Well it was the big one that we didn't get during the nationals that arrived at Seacliff today. A good old fashioned sou-wester at 22 -30 knots with big seas. Unfortunately the fleet was down in numbers after the Nationals with only 6 505s braving the conditions. Sandy Higgins was commissioned at great expense following his Nationals victory, to steer Blue Slip as Dave Colebatch was holidaying in Bali (the trade off for sailing the Nationals while the Mrs worked was to take her to Bali afterwards.)

It was a single start for all senior classes today, being the traditional T.M. Hardy Memorial race. The heavy conditions suited the Sharpies with their extra body on board and I was a little surprised to find ourselves at the weather mark with only two Sharpies in front of us. (Why should I be surprised with Sandy at the helm?) The first reach was a two sail reach and despite the heavy conditions I thought it would be good for Sandy's education to try the big spinnaker for the first time. So up it went on the next reach. It had barely been hoisted and wasn't set when suddenly we rounded up and capsized. I said to Sandy, " what happened there" and he said take a look it front of us. A Sabre sailor had capsized right in our path and Sandy had to execute a pretty dramatic change of course to avoid him and in these conditions a quick capsize resulted.

The seas got bigger and the wind got stronger (or maybe I was getting tired) but at the end of the race we were the only 505 left on the course. So this report is a bit limited with content in that there was only one finisher,.but rather than being a race report it can now be another report on the use of the big spinnaker in heavy conditions.

A couple of times in a decent puff I heard Sandy say "Shit.." and looked back and saw a big grin on his face. He remarked that he thought the boat felt heavy on the helm but I think this was more a characteristic of my large tilting rudder compared to the very small light fixed rudder that Sandy was accustomed to. Despite the heavy conditions I felt the boat responded much better with the larger spinnaker. I'm sure it lifts the bow and planes over the wave in front instead of burying the bow into the back of the wave in front. It is certainly doesn't feel any heavier to sheet in. On the dead run we tacked downwind and Sandy was a little surprised at the tacking angle required to keep the crew on the wire. It was much less than expected and we had trouble making the mark on the starboard gybe which meant we could have gybed from port earlier than we did.

I am still concerned at the appearance of the top of the mast - it makes me nervous - but if ever a mast was going to let go, today was the day it would.

On the tight starboard gybe when we were trying to get up to the mark, a couple of times the spinnaker collapsed (yeah, I know - the crew's an old bastard and is slowing up a bit) and when it snapped back to a set I was "shit scared" I would lose my mast. But it stayed there OK. So my experience with large spinnakers now is limited to 3 races which have all been exceptionally heavy days. I'm now totally convinced our existing rig is capable of handling the bigger spinnaker in all conditions and I look forward to some true racing (rather than survival type conditions) where some comparison and evaluation can be made in boat speed type conditions. I must say I reckon the boat felt more stable and comfortable in the heavy conditions than the regular spinnaker.

Here endeth today's report. Sorry there's not much race detail but with only one finisher there's not too much to report.

Cheers until next week.

Pip Pearson