Social Sail-18th November 2012

Michael Valcic, one of the Yolo and previous boats regualar crew was in town to give an address at a corporate function.(He is currently Based in Ghana) and came sailing with us on Sunday. The conditions were predominantly a South Westerly.. at around 18knots.. had Yolo sailing around Robben Island taking it to Starboard. A great sail on the bay.. getting close to the city it shifted back to SE, which we did some sailing in. Great sailing conditions. A perfect afternoon of sailing. Aboard were: Sieger, Dale and Michael. Boat performed well.

DOUBLE HANDED RACE: 17th November 2012

There were two converging winds before the start with the SE just getting to the line at start time. Yolo managed a good conservative start.. Rounded the weather mark and hoisted the spinaker. The conditions were around 23 knots at the weather mark.. Yolo then gybed and made for the leeward mark. just before the mark there was a convergance zone with Yolo making a bit more distance into it then the rest and then Yolo stopped while the boats to weather pciked up the Westerlies.. once around the mark the SE came through quite quickly.. with Yolo setting in for the beat.. there were some shifts which had Yolo tacking on the beat. On the end Yolo won the race and the series although Drew on points with Nuther Witch.. The split was taken from the better result in the last race. Boat performed well.. Aboard were Dale and Ian.

PROP CHECK -17th November 2012

On the previous Wednesday, we picked up something on the prop which forced us to shut down the engine and get a tow in.. (cooling was working fine, but prop did not fuction).. So we had it dived. They found plastic wrapped around the prop.. the type of heavy duty plastic that you would wrap a mattress or something similar in.. and the same sort of size. SEE PIC ATTACHED. This was easily removed and all worked well afterwards..

Wednesday night race: 14th November 2012

Prior to the race the boat was removed from the water, had a spray down, the engine annode changed, the engine and gearbox oil replaced and a few antifoul spots touched up..

THE RACE:Conditions were between 22 to just over 30 knots on the gusts. We decided to take it coservative withe the J4 and a reef. We got a good start just below the 34.7.. the first beat was gusty.. the 34.7 seemed to have a touch more speed on us and maintained their lead with us rounding the weather mark around a boatlenth behind them.. on the downwind this gap remained the same, after the gybe we sailed higher and played the gusts. the 34.7 got over powered once causing them to luff up which lost them ground allowing us to take advantage. We rounded the leeward mark half a boat lenth ahead. they managed a bit more height then us but tacked off earlier into a header, we tacked later. this allowed us to open a gap on them. They caught up a little of this gap on the downwind but we still managed to finish 5o seconds ahead of them. We won our class as the 34.7 was not in our class as we sail non spinnaker and they sail spinnaker class. they did try and hoist in the breeze but after a near broach dropped the kite again. so it was of no advantage. Aboard were: Ian, Dale, Sieger, Sarel, Frederic, Peter M.. Boat performed well.. picked something up on the prop on the way back into the harbour.

LADIES DAY RACE- 10th November 2012

YOLO was entered in the Ladies day race with Phillipa Hutton Squire putting together a crew of capable ladies. Phillipa has recently being doing some of her local sailing on YOLO. The start too place in a light Westerly.. with Yolo perhaps being a bit low on the line. After rounding the weather mark Yolo hoisted the kite and soon after the fleet were becalmed. The new breeze came from the South so those that were ahead or on the South side got it first.. this relegated Yolo to a bad position. Once the breeze came through it was nice sailing with the breeze blowing upto 20 knots at times.. the rest of the race was nice to sail but not enough opportunity to catch up on time. The ladies handled the boat well. It was resolved after sailing that next year they would put some training session in to make it better. Yolo sailed well. 8 aboard.

Delivery-Saldhana to CT -3rd November.

Yolo departed Saldhana in the dark at 5am.. motoring. The sea conditions remained flat and a pleasure to motor in. the winds increased at one stage to 10 knots but from behind, so not worhtwhile sailing in as the speeds would have dropped. At times there was a current pushing us along. We rounded the CT breakwater at 2:30pm. It was a very comfortable delivery. Aboard were: Ian, Dale and Phillipa. Boat perfomed well.

Yachtport Overnight Race 2nd November 2012

Winds were forcasted to be light and fickle with a SE start, moving to the easterlies, then more to the north. We were not convinced. 10 minutes before the start we spoke with our weather forecaster who forcasted 15knots NW for the whole night with Fog on the coast..  We got a good start but needed to tack soon after as a larger yacht interfered with our plans... we then got becalmed and most fo the fleet sailed away with some boats going over the horizon quite quickly.. eventually we got the breeze again and worked to sail inside Robbben Island. The rest of the fleet opted to sail offshore. The breeze freshened and we settled in for a night of upwind sailing. We were tacking up the coast on the shifts, just off Melkbos the fog came in and we spent the next 4 hours sailing in thick fog. The seas were relatively flat which had the boat sailing optimally, fully powered and fast. Yolo sailed just to the outside of Dassen Island and tacked in just after tacking back just below the layline... The sun started rising just before the turn mark. Yolo did a wide rounding of the turn mark(Virtual mark) and sailed direct for the Saldhana heads in ideal conditions. On arrival at the finish we did the early call only to realize that we were earlier then expected. we sailed in and took our own time and docked. We were the first boat in and winner of our class on corrected time. Aboard were: Dale, Ian and Phillipa. The boat performed well.