Weekend Warriors! Melges Long Weekend in Farsund

A really special weekend in Farsund with their burdgeoning fleet of Melges forming the lion's share of the fleet.

Bless-ed were we with the weather- edge of an expanding high pressure area created sun boosted gradient breeze saturday with planing in the bigger gusts, while we had an established sea breeze which built sunday am, the sun rising at 04:45 here!

Farsund provides three main challenges with either breeze: firstly there is the main sound and then there is the westerly fjord which produce marked effects of a major header, lift or dead dissapated area on the right hand side of the beat where the fjord opens. The next challenge is the tide which is gentler in than when the whole sound and massive fjord complex empties : looked like at least 4 knt ebb under the town's bridges. Finally there are the islands and land wind shadows and occaisional convergent zones.

With the wind being a WNW modified isobaric day one, and a SW sea breeze from a cold sea sunday, we had all the challenges thrown at us in different proportions and directions.

There are two more serious boats from the west who come each year, and ourselves, but the 7 on the start line were enough to make for both good racing and the biggest fleet weekend race in Norway so far this year, the total fleet being at last count I heard 49.

Plus sides for us are that we are all very experienced and fearless, down sides are they we are all very experienced and fearless: you get the picture. We argue and take over each other's jobs and boss each other about and blame storm half way up the course. It works though oddly enough and for our first sail of the year, it was a matter of fight hard and take no prisoners, the red flag was going to be flown to teach the locals that ISAF actually write the wee rule booky thing.

We have an ancient BAE helicopter line produced schmelger from the early UK production, and changed if ageing mast , but in fact our boat speed with good rig and new North's was good. The norths are a little over engineered kevlar jobs, more like a 40 footer should have, and our top batten was a pig, and the classic north tight leeches probably slowed us when we were not paying attention. But the north spinnie was on the pace.

This year we were much nearer the transom of the infamous Haugesund-Bergensk "Party Girl" and beat her on the water once while she was OCS once. We had a regrettable attempt at a start line roll over on them which needs some debriefing around the only mention of " after the starting signal...above her proper course..." In section two of the wee book.

Tacks were above average, gybes much above our average with the addition of roll in even medium conditions. Mainsail was pretty poorly trimmed out the tacks and off wind. I think the fine adjust purchase under deck is a must have with the stiff bullet proof norths to open the leech off wind or in the light upwind, while being able to reach in and beast it on again with one hand.

We had a bit too hard and a bit too soft a rig respectively between the days and i think we could have set a little tighter day 2 and put more shape in the sails on the running stringy ropey things when the wind lulled. We did loosen the jib cunningham which is a must-do, while the forestay should only be slackened for sag after the rig is loosened, as we had enough on!

Probably killed our height a little on the first windier day though, as a symptom we didnt have it on enough. Balance to be struck there with rake and mid bend affected too.

I think we were a little off the pace day 1 upwind and did best with our principle of reduced tacks and erm, following Party Girl or seeing her and other boat's mistakes on the bad patches on the course.

I think we would have been lying fourth but OCSs and our protests made us in fact in top place until the wind died in the late "avver" and the festive damsels were the only boat to finish the last race.

More than this though I think the helm showed the fleet that we were in contol of the start line : we had sweet revenge by going in early and squeezing folk up to the IDM one time, while others the helm followed the fleet and just got a line out in front of them, or braked the whole rack up. Bad starts lead to some catch up, which we did but a good start and some fighting for second place was what counted.

Things I wasnt so happy about were some equipment glitches on the pole and some of the job jumping and multi skippering. To get the boat up a few boat lengths nearer the femmes du soiree we should have the helm do boat speed and a tactician call the boat tactics while a "weather man" does the shifts, tides and sides and the last does tweaks to strings.

The one thing i dont like about the melges is the low boom because I am tall and long legged with it, so gybes are major caution times, while you really struggle to get your head out the boat and see the fleet or wind and tide especially when heelin.g the boat to leeward in the light. Also helming it is a bit of a pain due to the tight space between sheet, boom and tiller, and that you need to often sit a little further in that is practical on the tiller extension. Dream on white boy, i am not going to be helming.

Improvements? Well team set up as above and training to that with set jobs for the day or at least the leg of the race would be a start. Next would be check lists and fixit punch-lists for equipment, tools, rigg/derigg, mast settings. Procedures for maneuvres ,sets, drops so on. A lot more thought from the helm bout the crews contribution and safety while less distraction to other boats on the course. Also notes on each race and settings , and setting marks on the usual spots, plus some black china pencil gybe or tack sight lines on the deck for the conditions of the day.

I think that the weekend showed that the Melges 24 today can be picked up used for less money that daubing your 40.7 beachball with needless kevlar, carbon and vectran and you can get out and race hard, picking up places on tactics and good starts over the new Devoti boats, which are affordable trailer sailing for syndicates anyway. As a dinghy sailor or having come from other sporty boats like the FC8, the boat is suprisingly manageable and very stiff over its lifetime it seems. It provides exciting sailing and the option of easy trailer-sailing to fleets and championships.