Pleasant sunny day. Northerly winds of 12 - 14 knots but heavy gusts up to 23 knots.. Arrived in morning to practice and then take part in the Novice Race in the afternoon. The reservoir is at a low level at present and launching has to be gradual due to the very shallow waters (ie rudder and centreboard cannot be fully deployed until many yards off shore).
When ashore the Wind did not appear strong but out on the water it became fierce. On occasions strong gusts would appear from the north and then very suddenly change direction and blow from the south west. The gusts and large changes of direction flattened a number of dinghies during the morning.
Our skills at handling the Xenon in strong winds are now quite respectable and we decided to keep with the full rig. We had a number of near misses in terms of a capsize but did manage to maintain control throughout, although the Xenon was often full of water. Playing the mainsheet and hiking in the very fitful wind was exhausting. Our arms were aching after only an hour on the water. We took the view that launching the gennaker in such unpredictable weather was asking for trouble so we kept it dry.

It was a warm, pleasant day, overcast with a few spots of rain. Aerage wind in Bewl Water was 7 knots but punctuated by some fairly strong sustained gusts. Intention was to practice launching, retrieval and Gybing with the Xenon gennaker.

The first problem was a very hurried packing of the Gennaker and equally hurried Gennaker rigging. This cost us dearly in time. The first launch appeared to be successful, the gennaker inflated and operated well but the gennaker downhaul line looked oddly positioned. An attempted gybe resulted in a twisted gennaker and it could not be retrieved. Rather than risk damage by applying force the luckless crew clambered across the bow to bundle up the jammed gennaker and we returned to shore. An attempt to correct the poor rigging and off we went again only to find yet more problems with the gennaker rigging.. After lunch the Gennaker was completely deriogged and re-rigged. This time correctly.

A weekend of sailing- fantastic! Wind guru did its usual guess work and got it wrong, suggesting Saturaday would be between 0 and 1 knot! It was fairly calm in the morning, with 5-8 knots, but the afternnon was a little more lively hitting somewhere around 10 knots. Sunday was more exciting at around 14-16knots!
The format of the weekend was:
Saturday:

• Practice starts
• Practice races
• Follow the leader
• Course sailing/racing
• And theory of course!

Sunday:

• Race practice around a single bouy
• Real racing with the sunday racers

They did a good deal of videoing to provide some really helpful constructive criticism. This was very revealing not to mention embarrising!

This was a nightmare from start to finish! We went down to Bewl Valley for a race afternoon. We started off with our new main halyard in place. It ran really smoothly, but sadly as it wasn't rigged correctly we had trouble- I won't go into details, but we had to drop the mast to rectify this!
Then eventually out on the water everything was fine until we decided to test the gennaker. The lines were slightly tangled, so we had to land, pull it out and then sort out the lines, repack it then launch again!
Then out on the water for the second time, the race got underway. The course was one of those that has a clear down wind stretch, but also has another strech where you might get away with gennaker too. We struggled to get the gennaker flying, then when we did, we struggled to get it back down effectively. Eventually on several downwind turns to drop it it decided it preferred to hide underneath the  boat, where it got stuck! We sent dad over the bow to retreieve it. By this point we were well and truely out of the race and a bit fed up of the issues and poor winds!
Home time!

This RYA Course was organised by Bewl Valley Sailing Club. It was a superb course with three highly skilled instructors, including the Clubs professional. Approximately 18 boats took part from Toppers, Wayfarers, Feva, Magno and Xenon etc a real successful mix!
On the first day the winds were fortunately relatively light and the day focussed on boat control; following closely in line trying to avoid collisions with the boat in front, running a tight figure of eight course that gave practical experience in applying the avoiding collision rules and of course many practise racing starts.
The theory sessions covered starting  tactics, the essential rules of racing eg. avoiding collisions, rounding marks and penalties and some very useful general tips on sailing.
On the second day the winds were much stronger. The emphasis this day was on starting techniques and boats were paired off for a succession of short races round a single mark and back.  The objective was to illustrate the importance of a good start position and boat control.  Getting either in such conditions was not easy!

Sailed on Weds 16 June - Force 5 - 6 - what a sail!
 
Normally mid week sailing is not on because work gets in the way but both Tim and I struck lucky on Weds. Arrived at Bewl Water and noted some movement in the trees, Little sign of sailing going on - they were all sheltering in the lagoon! The lower wind speed was around 18 knots with maximum gusts of 28 knots!
 
Unanimous decision to reef the Xenon, although by the slipway the wind did not seem that bad. Launched and within seconds the wind struck. Grandad leans out hard, Tim spills wind and Xenon flies. White horses are running across the reservoir and sizeable waves hit the port bow and water sprays over the dinghy - Grandad gets wet and can't see through his glasses. Tim too busy to notice. That was just the start.
 

Well WindGuru predicted some dreadful winds of 5-7 knots right up until the day before the sail, when it was suggesting 10, progressing to 14 in the afternoon.
 
Today is novice race day!! Hooray!! We were definitely up for some racing; and having mastered the gennaker in very light winds, felt sure that slightly better winds would add pace to our big boat with a helm and 2 crew, giving us the advantage we needed.
 
We spent a couple of hours in the morning again practising with the gennaker. Winds were a bit gusty, with a prevailing wind of maybe 9-11 knots and gusting to a whopping 12-14! Hmmm. So we went from pulling some speed with the gennaker to having a floppy deflated balloon draped stylishly across the front of the boat!
 

Sorry, this is a little retrospective, but I was busy and didn't get a mo to blog this sail!
Winds were predicted to be fairly calm for the day so I wasn't expecting much, but at the same time gennaker practise was the order of the day, so although not extreme, it was very freindly training speed of around 10knots.
When we arrived at the slipway we were entertained by a mini regatta of remote controlled boats! Good fun until we wanted to launch without sinking all of them in one foul swoop! At this point the wind speed was hitting the lofty heights of 5knots...
Staarted off with a bit of light wind sailing, getting the weight shift up front and ducking the side of the boat into the water to reduce drag...but that didn't quite satisfy- I had in mind something more extreme. Anyway, we've all had days like that- shame it wasn't even particularly sunny!

We're planning on taking her out next weekend for a burn across Bewl. The plan- test out the new addition of a trapeze and see how fast we can go with the Gennaker out!

We're booked in for a novice race later in May, so we want to improve our speed sailing. Have been reading up on tips from the Captain's Blog (http://wivenhoe-sailing.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html) who seems to have got a good deal more sailing out of this season than we have!

Need to work on the planing- credit to the captain for the following tips:

Went down to Bewl Water on bank holiday Easter Monday. Me, my brother and my dad were going to do a bit of sailing in the morning then catch up with the family to take part in the afternoon Easter events (face painting, egg throwing, Easter fancy dress, Easter egg hunt etc.-must point out that between me and my brother we have 4 kids)!