Category Archives: Marblehead Specific

Sunday 6th Club Report…!!

Update : Lots of members are away (Easter and all that) so I was expecting the Club to be quiet. Not so!!

It was a cracking blue sky day with bags of top end A rig breezes around. Out on the water, the Proteus design work-up was well under way. Craig and Nigel had Proteus N and Proteus N+1 out there, and Phil H was driving Craig’s original Vanilla IOM design as a benchmark.

I’m ‘off games’ so was delighted to find Hugh and Rob V measuring up Rob’s new F6 Marblehead which Rob hopes to campaign to the Worlds.

I’d seen some IOM measuring previously but it was really interesting to see Hugh getting the rigs registered for the Marblehead. Learned a whole lot from both of them, I can tell you.

After a jolly sociable lunch, Craig and Nigel continued the Proteus calibrate-and-practice routine on the north course. To my eye, Proteus N and N+1 were performing very similarly indeed as the gusts swept through the course. Nigel was especially happy with the rig pre-bend now. I shall not reveal what “N” has reached, but it’s pretty amazing!!

Sunday March 2nd – Race Report….!!

I flunked out of sailing last Sunday (car reliability issues and low wind forecast).

(Cars used to just have mechanical problems, but the new fashion is to have “software problems”!! Funny the first time, but the novelty wears off !!)

Anyway, GH kindly called last night to tell me all about Sunday sailing. Each time I looked at the club webcam it looked very glassy, but GH reported that coffee-and-marblehead chatter lasted till 11am then, as if by magic, 8-10mph of breeze arrived!! The main club racing (a youth 29er event) was already abandoned for the day so Andrew G and his DF95, plus a handful of Marblehead sailors had 475 acres of water to themselves!! They got an hour and a half of fine races in, then the breeze went home in time for lunch!!

There was some great racing innovation going on, boat swapping, 2 boat calibration and all that. Honestly … sounds great and so sorry I had to miss it !!