This saying was quite true for last Sunday's racing as although I thought the sails were set perfect for the gusty conditions my mast rake was awful. It didn't occur to me at first but then I realised there was too much weather helm. As soon as I started to use the rudder to almost constantly bear off the boat picked up speed and I won a race prior to the coffee break. What has this to do with FPPF, well I had an opportunity to sail at the lake last Thursday which would probably highlighted the fact that the mast rake was set too far aft and I didn't take it.
Although, there was another more serious problem with last Sunday's racing. Quite a few skippers were crashing into me and causing damage, the first two occurred whilst I was on starboard pre-start one of which put a dent in the gunwhale. Later on whilst leading I rounded the leeward mark, tacked on to starboard and Ian hit me whilst running on Port. Then in the very next race I had just gained the lead and exactly the same thing happened except this time it was Peter who tore into me and took my jib with him!!
Not once did anybody apologies and as for exonerating themselves well that's a joke, in fact there was practically a total disregard for the rules as it was always the wind, gusts, course or Joe Blogg's fault!
I didn't stick around for the last three races as I left whilst I still had my new boat more or less in one piece.
