Saturday was an interesting day on the water, with a 25 min handicap start and one less lap to do than the foilers. Kylie was first away in her scow and I managed to pass her at the start of the second lap. On the second work I managed a wry simile when I realised that Luka still hadn’t started and he would have to lap me twice to take the win, and he has never done that.
Ok. so the real risk was now Phil and Grant who were well on their way, or so I thought. At the start of the third lap I looked over my shoulder to see that Kylie had really closed the gap down, and was a real risk to take the win. A loose cover upwind managed to keep the gap from closing down any further and I managed to take the win.
In the end Grant managed to beat Kylie for second and Phil finished fourth.
After the race I took Mark’s modified lazich foiler out for a spin. I have raced this boat a few times before the conversion and I must say it has been totally transformed. After jumping off a fat skiff onto the narrow foiler I instantly noticed a few things.
The hydrofoil equipped narrow skiff is more stable in fore and aft pitch compared to the fat skiff, however it was only marginally more unstable in roll. The main difference was only that everything happens quicker, however if you are fast enough, then it is actually no harder to sail.
The old boats turn like supertankers. After jumping on the lazich, I pushed the tiller away slightly to turn into what I thought would be a slow tack, then whack, she turned on a dime. When I was up and foiling, even smaller adjustments were required. That will take a bit of getting used to.
Foiling is fast. After pottering around at 4-9 knots all day, to jump on a boat and to do around 15 was a huge shock to the system.
Foiling setup is critical. Practical experience has shown that the Lazich is no Ferrari compared to Luka’s prowler, but the setup on the Lazich made the setup on my old boat feel like a Datsun 180B. I can only imagine what a fully tweaked Prowler or Rohan’s Bladerider, or my new boat will be like to sail.