Sauna Sail summary and pitchpole question?

[madboutcats]

G’day we went to the Sauna Sail last weekend with one Arrow on top of the Taipan 5.7 took 7hrs to drive each way but was worth it. My 11yo daughter Enya sailed the Arrow and managed not to capsize or crash with 184 boats on the water in her 1st regatta away from home, she was the only junior sailing solo on a cat and the committee gave her great encouragement including the award of a mainsheet at the presentation. I sailed with my wife Liz as crew. On Saturday there was enough wind for 2 on the wire and at times me on the wire with the spin so great fun. On Sunday it was light wind all day only 2 out of 3 races competed. On Monday the wind was blustery and swinging, before the start we shredded our spin and a Tornado went over but the start was fine, after we rounded the top mark about half way down to the downwind mark the wind dropped out so we moved forward on the tramp, let the traveller out, jib out, outhaul off etc and were chatting with 3 kids in a dinghy when next thing a big puff got us and the leeward bow went under. I beared down let off the last of the traveller, jumped to the back of the tramp just in time for both the bows to go under and both of us to do the whole arms flailing legs kicking routine through the air in a pitchpole. I was amazed that the Taipan kept coming over and turned turtle with the mast stuck in the mud which kept one hull about 3ft above the water. The good thing about a pitchpole is we certainly cleared the area of where the cat tipped over. The kids in the dinghy went past hooting and shouting absolutely loving the show. Its become important that I don’t do that very often to my crew and she shows me the bruises every chance she gets so I’d appreciate some tips. I know I should have been watching behind and it wouldn’t have been a problem with the spin up but next time I find myself in that position with time to do one thing what should I do. Pull in the traveller? Let off the main? Try and round up? Or a combination of these things.

regards

[djufrt 137 5.7]

HI

Glad to see you made it to hazelwood, I realy mised being there, but it was a bit hard to get away with my little girl Lacey being born friday morning!

firstly, there was probably little time to do anything in the circumstances, but if you ever get hit again like that heres some golden rules when running a kite.

1...DONT EVER DUMP THE MAIN SHEET !!!!!

2...DONT EVER DUMP THE MAIN SHEET !!!!!

Yes that's rule 1 and 2! result if you do is a broken mast, so thats an important rule

3...bear away as much as quick and as smooth as posible.never round up you'll be swimming for sure!

now theres a few tricky points with easing traveler and kite at a time like this. some say dump them, (natural reaction)

my beliefe in this theory is that you can actualy inadvertantly "power up" the rig by doing this, right when you dont want to, if the gust hits from a different direction you could end up with sails working (laminar flow), thus pushing bows further under, rather than depowering by dumping...its very tricky and I've rarely made the corect choice myself! I have noticed cince I got the boat back that all the kite boats run much higher than what I remember russel and I doing when the 5.7s first ran the kites. 1 out on the wire seems to be the standard thing nowdays in most conditions.

hope this helps

Colin