So everything finally came together on Saturday and I hit the water in the “new” boat. It took a little while in the morning to get the new gantry all on. Changing to a tube gantry has cut 1.2KG from the boat, so that was a nice little gain right there.

Saturday was good conditions to get back into things with a nice gentle breeze. I had a few first day issues though, which included sailing the NE instead of the E course, loose hiking straps, and essentially bolt on and sail set-up, which is also known as no set-up at all.

My main foil, whilst it does get the boat up, is completely rooted. After being broken and repaired three times, it has high drag and poor lift, and puts me in a situation where I try and foil upwind, and can only do it reaching, at some 60 degrees off the breeze, with no VMG whatsoever. For the next race I will give it few degrees more AOA, to try and make things a bit better.

Despite the problems, at least I can still sail, and put all my off the water efforts into building a new main foil. This will be a very different construction to the last ones, it will be made in 4 pieces and then joined, the flaps will be cut into them later, and they will be foam cored with vacuum bagged skins, and a solid carbon spar, thanks to the magic of CST pultrusion..