4 categories

Teralba, NSW, AU

2 categories

Teralba, NSW, AU

CA70 and North 7.7m. Nice warm day with a great group of sailors. Very on and off conditions with a lot more off than on.

Teralba, NSW, AU

patchy 5-15kts WNW then 5-20kts patchy

7.8m OD - RS4 - 39cms sting fin

 7m NCX - RS4 - 39cms fin

 115Xcross - 7.8m - 38 makani weedie ( 2 runs)

Lyds kindly let me try his 111ltre Excocet RS4. I was interested to see how it compared with my 115 Excocet Xcross.

The Xcross is a freemove and 75cms wide but thin .Good fun but slow and a bit draggy. I'm game to go for it in chop as it's so forgiving..

 The RS4 is a slalom - 4 ltres less and only 70cm wide.

 I was worried I wouldn't be able to uphaul the 7.8m so had a few practise runs in close.

 The RS certainly gets going earlier and keeps planing through the lulls better than the Xcross. As a result it's less tiring as it gets up and goes rather than thinks about it with the big sail pulling on your body .

 If I got my act together I think I should be able to plane in 10-12kts with the RS . I need about 14kts with the Xcross.

The Xcross is better for the 5-10kts wind I sometimes get stuck with as it's wider and more forgiving gybing with the heavy sail in 5kts . The RS is better for gusty 8- 20kts although I think it will require more skill once really going..

Handled it well except for one time I got a big gust and went for a bear away. The gust was only 100m long so I just went for it and the board rose up on the fin and then the windward rail threatened to go in and I felt like I was going to go over the nose. .I got it together and survived   but I was a bit more careful to set myself up before bearing off and I whimped on the best gusts..

 I'm not used to having a decent fin- I usually sail weedies..

 A surprisingly fun day for the crappy conditions although I whimped out on the best gusts and went upwind ..

 Thanks Lyds!

 Andrew , Lyds, Jeff , Byron ,Tony , later Gert , Steve W

1 categories

Teralba, NSW, AU

Exocet RS4 /RSS 7.8 /Venom 38

WNW 5-20kts - Typical on /off Teralba but still had a fun day with plenty out. New board to try and it wasn't going well for the first hour. Felt horrible. Couldn't work it out but over the next two hours, it came together and now we are friends. Lovely board to gybe and incredibly well behaved in the chop. Didn't quite have the breakneck acceleration of my Falcon, more of a controlled release, but so much easier to handle when transitioning onto the plane and top speed was at least as good as the Falcon.