Race 6 - Australian Sharpie Nationals

Race 6 saw some stronger winds, average wind strength for the start was 18 knots, as the afternoon progressed, the wind increased to slightly over 26 knots. Now sailing is getting interesting, energy expelled is a whole lot more with the guys sleeping well that night. 

For me, the hardest part of the day was keeping the camera dry as waves washed over the yacht I was on, fortunately this was a much larger cruiser. I was running down into the cabin every 10 minutes to clean the salt spray from the lens. 

After the first restart, these guys closed in on fast and sailed straight through our line, I hardly had the change to focus the lens on them as they nearly collected our rudder on he way through.

Punching through the chop proved to be hard for some who were unfamiliar with such conditions, difficult to keep the boat fast and level. The forward hand low to the water is fast, because of the chines on the hull, these boats sail fastest when the hull is flat in the water.

When the waves hit, you certainly know about it, great feeling to be moving fast across the water.

The open layout of the modern sharpie with lowered centre board casing and sheet console that the skipper and sheet-hand adjusts gives great mobility for the crew. 

Powering through the water, sails are set well with plenty of main outhaul and cunningham eye keeping the luff tight, the traveler is tight keeping the boom central with plenty of boom vang pre-bending the mast.

The forward-hand is high on the trapeze wire, not the fastest way to move through the water but it keeps you about the water.

Flat and fast, there was plenty of speed upwind for those who did it right, some very fast upwind rides. The mainsail on Perth Pathology shows good shape with not too much traveler played out allowing high pointing potential. 

I noticed all the many of the main leach adjustments were set very loose, this generally affects pointing ability making the depth of the main sail fuller, I am very interested in these new settings, they are quite unusual.

The Sharpie was designed by the Kroeger brothers of Warnemünde in 1931, being the winning design in a German contest, the lightweight version was designed by the Addison brothers in the early 1960s and still sailed today.

These are old design yachts, evolved from the 12 square metre class sailed at the 1956 Melbourne olympic games, despite the age of the design, these small yachts are ultra competitive and owing to the narrow beam, somewhat temperamental. 

Having difficulty getting the spinnaker pole organised, keeping the boat driving through the water is important even though speed is reduced, places are being lost and the pressure builds.

These guys are roaring past on a tight reach, keeping the forward-hand out on the wire balances the boat holding the boat level and fast.

Reaching and keeping the boat flat in the water, this boat is gliding through the water, this is my favourite photograph of the regatta.

The hull sits low in the water, I notice the centre board is partly retracted allowing leeway reducing pointing ability. A fair amount of water makes its way inside, a venturi drainage system empties the water quickly.