Estonian Nationals fail

We’ve been studying weather forecasts for days to find out if it makes sense to go to Estonia or Sweden. Wind forecast eliminated Sweden and we were left with one option only. Thursday afternoon we decided to risk and go. Travel started late afternoon with intention to drive non stop all the way to Haapsalu. Total 12 hrs. But before Polish – Lithuanian border heavy snow storm started and we could not continue our journey. We decided to stay in hotel in Suwalki and wait for weather update from C6. At 6AM Vaiko texted that it makes no sense to travel because of snow. We had breakfast, coffee and started trip back. I guess it was minimal price to pay to this fail. Now waiting for the weather to clear up in Poland. There is ice and there is snow. 60% chance to sail on lake Sniardwy next days.

Polish Fleet Cup, Siemianówka, January 2022

Long awaited moment has come! First regatta in Poland with 40 DNs on the starting line happened on lake Siemianówka.

Crazy Saturday with wind up to 38kt in gusts. One race started in 30kt+ breeze on hard black ice! It was insaine! My GPS showed 110km/h in race mode! This doesn’t happen too often. Sailing was really on the edge.

We had 5 very challanging races. And quite substantial number of equipment fails. Two masts were broken in race #1.

I was having very hard time to sail fast. Mainly because I messed with sails and my flat sail stayed at home. Instead I had two FO1s with me;)  On black ice and strong wind no chance to compete with top guys.

Day two offered three races. First in strong breeze but the other two in 6-10kt. At this point everything was working fine and speed was there. 

Now time to re-sharpen my runners and regroup before next stop on the way to the  Worlds.

Practice weekend in Lithuania

As we struggle to sail in Poland I decided to go with Robert to Sweden for practice, R1 and R2. We had some doubts about wheather forecasts but nevertheless we booked a ferry to Karlskrona.  Same day a message popped out that lake Rekyva in Lithuania has reasonable ice and good wind forecast.  We rebooked fery for March SM and went to Rekyva. Forecast was right. We had great 3 days of sailing.  100km+ each day. 

25 Polish sailors showed up that weekend! 

Here is short footage:

Dynamic plank measurements

In my practice sailing in Żnin I was testing two full carbon masts. One each day. Both seem to be on a soft end of the range. My feeling was that my plank has a lot to do with how the mast performs.  When I studied my action cam recordings I felt I need to make dynamic load measurements of the plank.  This measurement was done last time long time ago so I had to find all accessories hidden in the boxes covered by dust. 

DN runner plank dynamic load measurement
DN runner plank dynamic load measurement

The setup is very simple. One important notice: apply tension/load with system built of non-stretchy materials. In my case steel cable connected to hunters’ digital scale and to dyneema wrapped around the plank.  

I used headstay adjuster to precisely apply load. The laser range finder fixed to the tripod was delivering precise continuous reading of deflection. Reading of deflection was taken after every 10kg load added from 0 to 120kg. 

Simple graph below shows interesting results:

DN plank dynamic deflection chart
DN plank dynamic deflection chart

Orage represents the plank that I was using for testing the masts. In some load range it is up to 10% stiffer than the other plank. I think I found the answer to my question. I should go with blue plank instead of orange.