clarke Island mark while the Americans fought back to regain third place ahead
Project racing lead for 1 1/2 laps from a fantastic start.
Giltinan Championship – Race 5
(Sponsored by Winning Appliances and SLAM)
(Today’s race sponsored by Smeg)
Thursday, 19 February 2009
Sydney Harbour
Appliancesonline.com.au became the fifth winner from as many races when she took out Race 5 of the Giltinan 18ft Skiff Championship on Sydney Harbour today.
Skipper John Winning Jr., with crew Dave Ewings and Tim Austin, gave an outstanding performance in an 8-10 knot North East breeze to bring appliancesonline home a 37s winner and so keep alive their hopes of taking the title.
The British team of Andy Budgen, Matt Mc Govern and James Barker also gave an excellent display in the conditions and finished second in Project Racing.
Third place today went to Southern Cross Constructions, which finished a further 13s behind Project Racing.
For the Southern Cross crew of Euan Mc Nicol, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas it was enough to give them a narrow lead in the championship with two more races still to be sailed.
After discarding their worst performances to date, Southern Cross has a total of 10 points, followed by Active Air-2UE (Matthew Searle) on 12, Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin) and Rag & Famish Hotel (John Harris) both on 13 and today’s winner appliancesonline on 16.
Project Racing is sixth on 24 points.
With such a narrow margin separating the top five teams, there seems no doubt that the winner will not be known until late on Sunday afternoon.
From the start today, Project Racing and appliancesonline quickly established a lead over Active Air-2UE and Southern Cross Constructions.
Project Racing held a 10s margin at the Beashel Buoy windward mark then increased it marginally downwind to the Clarke Island mark.
There was little change amongst the leading group on the spinnaker run although Southern Cross moved ahead of Active Air-2UE.
After a poor start, Gotta Love It 7 recovered into fifth place
Giltinan Championship – Race 4
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Sydney Harbour
The wind was in the south westerly a direction that project racing had not had to contend with and we got a little lost but managed to pull of a tenth place.......lucky as the spinnaker stopped going up at the later parts of the race.
This is what happened at the front:
Euan Mc Nicol, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas had to produce all their skills and experience to bring Southern Cross Constructions home a narrow winner in Race 3 of the Giltinan Championship on Sydney Harbour today.
In one of the closest races seen on the harbour, Southern Cross Constructions had to withstand a brilliant finishing burst by appliancesonlin.com.au (John Winning Jr., Dave Ewings and Tim Austin) to win by just 4s in a thriller.
Rag & Famish Hotel (John Harris, Peter Harris and Scott Babbage) also produced a strong finishing burst to grab third spot another 19s behind appliancesonline.
Although relegated to fourth place today, Active Air-2UE (Matthew Searle, Dan Wilsdon and Archie Massey) still leads the championship with a total of 12 points, closely followed by Southern Cross Constructions and Rag & Famish Hotel together on 13 and Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton and Tom Clout) on 15.
Appliancesonline is fifth on 22 points with Smeg (Hugh Stodart, Daniel Phillips and Jim Beck) sixth on 36.
Today’s race was sailed in shifting southerly breeze which fully tested all teams as it constantly changed direction and strength throughout.
Pure Blonde (James Francis) won the race to the first windward mark where she held a 2 boat lengths lead over Thurlow Fisher (Bruce Savage), Gotta Love It 7, Southern Cross and Active Air-2UE.
The young Pure Blonde crew was outstanding on the long spinnaker run to Obelisk Bay as they stretched their lead to 30s from Active Air-2UE, Southern Cross and Gotta Love It 7, which was trailing 90s from the lead..
With the breeze tending a little west, all te
Tuesday, 17 February 2009
Sydney Harbour
Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton and Tom Clout had to use all their skills to master a shifty South East wind in bringing Gotta Love It 7 home the winner of Race 3 of the Giltinan International Championship today.
The win has moved Gotta Love It 7 into equal second place with Rag & Famish Hotel (John Harris) on 10 points, behind Race 2 winner Active Air-2UE (Matthew Searle, Dan Wilsdon and Archie Massey) on 8.
Gotta Love It 7’s margin today was 27s from Rag & Famish, with Britiah team Project Racing (Andy Budgen, Matt Mc Govern and James Barker).
Once again, an overcast sky and light wind greeted the fleet on Sydney Harbour.
There was an immediate drama when a Manly Ferry appeared just after the start and the starter was forced to recall the fleet.
After the restart the fleet split into two groups as it has done so often in the regatta.
This time, the teams which elected to go to the RHS of the course won out as Thurlow Fisher (Bruce Savage) led from Gotta Love It 7 and Active Air-2UE at the windward mark.
Project Racing was next, followed by Quantum Sails NZ (Chris Skinner) and Me (Ian Henderson).
At the bottom mark near Robertson Point, Gotta Love It 7 led narrowly from Project Racing with Thurlow Fisher third and Me fourth.
From that point the race became a merry-go-round for the leading group as the positions were changing constantly in the difficult conditions.
Thurlow Fisher grabbed the lead at Clarke Island, then Rag & Famish took over at Chowder Head.
Gotta Love It 7 then took a 4s lead from Rag & Famish Hotel at the Taylors Bay mark, and despite serious challenges, was able to retain the lead to the finish.
At the final windward mark 7’s lead was just a couple of boat lengths from Project Racing with Rag & Famish Hotel and Active Air-2UE close behind.
The four teams sailed tack for tack up the final beat but Gotta Love It 7 was in control and thoroughly deserved he
We found that by the time we go to the race course we found 10-16 knot breeze from the south and some rain showers.
After a really poor start at the boat end we went right of shark island up into rose bay..........unfortunatly this was the wrong side of the beat and we must have been in the 20s by the time we got to the windward mark.
Fortunatly the wind had increased an put our competitors boat handling to the test and we proceeded to pass the backmarkers and the capsized boats.
Although we were not going that fast-due to poor jib setup-we were out boathandling the rest.
We finished a reasonable 9th place. Active air sailed by matt searle sailed well to win with seven in second and rag in third. southern cross---definatly the fastest boat above 14 knots finished 4th.
The next race is back to no 2 rig so we are hopefull of a good placing...
This is going to be a high scoring regatta so from now on we will have to keep it consistant.
Andy Budgen
Not the best day for project racing today after going the wrong way around the leward mark after being 45 seconds in the lead .......woops
Rain, overcast skies and a 8-10 knot Easterly breeze made it critical for all teams to get a good start and so it was no surprise when there was a general recall at the first attempt.
After an average start we picked the first beat really well and rounded the windward mark second.
After a good run we had a lead of 45 seconds at the bottom mark.....
Thats when we rounded the wrong way and had to re-track our course after the second boat rounded. That was pritty much the end of our race as we did not unwind ourselves properly.
while back in the race:
Midway up the second windward leg back to Rose Bay, appliancesonline led clearly from Smeg, Southern Cross, Active Air-2UE, Quantum Sails NZ (Chris Skinner), Macquarie Real Estate and Gotta Love 7.
A jib problem saw the talented Southern Cross team capsize on a tack – an incident that cost them any chance of a win.
While all his rivals elected to sail a middle course Winning Jr. went further to the right.
Smeg reduced the margin when they met shortly after then grabbed the lead off Shark Island.
At the mark, Smeg led by 10s from appliancesonline with Active Air-2UE just 5s further back in third place.
The Smeg lead eased out to 20s at the bottom mark the second time while Active Air-2UE also lost time to trail by a further 20s in third place.
Southern Cross was fourth - 50s from the lead.
On the final windward leg, Smeg and Southern Cross tacked early while appliances and Active Air-2UE stayed on a starboard tack into Athol Bay.
The move was a winner as Smeg increased her lead while Southern Cross narrowly led appliancesonline when they met.
Smeg led by 35s from Southern Cross as they set their spinnaker for the run to the finish and was untroubled to hold the margin.
Friday, 13 February 2009
Sydney Harbour
The traditional Invitation Race in the JJ Giltinan Championship was sailed on Sydney Harbour today as a warm up for the championship-proper which begins tomorrow (Saturday, 14 February).
The race began in an 18knot South East wind but this dropped to below 10knots midway through the course.
Defending champion Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton and Tom Clout) sailed well when they finished first. Project racing finished second after a good race.
Third placing went to Yandoo, skippered by 2000 Giltinan champion John Winning, which finished a further 46s back.
Gotta Love It 7 and Yandoo were the early pacesetters on the spinnaker run from Rose Bay to Robertson Point as they led a charging bunch of skiffs.
The experience of the Yandoo crew saw them grab a 10s lead at Clarke Island on the following windward leg.
Project Racing moved into third place at this point, followed by Kinder Caring Home Nursing (Brett Van Munster), DeLonghi (Simon Nearn), Smeg (Hugh Stodart) and others.
All teams elected to 2-sail reach to the Chowder Bay buoy where Yandoo retained her lead but Gotta Love It 7 was soon back at the front as they worked into Rose Bay in a fading breeze.
Yandoo looked set for second placing but was run down by Project Racing over the final leg of the course.
Two of the other leading contenders in the championship, Rag & Famish Hotel (John Harris) and Southern Cross Constructions (Euan Mc Nicol) both recovered well from ‘ordinary’ starts but were never in a position to challenge the winner.
Hopefully, conditions will be more consistent for tomorrow’s opening race of the championship.
Forecast for the next 2-3 days lots of wind from the south
BRING IT ON...........
ANDY BUDGEN
We are as ready as we can be for the start today ---The invitational race.
It would have been nice to have another 2months to get things together but time has just run out.
The contenders for the championship are in my view—
Southern Cross
Channel 7
Rag and Famish Hotel
We have a small chance but we will have to see how is goes.
The weather looks fairly changeable and will prove to be challenging, I am sure that our long hours in the boat will prove valuable.
Matt and James have worked hard to get the boat up to good condition and thanks to them.
I will put updates on the results as we go..
Andy Budgen
It’s been a while since the last update, sorry! Although I can assure you it isn’t due to us having a long Christmas holiday, in fact that’s the furthest thing from the truth, there have been a lot of long days and nights in order to try and get the Project boat ready for the re-start of the season!
Racing kicked off again on Sunday with the first of five Australian Championships races. This series will take us up to the middle of February, the perfect warm-up for our target regatta the JJ Giltinan, (the 18 Footers World Championships) which kicks of on the 13th of February.
We owe a lot of thanks to Julian and Clinton, from Bethwaite Design, who have lent us their tools and workshop and help us get the boat together as well as persevering with our incessant requests. The Allen hardware is holding together really well under the immense loads and strains that the boat takes and complements the Marlow ropes terrifically. Our new masts have arrived from Selden and we are c
CLICK ON HEADING FOR FULL REPORT .....
It’s always hard to put a positive spin on a bad result – Sunday’s conditions were about as hard as it gets and consequently puts a premium on time in the boat and boat speed – this week is hopefully the last we will race in the Panasonic boat. With the breeze shifting between a NE and Easterly breeze, the race officer set course 6 which is a windward-leeward. This would usually suit us coming from Olympic course racing backgrounds. At times we found we had as good speed as some of the top 6 boats but no where near as much height, and severely lacking on acceleration in the changeable conditions, this all points to setup and weight, which points to kit and time in the boat.
The pre-race preparation was cut short when our rig nearly fell over the side. We were early to launch as planned and had just wound up onto a beat when the leeward fast pin, which holds the intermediates, primary shrouds and cap shrouds, sheared. Matt quickly went in to tie the cluster around the rack tube and secure the rig using the trapeze wires. Even after loosening off all the rigging and maxing the kicker and cunnigham it was still a real mission to get a shackle pin (taken from the kite turning block) in the hole. It was an interesting exercise but took ... Click on Heading for full report ...
After the excitement of last weeks high wind training days, spills, thrills and crashes, as well as injuries to Andy our helm, and Lea, (our replacement helm) it had been a pretty eventful week. Not to mention the Sunday race with all its own incidents and crashes. It is fare to say that last week was the most intense and interesting week of the campaign so far.
In contrast this week was without doubt the most uneventful sailing to date. Light winds, and a day off due to recovering from all our injuries. On top of that, Friday turned out to be a day of driving back and forward to the container in order to collect the ‘Project 18’ skiff, not to mention the coach boat, 49er, trailers and rigs, etc.
The arrival of all the equipment boosted our spirits as some of us, (namely myself) had nearly given up hope of ever getting our hands on our own equipment as the issues with the containers and quarantine have been dragging on for nearly to months! In fact the saga still goes on as Andy is yet to receive his car! (he’s dealing with this surprisingly well)
Despite having all our equipment it will still be a while before the beautiful Project skiff hits the water. We have a lot of work to do to prepare its new masts and racks, so in the interim we will continue to do our best with the old ‘Panasonic’ boat we have been lent.
With a Sunday forecast of an average south westerly at 30 knots, leading to gusts in the 40’s I was sure that the dull week would have a pretty exciting ending as the scene was set for a full on days racing on the harbour. I couldn’t wait to get home and write .... CLICK HEADING FOR FULL REPORT...
“Big rigs win big races” Adam South (past 18 world champion)
Unfortunately after Sunday’s race we can honestly say that this has certain exceptions…
Where do I start? This week has been possibly the most eventful since we’ve been here. Our training week currently starts on Tuesdays which allows Monday for recovery, both physically and mentally. A late debrief from last Sunday’s race highlighted a number of errors and plenty of areas in need of improvement, most notably some of our manoeuvring and role distribution throughout the boat, and this week was about targeting those areas.
The highlight of the training week was Thursday. Leia, aka, ‘Princess’ Leia our Spanish friend and coach to the Canadian 49er Olympic team agreed to come out and have a look at some of our boat handling. Still being short of a RIB, Leia decided to coach from in the boat. It was blowing a 20-25knot NorEast’r, so the baby rig went up, against Matt’s will once again! We made huge progress with our tacking despite having the extra 72kgs sitting in the middle of the boat. However things got a little dicey on the second downwind - we where trying to sail as high as possible with the spinnaker to clear the top of Shark Island when we were hit with a powerful gust. This caused us to alter course about 15 degrees lower, which meant we where about to send the boat up the beach of Shark Island at serious speed! The boat was properly leaping and the call to drop came right in front of another gust. Andy took a nasty fall landing on the opposite rack ..... CLICK ON HEADING FOR FULL REPORT
November the 9th 2008 saw the first race of the 2008 New South Wales Championships.
Today is a date that is 87 years to the day since Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Although even if we had Albert in our support team with his knowledge on physics, I think we would still have come to the same conclusion, that our old borrowed rig was smaller, and our boat was heavier than everyone elses, so we were always going to struggle in the light 6 to 10 knots breeze!
Knowing we had a tough day of it ahead of us, we again looked to the history books for some inspiration. The best I managed to come up with was the 9th of Nov, 1888 which was the day Jack the Ripper killed his last victim! This puts things into perspective, as unless I was going to add another injury to my ever growing list, there was a good chance we would all survive the day no matter how bad the racing got!
As mentioned the scene for this weeks battle wasn’t the usual 15 to 20 knots noreasterly, but rather a some what shiftier flukey south easterly, swinging easterly, with the breeze strength between 4 to 10 knots. In fact the winds inability to settle in one direction led to the race committee opting to run a four lap, windward leward course, something that should suit us as we all come from the olympic sailing background of which windward lewards are a standard format. However we didn’t remember to consider how hard it was to spot the leward marks in a sunny drenched busy Sydney Harbour!
The start of the race wasn’t just as blindingly good as last week, but it was safe and consistent. From it we worked our pre race plan, play the shifts and breeze on the right and stay out of the fast running tide in the middle of the harbour. Despite sailing up behind the back of the spectator ferry ,
.....for full report click on heading.
Mick Scully Trophy
2nd November 2008
It has been a tough week in the run up to Sunday’s race, all of us hanging by a ragged thread due to long full and physical days. We managed to get four days training in before Sunday whilst trying to tackle to forever growing job list. The boat we have borrowed is not in the best condition and we are constantly breaking gear, or struggling with bits that aren’t working like they should. It’s a difficult balancing act because we will probably be using this boat for a little while and we need it to work well, whilst at the same time we know we have some great kit in the container (Thanks to Allen and Marlow) (www.allenbrothers.co.uk) (http://www.marlowropes.com/) – Ultimately we want to put all our resources into our own kit yet we still need to work on the borrowed boat to make it reliable for training until ours is ready. It’s going to be a real effort to maintain this boat (Panasonic 2), build our boat (Project 18), train on the water, get fit off the water and have some reminisce of a life! And Andy still has to move into a house, I’m guessing that will somehow become a team effort too…
The race itself was a real boost for all of us. It was number 1 rigs all round which suited us to the ground – We’ve not had time to tune the boat and the little work we have done has been on the #1 rig. Andy’s supposed legendary starting ability seems to be proving true with a good first start, which was recalled, and then a blinding second start down towards to favoured pin end. By the time it came to the first tack we had to duck three boats which came from the starboard end. Tacking an 18 takes so much time that we figured, being one tack ahead, we were the early leaders and held starboard advantage on the tack back. It was a good start!
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26/10/2008
Project 18 Update
Club Championship Race 1:
Things are looking bleak for an early arrival of the Project’s container – However, the arrival of one Mr Budgen has shaken the quiet life both Matt and I have been experiencing (enjoying? – that wouldn’t be right would it!). So, in a nutshell, what happened waaas … Friday; Andy managed to persuade the league to lend us a boat. Saturday; we spent a day checking it all fit together – specifically the big rig, things were getting late by this point so we packed up and towed it away for Sunday: Race day.
We decided on an early start so we could check the no. 2 rig had all its bits with it. There was a subtle idea that we would be going to go for a sail for an hour or so before the racing was due to start and “do some tacks and stuff”, but as we found out closer to launch time – if you rig at the end of the park, there is no way to launch before the majority of boats have gone. We had decided to rig there because Matt has been suffering a seized back and wasn’t sure if he would feel up to going sailing. Matt had been bullied into going sailing by this point so, having never sailed an 18 together and our combined 18 experience limited (to be generous), we stuck the ship into the piss – inadvertently skipping a queue of boats waiting in the water.
We had great positioning on the start line but quickly found out that our number 2 rig looked something closer to a number 3 rig compared to the monster ‘small sails’ everyone had up – it didn’t take long before we were out paced and spat out the back. With the objective of just getting on the water and around the course without writing Matt’s back off for the month, Andy was starting to get frustrated with our lack of speed, our rusty tacking and the mainsheet (which looked like something you’d find on a 40ft yacht) ripping out the back of the boat preventing him from gybing with it. Post race we’ve universally decided to never put that mainsail up ever again, we’ll just learn how to hang on to the big one.
Project Racing Hits Sydney
Well, the essential parts to the campaign are slowly arriving into Sydney – namely Matt (bowman) and James (middleman). Unfortunately the boat and container are being held up by customs and Andy (the man at the back) is held up back in the UK trying to resolve nasty tenant issues. It’s looking as though we may not have everything in time for the first race of the series.
Some less sailing related news is that we’ve managed to move into a house – it took just less then a week to view, apply and sign the lease which lots of people told us was very unlikely. We’ve also been in contact with clubs, boat builders, and other various suppliers to try and streamline getting the boat on the water. With the supplies Allen and Marlow have supplied us this should be reasonably straight forward … Touchwood.
The biggest obstacle we have found so far is finding somewhere to keep the boat and work on it as we need to. Sydney seems to be bunged with so many boats and there is very little club space – it is looking as though we are going to follow the crowd and find a nice little suburb road and adopt about 18 feet of it.
So what’s next on the agenda? Obviously we have a major issue as we can’t get to the boat or any of the equipment so both Matt and myself are working on our fitness and sorting out the details … things like updating websites, finding phones and getting connected to tinternet
That’s all for now…
I should have some real news for next time – Andy’s arrival should guarantee that.
Comment of the week:
Andy “Matt, you’ll need to sort out a way of getting these 2 booms from the airport – they’re 3.8m long”
Matt “Can’t you just tie them through the windows of your hire car?”
Andy “No because they’ll be sticking 2m over each end of the car”
Matt “I’m struggling to see how that would be possible given that they are only 3.8m long”
Andy “Just get it sorted”
Project Racing Rutland 26th – 27th April 2008
Its official - the Project 1 Racing team’s 18ft skiff is afloat and looking dangerous. Having only had the boat for a couple of weeks out of the paint shop it was always going to be a struggle to get on the water for the weekend, and admittedly things looked bleak on Friday morning. With the mast still having no rigging, the hull still fixing free and only 1 member of the crew present, it was all on to get sailing. Things went from bad to worse with our bowman and boat work guru mkII, Matt, falling ill and our forth team member and back up helm/middle/bowman stranded in Spain … and also ill.
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Thanks to the Sponsorship of ASHDOWN MARINE SERVICES the new boat has its first coat of paint.
Launching from warsah the 18FTR Team Made up of Matt McGovern, Russell MCgovern and Andy Budgen ventured out to the solent to see if the new ship would stay together---