The Glasshouse Mountains, Queensland, Australia

admin — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 06:52:24 +0000

During the lay-day of the 2005 IOM Worlds in Mooloolaba I had the chance to visit the Glasshouse mountains [1] [2] [3], a set of volcanic peaks named by James Cook.

Perhaps the most spectacular of the peaks, Mt Coonowrin, is now closed for climbers due to safety reasons.

2005 IOM Worlds, Mooloolaba, Austalia

admin — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 20:08:52 +0000

Better late than never - some of my own pictures and comments from the event.

Wednesday, September 14th, unofficial practice day

An overview of the sailing site at Quad Park, Kawana Waters, Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia. The big boat storage tent still firmly on the ground in this picture. Later, just before racing day one, it was to blow off during the night !

Some practice sailing in light and shifty no1 rig.

Team Finland (that's myself!) setting up. I sailed FIN 36, a Cockatoo built by Jeff Byerley. I'm using an RMG winch, a standard Futaba rudder servo, and the Spektrum DSM system in a Futaba 3VCS. I've assembled the rigs myself using parts and sails from SailsETC.

Thursday, September 15th, practice and measurement day one

During two days, event measurement was effectively and professionaly carried out in the officials tent. To the extreme right a white Cockatoo-2, the main prize in the event lottery.

Measurement consisted of a couple of different stations that each competitor has to go through. (left) Radio check, handled by Robert Hales, was first. All transmitters were checked on a spectrum analyzer (although I don't recall it picking up anything of my 2.4 GHz ). (right) Jeff Byerley in charge of the weighing station.

A smart stand for rigs.

Sails and rigs were thorougly checked.

Saturday, September 17th, racing day one

When racing day one dawned it was clear that the small rigs were going to come out of the rigbag !

An overwiev of the sailing site that was used for the first two days. We had a long course with good visibility and plenty of wind in the beginning of the regatta.

The heat-board kept us all up to date on which heat was being sailed and promotions and relegations.

Our PRO running the show.

A start in one of the seeding races. The course in the seeding races had more laps than in the following races to permit recovery from a bad start or bad luck in the first part of the race.

Leaders, still closely packed, rounding the first leeward mark.

Sunday, September 18th, racing day two

Camping in the sun during racing day two. At times the wind was so strong that it blew sand from the beach all over us !

Two of the main contestants, Craig Smith and Graham Bantock, competed with fairly new designs - both designed and built by the skippers themselves. (left) The new Obsession by Craig Smith, a more moderately beamed continuation of the very successful wide beam TS-2. (right) Graham's narrow beam Topiko, a development of his previous Italiko design.

Graham's Topiko finished as always with great detail using parts available from his company Sails ETC.

Craig's Obsession. Note the very smart radio installation. Winch, servo, receiver and batteries is located under one central hatch - no taping needed before going sailing. The deck stepped mast has been abandoned and is now keel stepped like on most IOMs. It's still unknown when this design will be available commercially but when it is, expect the delivery time to be long...

(left) David Turton (AUS), (right) Craig Mackey (USA).

Yoshiaki Okada made the trip from Japan, a brave effort considering his English was quite basic !

Monday, September 19th, racing day three

An A-Heat. GBR 95 has worked his way to the left of the beat and is taking full advantage of the lift from the bank...

... and reaches the top mark well in front.

A short first beat made for close top-mark roundings.

Almost all of the 20 A-heat boats on the second reach down to the leeward mark. Graham has been overtaken by Peter Stollery GBR 39.

(left) Peter Stollery, (right) Brad Gibson

Control area.

Another A-heat start. Mark B is probably the wing mark.

Tuesday, September 20th, racing day four

Another A-heat start. This time in the opposite direction compared to previous days.

A-heat skippers concentrating hard.

Some more sailors.

The run down from the top mark.

Here I've created an animation from 15 pictures shot between just after the start of an A-heat and the first boats rounding the top mark. Click the picture to download a 3 Mb Quick Time movie.

Wednesday, September 21st, Lay-day

See The Glasshouse Mountains

Thursday, September 22nd, racing day five

sorry no pictures...

Friday, September 23rd, racing day six

Beating up from the leeward mark.

Graham's trim for the day.

Coming up to the top mark

Rounding

Turning downwind for the run

Satuday, September 24th, final racing day

Martin Roberts left and Craigh Smith right.

Zvonko Jelacic (CRO) proved that looks aren't everyhing and sailed this 'beauty' into 8th place.

Personal ideas for improvement

I had good boatspeed with the no2 and no3 rigs used for the first two days of the regatta. My fixed length jibstays worked fine and the preset mast-rake was correct for the conditions. During the later part of the regatta in no1 rig boatspeed was neither spectacular nor too slow. Need to experiment more with mast rake on the no1 rig.

I found the short first beat used for the later part of the regatta very challenging. In hindsight a more conservative approach to the start line and the first beat might have been better. Too many times I found myself bailing out on the perfect start at the pin end or doing penalty turns for coming in on port and seeking a hole that was never there. Winning the heats required a perfect start at the pin end and being the first to tack onto port for the lift off the bank. A safe start and a longer starboard approach tack to the top mark would've maybe, on average, worked better - after all the objective in all but the A heat is not to win but to get promoted.

I sailed in a total of five A-heats, an improvement from zero in Vancouver. Let's hope that trend continues...

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