How things change

After our light winds practice at the weekend I was left reflecting on how things change.

The boat was split, half experienced, half inexperienced. We started with basic trim upwind. I had intended on working on acceleration practice but with light winds and cruising sails up quickly scaled back to tailing, grinding and basic helming, getting people into new positions.

Downwind we practiced free flying the spinnaker with people trimming who hadn't been through this before (nor had much experience trimming) and pulled off a dozen gybes.

A year ago we were happy to do two.

Then we doused (mexican) and went upwind a bit again.

Next came a tack set.

And another mexican douse.

Then a gybe set.

And a windward douse.

So three sets, three douses, three different set types, all crisp and fast, two different douses also crisp and fast beyond a small matter of the hatch hot being open ready for one of them.

The hatch was the only major mistake.

A year ago we'd have managed a single hoist, a couple of gybes and would have considered ourselves lucky to not wrap the spinnaker hard on the forestay.

Vidoe: G4 second video - WIPEOUT!!!

I'll stand by this being the future of cruising but when I order mine it's going to have an automatic mainsheet dump.....

Glad everyone is okay especially the guy you see smack his back on the mast!

Video: Gunboat G4 first video

This is a "weekender" with galley, enclosed head and comfy beds, not to mention a decent sized entertainment area and the chance of 40kts speeds.

This is the future of sailing.

Photos: The Border Run.

Testing out the Jib Top on the delivery to Dana Point, worked awesome then but in the race the wind was just too light and we swapped back to the spinnaker soon after trying it. Nice to finally see it working properly on the delivery though.

The power stations on this coast plague you in light air. You can see them for hours....

Morning of the race, Charlie Wind Whisperer on the helm, Nick settling in, Sarah hiding.

Jonathan making a brief appearance above deck.

Before cooking up a feast as the sun set....

...which was tasty and hot and spicy as it got cold

Last moments with the spinnaker before a late charge into the channel at 3am. After this the wind switched 180 and we sailed upwind after dark.

This was the last photo I took. After this the wind started picking up and we tacked our way to the south past Point Loma.

Returning back with Jonathan on board we took an aggresive shortcut inside the kelp beds and wiggled out to the north, the photo below shows our path. This saved us 40 minutes at least over the longer and safer route south and around the beds that I take solo.

And right after we popped out Jonathan called out "Whales Ahoy" and there they were!

Later their small cousins turned up

And for once I was sailing home in company, with other sailboats running to both Oceanside and further north.

Equipment: Nexus Race Steer Pilot

I have to say that the steer pilot, set to AWA tracking, came into it's own after dark last night. It really allowed the helmspeople to steer a tight course in the dark.

Push the needle to the zero!

Race: The Border Run 2015

Congrats to the Border Run crew on a well fought third in class. Pretty good considering half the race was reaching in light air which is the big hole in our sail wardrobe.

Slow but sunny day and looked likely a long long night but then the wind came back to 10 knots on the nose and we finished with a good few hours of upwind sailing, other boats around us and a nice spinnaker hoist and run down the channel at 2am.

Tired today, but 8th place on corrected time out of 30 odd boats in challenging conditions seems like a good result.

Hmmmm, would have been a good race to break out our 60 rating and the oversize asym...

Photos: NOODS, outsideimages.com

Paul Todd's photos are a cut above most of the race images I've seen. He got some great shots of Kraken at the NOODs this year.

http://www.outsideimages.com/photo-gallery-nood-san-diego-2015

This is one of my favorites.

Video: First One Design Win - SD NOODs race 7

Neat Video by Jonathan on the bow with footage from Jordan's camera too.

Our first one design win, stayed clear of the fleet, had the right sail, kept mistakes minimal.

Video: Moths: Banging the Corners cup

I really enjoyed this coverage of some of the best sailors in the world going head to head in their moths. It has some nice on board footage giving a sense of the speed of these craft and Loick Peyron proves himself pretty funny :)

Found the video on Sail-World.com which I found looking for info on Daisy Staysails for the upcoming BorderRun race. This website looks likely to be worth spending some time on.