After 2 weeks of waiting, conditions were finally perfect to get Virtual Reality up and foiling. After the breeze came in at 11 am I quickly headed out to try and sort out some kind of setup before the afternoon race.

Out of the box, the behaviour was similar to that at the nationals where I could get it to cruse along bow out, but it wouldn’t take off.

Pit stop number 1: Lengthen the cable to get some more lift off the main foil. That was a little better, but she still didn’t fly, other that 3 inches of the main foil out of the water with the transom still touching.

Pit stop number 2: A short trip to the toolbox and I shortened my rudder foil by 10 cm each end, down from a huge 1m wide to 80cm, which is still huge. That was a lot better but she still wasn’t happy. I then changed my position to sit further forwards instead of dragging the stern so much. This seemed to work as she started to lift and before I realised it, she was out of the water. Then controlled panic started to set in; “What the frack do I do now?”. Then there was a sickening crunch as the gantry cried enough. The boat kept rising as I was looking backwards and hadn’t moved forwards until the main foil broke the surface and she dropped back down, with another crunch from the gantry as it continued to destroy itself.

With no club rescue boats out yet, I had to hitch a ride back to the shore with a nearby fishing boat.

I don’t think that I will have a new gantry finished for next week, but I sure will try.