Light air techniques

In light of the lack of wind last Sunday I have written an article on
tuning your ff for light airs. I stress that this is only my take on
what works best and I hope this starts a debate on tuning in general
for varying conditions. You can find it under 'About Racing' At the
top of the new Datchet Man page (white background - only available our the new blogsite WWW.FLYINGFIFTEEN.ORG - bookmark us there, or better...make it your browser homepage - DM) . I remember when I
first started sailing a ff and this sort of thing would have been gold
dust to me so join in and share your tips and tricks...It can only
help our fleet.
Andy 3378

The Sub-45's and owning an FF.....

One of the comments to arrive on the blog last week was from someone I would guess is below our 45 year old fleet average. He (or she), an FF owner one day I hope, made three very good points....
(1) Is the average age of 45 connected to the fact that the new boats cost £20,000 (2) Why would BIFFA even contemplate rule changes which make the boat more expensive rather than less expensive (3) can younger aspirants be incented into the Loan Boat program. All good things for us to think about. I was just coming round to the notion that the "next generation" of FF racers would think Mylar sails a brilliant idea - stupid of me not to see the cost issue in that context.
On the cost of the boats and being 45+, I think we would have different position to our correspondent. In FFs, new boats is not where the smart money goes. Part of having keelboat weight, is that the boats are built incredibly strongly and stay competitive and looking good for AGES. The speed differences by boat age are tiny. This keeps their residuals up, and remember that you don't find out the cost of running any boat until you sell it. I met a Club member in the bar recently very proud of his new Laser 4000 and said "it is great value for money". Must remember to ask him again when he gets to sell it, if he can sell it. No - the smart money in FFs goes into boats 5-15 years old - Ovington Mk IX smoothies especially. Look at the Humes' boat, 3559. About 15 years old. Competitive? A winner? Ha! Goes like a rocket... The cost of a boat like that on today's market ... £5k-6k. Fancy a ten year old (like Tom Hall's boat - top class results) - about £8k. My correspondent says what about RS400? Good question - 2 years old and £6200. I would say pretty comparable. Plus the FF Mk 9 has relatively tiny depreciation after you buy it. In researching these figures, I discovered that RS no longer quote the RS K6 on their product list. Who remembers what a Laser 5000 or Boss look like? Besides, do you want just circuit racing or do you want Club Fleet Racing as well. Remember - Handicap racing is NOT racing,... just somewhere to sail to...
We'd better think through what the next generation of FF racers are looking for. Maybe we should ask some.

Sunday Racing - Weather Outlook....

The Met Office weather forecast for Sunday looks great! Sunny (amazing), a mild 6 degrees, and 10mph from the Southwest.

Also check out all the weather links under "Interesting Links" half way down the right hand side of this page.... Thanks to David Hume for that suggestion!

From The BIFFA Newsfeed this Morning, to FF owners in Australia....

Headed up "Antipodean Invite" this came on the BIFFA newsfeed this morning.....

Escape the gloom by coming to the Worlds this summer.  You can expect a warm and hospitable welcome, fair sailing, good sportsmanship, the umpires decision will be final, and your results will be down to you ( can't blame everyone else!).

Why not come a day or two early - take a trip to Lords and see The Ashes.....

The Average Age in the Flying Fifteen Fleet is....

All of you in the Fleet helped me recently conduct a survey to determine the average age of the sailors in our Fleet. So what's the answer??....

Surprisingly, to my mind anyway, the average age is .... 45..!!! Why am I surprised? I've been in the fleet for 15 years and I would hazard a guess, that this is the lowest age it has ever been in that time. Have you wondered not where the next new member is going to come from, how old they are etc .... but have you ever wondered who the next "generation" of our fleet are?? The ones that will make up our fleet in ten to fifteen years from now. Actually, they are unlikely to be non-sailors I feel. No - I think they are today's 35-ish year olds, who already enjoy their sailing. What are they sailing now? What do they expect as 'standard/normal' in boats they sail now and will sail in the future?? Interesting questions with a Rig vote coming up. What are they sailing now? Well, maybe RS and Laser products, I don't know.... unlikely to be in Cats, as they are for much older people..... Ha ha ha ha !!! (Club joke...) We should all think about it.

This brings me to a possible subject for tomorrow. If we had two or three Strategic Management/Marketing goals for our fleet, what would they be? I suspect that that one of them would be that we hold or lower the average age in the fleet year on year.

This will be the subject of a posting in the next few days.... !!!

"Calling all iPhone Users"....

Have you seen that the RYA do an App that puts the Racing Rules on your iPhone for £1.69?... Amazing !!

Do you see a Black Background When You Read This??

Well, if you do, then I need to tell you that "Datchet Man" has moved.
We have gone to a new internet platform and a new permanent (and dead easy to remember) website address. The new website combines the "Datchet Man" blog and our FF Fleet website - together in one place. Most people who have seen the new one, prefer it and say it looks clearer and more professional. It is also in a consistent style with the BIFFA sites and the Goacher Sails website. You can view it at:-
www.flyingfifteen.org
If you are reading this, with a black background then that is because you pick up "Datchet Man" using quite a long complex address "datchetman-theflyingfifteenblog dot blogspot dot com" ... which is where we developed the pilot version. What you need to do now is to change your browser homepage setting, or your bookmark (whichever way you locate us) to be www.flyingfifteen.org . Can you do that for us?? I shall continue to post news items to both old and new blogs until I know from the traffic stats that all readers have cut across.
If we ever have to move the website again, this www.flyingfifteen.org address will stay the same, so you are better protected from future changes doing it this way.
You are one of about 100 people who read Datchet Man each day. Thanks for following our Flying Fifteen Fleet - and see you at our new "home". Let me know what you think of it (!) on:-
datchetman@flyingfifteen.com

Our Race Turnouts in 2010 - and "Mylar v Dacron" Again

The Admiral collared me in the Bar about my calculation that Mylar mains would be 3x the running cost of Dacron mains. We both got to realise the maths was very sensitive to how many races we get in at Datchet in a year. I had assumed in my calculation that we all would miss about 12 weekends a year one way or another.... Races are probably scheduled 51 Sundays out of 52 and we get two races per day, plus seven all weekend events. The Admiral grabbed the stats for 2010 off the Club Records. We were both surprised....

Now was it a windless year in 2010, or what?? I know we missed quite a few weekends because of "no breeze", and for sure we haven't sailed a honker in absolutely ages. But brace yourselves for this - the team with the highest turnout were our fabulous Club Champions, Mark and Tony. They are simply "always there", aren't they?? They clocked 44 races. That's about 22 Sundays. Team Hume managed 34 as did Andy and Nadia. For family reasons, Howard and I missed many, many weekend sessions but we were next in the league with 33 races. I'm amazed. I must find out from Mike if he has counted the two Opens, the 'Hughes', Club Regatta and Club Championship turnouts.

Anyway - what does this do to my calculation for the cost-of-ownership of a mainsail.?? I had stupidly said it was 3x for Mylar, which as I wrote it I knew must have been wrong. It says that at Datchet we race about the same number of races per year as a Circuit/Nationals player might. 'They' say that a Mylar main lasts 18 months and goes suddenly. They also say that they cost about 20% more than Dacron. My base case assumption was that a Dacron main at Datchet is good for about 2 years, which is probably an underestimate. So roughly what does the shorter life and a 20% price difference give you as an answer ....????

Amazingly, the cost of ownership of a Mylar main is 160% of a Dacron main......

It gets worse quickly if 18 months for Mylar is correct, but a Dacron main goes for 3 years. By the way, Mike asked two more good questions:-

1/ if a Mylar sail is less adjustable to meet prevailing conditions, does that mean you need one for light conditions and one for heavy winds??
2/ If we really did race 80 Datchet races a year, and the sail needed replacing after 60 races, where would we stand on the FF rule that limits you to one new sail a year. Good question.....

I await the next ear-bending from the Admiral to see where I've gone wrong with that.

DM

Hughes Regatta - a Newcomer's View

Karsten Schiebler is one of my Dragon crew members. He came with me to sail the very successful Datchet Flying Fifteen "Hughes Regatta" at Datchet. We hold it each year to honour the birthday of our oldest fleet member, Richard Hughes - and to encourage newcomers to the Flying Fifteen. (Mr Hughes' age is no longer printable in polite company...) No spinnakers are allowed, and at least one person aboard has to be a newcomer to Flying Fifteens.  Karsten, with a name like his, obviously hails from Germany. He has been in the UK quite a while, where he is a successful International Hedge Fund Manager based out of London. Well, actually, he is a Hedge Fund.... Anyway, I asked him to record for the blog what he thought of the Hughes Regatta. Thankfully, it's printable....be grateful !! ....

This letter is to thank the Datchet sailing club Flying Fifteens for the perfect introduction to dinghy racing – The Hughes Regatta. I was invited to their annual open partner race. Here are a few points of observation. 

1 Arriving and meeting other competiters was easy and informal. All seem to watch each others preparation and chosen partners with great interest, but still gave a helping hand to launch the boats. 

2. Than I got a few hints what each of then many ropes do. Well - just hints...

3. Once the race started gloves are off. Richard becomes an Animal !!  I had to perform and we were rewarded with the second place. Great! Even coming all the way from Germany, the food the drink, the clubmembers and my captain will stay in my memory as the perfect day out. 

Thank you very much.

 

Grafham Grand Prix

I just went looking for the results at the Grafham Grand Prix. Andy Murphy had said he was taking his new boat up there to break it in gently! They had 138 entries all up - big event! The Flying Fifteens started in a handicap group along with Albacores, Laser 200s, etc. Of the 34 boats in that start, 10 were Flying Fifteens (3 less than last year). Dave Lucas was the winning FF and Group winner actually, with his new boat. Second was Julian Clarke and Dave Philpott was third.

About our Pilot Phase 2 Website... and other ideas

Hey - this great! It can only be good for the Datchet Fleet. (Andy is commenting here on our pilot phase 2 website, which you can also take a look at by visiting www.flyingfifteen.co.uk....Let me know what you think..DM)

I think DM really is becoming a voice for club sailors and our discussion on image and sail materials has been excellent: exactly the sort of thing only normally discussed at the AGM between, as I saw, top competitors who only had a real voice for the circuit goers. The boat is already beautiful and no amount of Mylar will change that. Simple marketing concentrating on the already positive attributes to owning an ff is the key in my opinion - and our fleet websites are a great way of getting that out there!

I had an idea we should have a team race on of those spare weekends, teaming last years average top points scorers with the lowest, making pairs. The total up the positions over (probably have to be three races) and the winners can maybe share a trophy that Mike has. Just a thought. It also encourages more tips and help from the top of the fleet to the bottom.

Andy
3378

Race Report - Sunday Jan 2nd

This Sunday saw the start of the 2011 Winter Series at Datchet. The Club was exceptionally quiet, but in fact the Fifteens put a good fleet out. We had six boats on the line - I thought we had a seventh, but the Vice Fleet Captain turned up in sunglasses (and his best sweater) saying he was off to Florida for a couple of weeks. Weather conditions were pretty hopeless really, about 3-4knots of northerly and around two degrees.
Race one, was a matter of who got to the line on time. Mostly we were huddled too long over our tea mugs and slow to get to the start area. Bang on time, first out of the gate was Mervyn Wright and James Watson, in 3536, closely followed by Mike Firth with VC Tinsley in the broadcasters chair (!). The rest of us were pretty strung out in the same order as our tea had been served. With this drawn out gate sequence, you'd think there wasn't that much overtaking going on. You'd be surprised though... Firth and Tinsley wriggled into the lead, and in this Force 1 were never seen again. New boys Mervyn and James had listened to all our advice that FF's go well in the light with really tight rig tension, and slipped from first to last. Andy and Nadia had a great tussle with visiting team, Ian Linder and Kevin Sweetman. Andy and Nadia gybed immediately onto port round the windward mark, following a puff which took them to the shore by the pier, gybed on to starboard and overtook Ian Linder into the leeward mark. Meanwhile the Humes, wearing their brand new McNamara sails were probably quickest around the course ona line to line basis. Last out of the gate, they looked at one time as if they had picked the route to sail around the entire fleet. They finished a good fourth.


At the finish it was 3888(Firth/Tinsley), 3378 (Clark, Melnikova), 3851 (Linder/Sweetman), 3559 (2x Humes), 3934 (Jones/Shawyer), 3536 (Wright/Watson)
For Race two there was even less breeze - just whispers across the water. Ian Linder found a puff and frankly just left the rest of us behind for the day. We finished a lap and a bit - the PRO went for an impromptu floating line at the top of the first run and closed the race there.
Final Results showing were: Linder, Hume, Clark, Jones, Firth (Retd) , Wright (Retd) but again some PRO disputes there as Jones finished ahead of Clark on the day.
Very notable absentees today - John and Helen, Mark and Tony. The VC has noted your names....

Thoughts from the Admiral's Barge - Sunday 2nd January 2011

(Here follows a race report from the VC for Race 1 today. Frankly, I'm surprised he could see from that far ahead.... he was unable to write a report for race two, as they woossed out because of the cold and went for a bowl of chips instead. Anyway, I'll have to do it all again as I can hardly send this to Y&Y and BIFFA, can I??! It was the VC's first go in a boat since the disastrous expedition to the Europeans, but he seems pretty recovered now to me....In fact, awfully like his old self....DM.)

Ah ha!! 2011 already! 6 FF's in attendance - Admiral's Barge, XFC, Humes, the Russians (3 degrees, so a summer's day in Estonia obviously), New Boy Mervyn Wright in 3536 and welcome returners to the fold - Ian and Kevin in 3851 - always fast!

Very prompt start from the Race Officer (it's what we asked for!) saw Mervyn lead over the line pressed by the Admiral's barge, then the Russians (light air kings usually), 3851, XFC and the Humes. Good speed and Mike's legendary light airs zen saw the AB romp away into a race winning lead - cheesy grins all round !! Mervyn struggled in the light airs, watching other's slide by - useful set up lessons no doubt.

Finishing order for race 1 was AB, Ian and Kevin (not according to the PRO - Ed.), the Russians, Howard and Richard, the Humes, Mervyn.