So I was planning to go to the Interclub today at Balmoral, but yesterday what was supposed to be a 5 minute repair to my rudder on inspection was a bit more damaged than I thought. So in the interests of making things bullet proof, I decided to completely re-do the whole tiller attachment. A quick trip to CST composites for a new sleeving tube and this morning it was glued on and looking like this.

Tomorrow I will be vacuum bagging the whole thing in carbon, which I couldn’t do the first time around. I also finished the mould for my T join in my new foils today, so I will be laying that up shortly as well.

After a flurry of activity, my foil construction has stalled over the last couple of weeks due to work trips, bad weather and wanting to not spend every last second working on moth related stuff.

What I have been doing thought is making a number of smaller tweaks on my boat and it has been steadily improving its performance.

Last week with only Grant and I sailing, I tried a new wand configuration, albeit a hacked together temporary one and it was an improvement on what I was already running. If there is one thing that my boat has now it is control, and lots of it. My boat gives me a great feeling of confidence when it is up that it is not going to buck and throw me off. With the new wand I can now feel every bump in the road downwind and that is a great sign of the boat reacting to what it is sailing over.

This weeks tweak was to re-do my vang strops completely, and I think that I have finally sorted out my upwind VMG problem. Saturdays conditions were a perfect sailing breeze with some gusts over the 20 mark but the majority of the breeze sitting in the 15-20 range, with flat water making for great foiling or non-foiling conditions.

Downwind I am still not as quick as the fast guys, but the stays are now starting to make audible speed noise, when they weren’t before. I didn’t have the GPS on, but I think that I am tantalisingly close to breaking the 20kt mark in the right conditions. The new foil should definitely get me over that line.

Now if only I could turn corners without loosing 20-50 seconds to the leaders every time ….

Next time we meet for a port and starboard crossing, you might want to keep these photos in mind.

And I think that my next boat will be called son of skynet. This was for a halloween party last night.