Big contrast between Sat and Sun sailing. Sat saw a lot of drifting and trying to balance, and Sun saw a gusty NW which provided quite a few good runs.
So whilst Bora may have breached 30 knots, I think I was setting records for negative vmg or staying on the spot. Started out in a light 6-8 knots, but due to lots of small storms in the surrounding vicinity the wind kept dropping out, coming from a new direction, and then repeating. Very frustrating.
Worse was that the tide was running out a strong 2-3 knots and there was a big jetty in the way which I was being dragged towards. Not wanting to do a Robbo and sail sideways underneath it (done when the Puma moths were in time), spent an hour just trying to hold station. Some breeze finally came at about 10 knots from the west so went looking for Will who managed to miss the jetty and was stranded a few nautical miles away at the National Sailing Centre. As soon as I got to him and did some circles waiting for him to get going, breeze shut down again before filling in from the east.
Somehow I managed to get home after 3 hours of balancing, where Will completely gave up and headed to the nearest shore and trolleyed his boat back to the club.
Sunday was a complete contrast with a gusty NW in from early morning. Normally a strong wind in Singapore doesn't stay too long, but this actually lasted all day. Was a good test for the front foil hinge which I had redone during the week before. Since the NW was coming off the land, and there are heaps of high rise condos along the beach, there were some big gusts and holes.
So down to the National Sailing Centre to fly-by past the Opti and Byte kids. There were hundreds of them out sailing in some event, but they all seem to stop and bang into each other when the moth goes past, haha. I am sure the maintenance guys must hate me doing that, but good to hear them yelling at each other to look at the moth.
Otherwise went for a cruise around. Hit one major gust and just sent it. Managed to hit 26 knots which is my highest speed so far (only got a GPS after the Gorge worlds). Had ships either side too at anchor which was a bit scary. One wrong move and would have been toast. Wish the global recession would piss off and the ships would start doing their routes again so my sailing area was a bit bigger.
The attached opti pic (found on http://www.sailing.org.sg/) will be able to give you idea of the thunderstorms we get daily, the countless ships at anchor, and the high rise next to the shore. All makes things interesting for sure.
