A sail at last...

Hi all, well we finally got to go for a sail.
It was only about 14 knots so barely enough but the tide was high and the sun was shining. Everything had come together nicely.

As the day wore on it became obvious that no more wind was coming so we went for it anyway.
The following was noted...

1. The boat is much slower to steer with the fixed skeg in place... but it does steer, albeit in much bigger arcs.
2. The new instruments work great and are very handy.
3. The comms are much improved which is great for all.
4. The mainsheet load is way too low to activate the flap and pull it on. As soon as I pointed the boat into wind and she began to accelerate, the negative flap angle actually sheeted the wing on more without any additional mainsheet. In the end I was sailing down the course fully powered up (or as much as I could be) with all the sheets just floating in the breeze. The flap angle stayed negative. This isn't bad as it is our first trial setting. It is a point to work from. We may have to change a few things over the next day or two. The up side is how easy the wing is to handle now. It doesn't feel as if it is waiting to bite us anymore.
   In this mode we barely got up on the plane but that didn't matter.
5. The skeg angle in its current setting was giving lee helm on the rudder...THE PROMISED LAND. This means that the boat wants to turn away from the beach. If it is noticable now it will pull like an ox at higher speeds. That's cool as it is another Mk1 trial setting.
   

Everything else worked great. I have already skyped Chris (wing designer) and Malcolm to share what we found.
Overall I'm stoked as I know that we can find solutions to these little problems. It's great to be back in sailing mode. The team is working really well and we are all well practiced now. Now Helena and I will go through all the footage and data to make sense of it.

Cheers all, Paul.

Paul Larsen
Mobile: + 44 (0) 794 684 1929
E-mail: paularsen1@aol.com
www.sailrocket.com

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