Tuesday, December 19, 2017

CTRW 16-19 Dec

The annual main event of the year... With a good crew and a nice sized fleet in our class for a change, the crew were looking forward to the event... a 4 days hard racing regatta.
Lady Luck had other plans.. with a typical South Easter that blows at this time of year that persisted throughout the regatta.. With daily winds in the 40 knots region.. the race committee wisely assessed the weather daily and had no option but to abandon racing daily.. ON the last day of the event, the rules were even changed to allow one race for the event to stand.. and everyone headed out.. but as the bridge readied themselves to start the breeze was already in the mid thirties and gusting.. leaving them no option but to abandon racing for the day... With the result, 4 days and all 4 days the winds were too strong to sail.. It sometimes happens... Kudos to the sponsors (SAP) who were fully understanding... The Crew for the event were: Dale, Ian, Sieger, Cath, James, Antonio and Daniel F.


Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Wed Nite training Sail 13th December 2017

With a light drizzle and light winds, the decision was still taken to try and get some training in. A long motor out on the water to an area where there was a little bit of wind.. A few other boats were training... Yolo did a beat, tack, kite hoist and around 4 gybes and a drop... by which time the wind had dissipated with the cloud action... So motor on and back to the harbour. Pleased with the session though, albeit everyone wet from the rain. Abaord: Dale, Ian, Sieger, Cath, Daniel(Foredeck for the upcoming regatta) and guest: Sennur

VOLVO OCEAN RACE START 10th December 2017

With the Volvo Race in town, a great opportunity to see these boats in action and give them a send off on their next leg. Yolo went out under motor.. There was no point in sailing, the winds were around 25knots and for the most part, specator boats needed to stay in a certain area.. sailing would have made that difficult and unsafe to do...  Team Yolo watched the start and then positioned themselves near the Radisson to see the boats come back fully powered up, which allowed us to be closer.
A great opportunity to see these boats and be part of it...  Aboard: Dale, Sieger, Cath, Shane, James, Antoinio, Arran.

Monday, December 4, 2017

DELIVERY : Saldhana to CT 27th November 2017

With prior knowledge of the weather forecast and time constraints Ian and Dale were unable to do the delivery personally but were fortunate to secure Mark Devit and Thore Berg to bring the boat back. Due to the weather they had planned to do the delivery on the Monday following the event when the best weather window was available. As it happened they departed Saldhana at around 07h30 and headed for CT, with a light Westerly blowing seldom over 8 knots... necessitating motor sailing the whole way. with the seas flattening out as they closed in on CT. Arriving just after 6pm. Aboard: Mark and Thore.

West Coast Offshore Race 24/25 November 2017

This race, new on the Offshore calendar and promises to be a success... The starting format had the class's going off 3 hours apart.. with a progressing South Easter, the last start would benefit more with stronger winds.. nonetheless Yolo's start still had breeze in the early 20's.. starting with the kite up.. and a nice sail down to Robben Island sailing a good VMG... opting not to gybe in the shadow but rather to sail the VMG and break through it.. which we did.. and then had a quick sail down to Dassen passing in record time... winds were up just before and after the island touching in the early thirties.. still holding the kite.. eventually going to the small kite and then later back to the larger one... We over stood the gybe angle into the Bay and direct for Elands.. so soon after the Gybe, we realized that we could not hold the angle as it was tight and we were only sailing 2 up, so did not have the rail weight... so eventually dropped the kite and two sail reached in for Elands.. as we got closer the wind went a bit lighter... conditions were comfortable.. .Around the mark, hardened up for a few minutes and then tacked to beat out of the bay... there was around 13 knots if breeze at this time, going down... sailing into a slop which had the boat slamming into it from time to time... but making really good progress and quite an enjoyable beat.. taking turns to catch a short rest at dawn approached the wind started to lessen as forecasted.. but fortunately we were almost out of the bay, we worked the puffs and shifts and tacked our way out of the bay past Britannia
and Columbine and got a good lane for the heads, followed by a kite hoist to sail down the shipping channel and into Saldhana were we dropped the kite for the last half a mile as the angle went tight. IN all a great race, boat was great. Elapsed time of 26 Hours and Eleven minutes and won our class. Aboard were Ian and Dale