(Good crowd!)

So this was a lot more like a one-design open day !! It’s what we want, isn’t it??!! Proteus racing Proteus. The fleet was generally very evenly matched in performance terms.

Given this was an experimental Pop Up Day, we had a really excellent crowd of great people. Some visitors came a jolly long way to compare experiences with others!! Using a normal club IOM day, we had a fleet of 14 IOMs of which we had one Britpop and one VISS… maybe a Venti – not sure!! Skippers were on and off the water all day (there may have been more than 14 !), consulting with Craig, comparing notes – so it was actually a challenge to say exactly how many Proteus were there – at least two more were post-print and pre-build. Also I’m delighted to say that least two of the Proteus were on their inaugural outing. Craig was very active helping skippers get their speed up.

We had all the latest thinking from the sailmakers on display (really good), plus all the most recent Proteus specific fittings available to talk through. Also on display were some completely lovely fin and bulb sets from Claes Nordin – flatter bulb bottoms and everything. Very sexy !

Fascinating, we had two the new K7 Yachts’ glass fibre Proteus prototypes available for inspection. That properly caught my attention, I can tell you.

Lots of people took tuning tips and advice from Craig, and we all noticed that GH’s boat speed took a quantum shift once Craig’s hands had been on it !!

Other things that caught my eye:-

1/ VISS style backstay notch has made the stern deck incredibly clean

The previous setup looked like this.

Now here’s a really smart one

By the way, this boat gets my “best paint job of the day award”!! Brilliant!

I didn’t get a photo, but it seemed to me that more that half the boats had the well known three recessed jib tack eyes as opposed to the Sailboat RC inspired magnetic track approach. Interesting !! Craig was quick to point out, “that’s not very aero!!” It’ll be great see which way that particular argument evolves!

Proteus Gets a Chine:-

Honestly, you could hardly see it in most lights, but Proteus has grown a tiny little chine – I had to rotate this unpainted boat until the light revealed what the camera could pick up. Craig tells me it is to give a little more lift in the bow, heeled in the breeze. At the bow, it reminded me slightly of the Venti.

Here is Wayne with Craig discussing an in-build project.

Inaugural outing – what a stunner !!

Launching was pretty easy – we have a nice clean good length pontoon and a clean concrete beach. We shared the launch area with an RYA Youth Regional training event – but the kids were great actually – very careful and caring for our kit.

As you can see we have hundreds of acres of water over there. Each race generally had around ten to twelve skippers on the line, sometimes more. Boats seemed to have very similar performance through the water. It really felt like a one design Proteus fleet racing combined with a tuning workshop from Craig – simply fantastic to see. One design racing and instant availability at a good price – maybe this is the direction it will all go next !!