stuart midgley

A fantastic day today on Tigger, the Flying Tiger 10m yacht.

It started in very light winds yet by the end the fleet was battling over 30 knots of breeze. Chaos everywhere - boats snapping their masts off at deck level, others becoming closely acquainted with a new medium. Land.

We were hot. Everyone worked hard, the team work was excellent and we scorched our competition around the course - almost certainly we would have won.

I say ‘would have’ because heading upwind with only two legs left our brand new, beautiful number 4 headsail (a smaller headsail designed for heavier winds) decided that it didn’t want to be attached to the rigging any more and tried to leave. Believe it or not, the sail attaches to the forestay using velcro tabs. Velcro!

There was one particular puff of pressure, they all let go simultaneously and that was that. We recovered the sail but our race was over - they were simply not capable of holding the sail on in winds of that strength. After a (politely) abusive phone call to the sailmaker, and an early return to the bar, the sail will be back next week with traditional, spring-loaded brass hanks (clips).

We got some great photos of our competitors earlier in the race, before the winds hit, which I’ll post up shortly. On thing we didn’t get a photo of was a fellow Flying Tiger,  Shere Khan, being driven onto the rocks of Point Piper. She survived but has been badly damaged.

For us however it was a bitchin’ day!

Finally, after weeks of trying, we achieved a placing in our Saturday race!

The Super 30 Series is one of the most competitive series on Sydney Harbour, managed by the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club but drawing 30 foot yachts from most clubs on the harbour.

After a string of average results we all turned up early last Saturday for a two hour practice before the race start. After a number of rapid-fire start drills, mark roundings and spinnaker sets, gybes and drops, we had to draw deep to do as much work again in the actual race… but it paid off!

I met an old school friend on Facebook last week, turns out he’s a professional sailer now. (Not a bad life, if you can get it!)

Last Saturday I ended up helping crew on a brand new yacht he’s helping sail - a Flying Tiger 10m sports boat called Tigger. It’s been more than 10 years since I last sailed regularly so I was looking forward to getting out there.

Wow! Boats have moved along a little in the last decade. These boats are 30 foot long, designed only for racing and they scream. There’s no fitout below decks (no toilet, seats, bunks, anything except a radio and one chart table), they have a rig that really belongs on a 40 foot yacht instead of a 30 footer, a huuuuuge asymetric spinnaker that hangs off an 8 foot bow extension pole… and they are a wild, twitchy, high performance ride!

There’s a video below this post that give some footage - even in light air these boats scream along. We were posting 8 knots boat speed in 12 knots of wind - that’s a very fast boat!

It seems I’ve got a regular crew position on her, so I’ll post updates as I get back into the sailing groove over the next few months. This week was a practice sail, next week is the first race in the 08/09 season. Let the games commence!