Nearly Flat Water 23NM Sailed, 343NM Total

The wind was from the south today, and quite marginal. I took out my Tushingham 7.6m x15 and swapped between my Starboard Carve133l and my Starboard Kode 112l. Now I have decided that the Carve is surplus to requirements. I found it actually harder to get planing than the Kode. The Kode is 68cm wide where the Carve is 72cm, so in theory with the extra float, extra 5cm fin and 4cm width I should find the Carve a lot easier to get moving. This is not the case, perhaps it is because I have used the Kode so much more recently that I know exactly how to get it to unstick from the water. I could not get the Carve to accelerate enough in the little gusts, and ended up going from slogging to slogging with a little planing in between, but never enough to get into the straps. The Kode I could ride in the straps, bear off the wind and get going far easier.

I wanted to go out to the wall but in the southerly wind Portland acts as a wind shadow so when it is marginal like today there is not much wind in the middle of the harbour and I kept running out of speed and did not want to loose too much ground downwind.

GPS team challenge gives me 23NM for today, I wanted a lot more but cannot help it when the wind is like this. Perhaps I should have got a 9m sail after all. Total now 343NM.