Karol Jabłoński explains his physical and technical preparations along with targets and goals before each season.
Mast spreader
The next step after designing lead bar incorporated into “the nose” is to design spreader. Aerodynamic, slim design is a result of two prototypes tested last year.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
5/5 on Lake Ymsen in 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.
Plank jewelery
Awaiting for new full carbon masts from Moore Bro. allowed some extra time for finetuning runner plank details. This little add-on in connection with new tang design will make plank ends look really cool.
To find out more go to Aerodynamic upgrades menu.