DN yacht performance gears
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
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.
We had made an important decision early this year to introduce new full carbon mast. The first attempts were already made four years ago. Now time to bring latest product to the ice. Very exciting sailing week ahead.
It is great feeling to have so much dedicated team behind with ideas, technology and open mind. Thanks Moore Brothers and Jeff Kentski!
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.
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.
This time Swedish winter has delivered as expected. Initially we planned to stay 8 days but snow on Friday and light breeze for the weekend forced OC to postpone Swedish Championships by a week.
We had great 5 days of sailing. It took a while to get used to icesailing again. From day 3 I started feeling very comfortable. Proper manouvers, boat handling just the way it should be. When I come to this point I start sailing instead of fighting my boat and body.