Category: Sailing blog

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Practice camp in Sweden

December 9 we started trip to Sweden. Lots of cold and lots of snow. We were planning to stay 9 days total hoping to conclude the week with Swedish Nationals. 

In reality we had 4 days of intense trainig together with 4 Swedish friends. There was lots of sailing and tunig.  With my new mast I had some limitations due to too stiff plank. It will be my first to do after I come back home. It looks like for new setup I need plank to bend around 47mm instead of 43mm. Other than that all worked as expected. 

After 4 days of sailing weather forecast turned into 4-5 windless days and we decided not to wait for Swedish Nationals especially as black ice started to grow in Poland. 

On the way back to ferry we didn’t fiix my hull properly and after one hour of driving hull was blown off the camper roof and landed from 3m height on the highway at high speed.  It happend first time ever, and the consequences are as you can see on the photo below. Same day I ordered new hull from Vaiko to be delivered shortly after my return from Worlds. 

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Moth is a great fun

I spent over 50 hrs improving all key controls on my moth. It was very frustrating not to be able to foil due to all kind of technical fails. Question was either sell it all and forget or fix and enjoy. I decided to fix it. So boat was disassembled and new controls installed. And great fun from foiling started. See the happy sailor!

Moth Foiling
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Preps for Swedish Championship 2022

I am going to say good bye to 2021-2022 season in Swedish Championship. There is no more sailable ice in Poland and the only opportunity to enjoy icesailing and racing is in Sweden next weekend. 

Prepareations for Swedish Championship

If you thought that there is no motivation to sail in last event of the season you are very wrong.  I am working on my runner program to change couple of things. Main goal is to apply shorter crown to most of my runners. 

This picture was taken on our way back from Worlds/Europeans. This was first stop overnight at random parking in Sweden. We cooled down runners in snow to measure Robert’s winning runners and compare them with mine. 

Cooling down the runners

We measured couple of other sets as well. The conclusion was simple: I have to shorten the crown on some of my runners down to max 20in. And I completed this today.  Waiting for ferry on Wednesday.

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Polish Championship 2022

Going to regatta I had a clear plan in mind as the weather forecasts was also black and white. Both racing days were supposed to be sailed in a very strong breeze gusting up to 30kts on day one and decreasing to 24 on Sunday. -4C in the night and slightly above 0 during the day. So very windy and hard. And bumpy. Already in Gdansk I decided to prepare my stiff setup: use a very stiff mast and stiff plank. I knew I can squeeze impressive speed out of this combination with help of my 92kg.

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Lake Siemianowka again

Very wet sailing last weekend. We had only 3 races on Saturday. RC discovered dangerous spots on the ice and racing was cancelled. Night cold didn’t improve the situation and Sunday was no sailing.

I made another improvement to my boat trim and I could feel a little difference. I need to work on my back up plank to make it softer down to 48mm. I want the plank to take more load and let my soft mast breath a little more 😉

Next weekend: Polish Champs. For sure not in Poland. If it happens than lake Rekyva in Lithuania is the place.

Regatta results.

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Estonian Nationals fail

Snow storm on the way to Estonian Nationals

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.

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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.

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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:

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Practice on lake Zninskie Duze, central Poland

It was a great surprice to everyone to open the season on lake Zninskie Duze in central Poland.  We enjoyed three days of sailing and hopefuly we will get one more tomorrow.

Finally full carbon masts got a chance to show their potential. I used the softest and stiffest one. There was not much to work on when it comes to fine tuning my boat as my current trim was almost perfect. More testing to come soon.

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Swedish Championship 2021

They made it! Swedish fleet organized nationals moved from March to December. It was a last hope weekend of 2021.

Day one in ultra light breeze. Gusts max to 5kt.  First race attempt cancelled because of exceeded time limit.  The other two attempts successful. I finished 17 and 9. Not what I expected but I knew what went wrong.  I put on short inserts hoping to suffer less in manouvers.  Runners were loud during sailing and that was clear indication what had to be changed.

Swedish Championship 2021

Day two started with strong breeze with gusts up to 28-30kt. 

In the first race I was too much powered in my rig after light breeze from yesterday. Finished 5th. De-powered my mast and finished 3rd. De-powered again and finished 1st.  The next race was about left side being so much favoured that I rounded first mark in 9th place. The speed was there and I managed to recover to 4th. Last race I was far in the lead. At second upwind I sailed over something that destoyed my starbord runner’s edge and right after attempt to jibe I span like a junior sailor. What an experiance! I immediately dropped to 6th place and having good speed recovered to 3rd.  

Lake Ymsen offered great sailing venue again. Thanks Sweden.