29er Open Worlds News: The saga of the overweight charter continues. In practise of around 8-12 knts the boat was fine, had race pace and gave cause for optimism. Yesterday the breeze was on and the chop steep. Every time the overweight hull hit a wave it could be seen to crash and not go through or over. Result, slow boat. So we got in, investigated for more and found it had a lot of water (estimated 7 litres or 7kg in moving dead weight). This was clearly part of the speed problem, allied to the original 5kg over. We resealed what looked bad, did everything we could to make things better, and went racing today. The 11th in the first race showed some promise, but was still less than the tactics deserved. The girls pulled up to the coachboat and it was obvious that the boat had taken on water, as it was low in the stern. We did the next race, another speed challenged effort, then the third, by which time the boat was obviously struggling. We decided to risk going in, draining, maybe pulling some rig tension as the rig load was greater with less speed than normal, and try to make the startline. We did this, and the girls got to the startline just a little late, and finished their fourth race. Not great, but as good as the others complete with the time penalty and rush.... So we found out after a measuring experiment that approx. 1 litre of water comes out every 10 seconds. Yesterday we had a lot of water. Three minutes plus worth. Today we had 2 minutes plus after 3 races. Late night working on the boat. Re-sealed everything. We thought this should be backed up by showing an unusual video :) What does 4.5 measured litres of water look like coming out of a bung hole? Here it is folks!!
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 00:49:01 +0000
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