Archive for August, 2008

Acceleration!

Friday, August 15th, 2008

Look how Dinah accelerates away from her nearby competitors on the startline… These two shots were taken only a minute apart, but that’s all she needed to get out in front into clear air!

Before the start

At the start


Dinah Makes the Press…

Friday, August 15th, 2008

Thanks to the BluQube PR guys,  Dinahs name is getting coverage in the press. Afloat Magazine ran a piece in their October/November edition. A good mention in the Irish Times on 15/08/08. Also an article on spinnakerweb.net. Earlier that week an article in The Irish World had her on the front page of the sports section between Padraig Harringtons USPGA win, and Eoin Rheinischs fourth place in the Olympics! Now that’s good sporting company…

The Irish World

Link to the article in the Irish World.


BluQube Photos

Friday, August 15th, 2008

The good people at BluQube sent on some of the photos that they took along the way…

From Above

Upright

Santander


Zurich Channel Week

Friday, August 15th, 2008

Ups and Downs… Channel Week is over. It was a fantastic event, although it was somewhat marred by a gear breakage. The first leg, from The Solent to Alderney, had to be abandoned due to lack of breeze. The second leg, from Alderney to Jersey, was shortened, but Dinah did well. First of the three JOD’s, and a good overall placing. Just after a fantastic start the next morning off Jersey one of the mainsail batten cars up the mast exploded violently, spelling an end to sailing for the day. I retired back to Jersey to organise a replacement part, and motored on to St Malo later that day following the fleet. I also missed the day race around St Malo as the parts didn’t arrive until late the next morning. But now Dinah was ready for racing again. A long spinnaker reach from St Malo to Geurnsey had Dinah and Audacious within twenty boatlengths of each other the whole way. Dinah sneaked ahead in the last five minutes to finish as first JOD again. Very pleasing!

Running Up Little Russel, Geurnsey

The last leg from Geurnsey to The Solent was a windy spinnaker run. The picture above was taken about a half an hour after the start. Dinah, on the left, is in second place on the water just behind Audacious. By sunset Dinah was lead JOD again, but during the night as the breeze died down I should have switched to a bigger spinnaker. The other two JODs sneaked through in the darkness. I certainly can’t blame the boat, I should have known to change kites, but I didn’t. One of those lessons that comes with experience I guess.

Cowboy

All in all, it was a fantastic event. The overall results obviously don’t mean much, having missed two legs out of five. Audacious won overall, so to have beaten him in two of the three legs I completed is great. It shows the boat is on pace. I’m not too far off the pace myself. And once I break and fix everything thats going to break then Dinah should be unstoppable! I’m much happier learning about the batten cars being weak now, even at the expense of a good overall result in this event, rather than in the middle of the Atlantic next year. Softly softly catchee monkey…