That's more like it!

Ol' Weymouth turned it on for us today with a great day of mild but flying C class weather. The overnight repair to the lower flap was given an extra kick of heat with a little bubble tent and a heat gun whilst we rigged up INVICTUS in the boat park. The mishap that happened to Alpha was a hot topic and goes to show that you are never out of the woods with these boats even after years of development. Many a C-class event has been won simply by attrition and whatever we do from here on in, we want it to be robust. We are pretty sure that we aren't going to outgun anyone in outright performance.
We launched Invictus with a black band around the upper rig in respect to the passing of Reg White who was a founding father of the C-class who contribute hugely to the multihull scene throughout his life, especially her ein the UK.

So today allowed us to spend some good time on the water doing windward-leeward legs and just increasing our feel for different modes. Trouble is that we really need something to sail against as it is very hard to tell how well you are doing... especially down-wind in mild conditions. We will try and get a good downwind cat to pace ourselves against in the future. There is a distinct shortage of other cats in Portland Harbour at the moment. Maybe Steve or Blunted (from the great thread running on the Sailing Anarchy forum) could suggest a good downwind comparison boat we could look for? While we still struggle for depth down wind, upwind there is nothing that comes close.
Yesterday we were joined on the water by Adam May on his Mach 2 Moth. Whilst we could power up well before he got on foils, once he was up he was a good bench mark. Down-wind in a little more breeze he sailed through us comfortably whilst I tried a slightly hotter style with more weight outboard (It didn't pay and we resorted to the deeper sitting to leeward style). Upwind we were obviously faster and reaching we could reel him in... but like I said, these were winds at the low end of his foiling spectrum. I'm sure we will have plenty of opportunities to match up again in the future. Adam's top speed for the day was 15.6 whilst ours was 16.5... for what it's worth (I think we shared the same wind in general but niether of us just focused on peak speed).

The day also provided a good opportunity to get Julien Chausee on the boat as a small return for the amount of work he has put into the boat, not only last week but overall. Julien took the helm and flew across the bay whilst Helena made sure that he will have plenty of screen savers on his desktop in the future. It's great to get the other team members out on the boat when the time is right. It allows them to see and feel first hand the issues, improvements and simple pleasure of being involved with these wonderful craft.
To cap of a top day, we had one of the greatest pleasures our project currently experiences. We simply brought the boat in, packed it up in the warm spring sunshine... and put it away with no breakages. We pfaffed (?) around a bit but reckon that four of us could go from fully rigged to packed up and in the trailer ready for towing in an hour.

So with no breakages, this now allows us to focus our efforts on the list of improvements.

Cheers, Paul

(all photos credit Helena Darvelid/sailrocket)