Wednesday, December 02, 2015

New bridle for 14m

13-16Kn, NE Archie's (40mins)
The pulleys had worn through the outer sheath of the original 14m bridle lines a couple of weeks ago. I'd been using it a little more regularly, but hadn't noticed the pulley had collapsed and was pushing the lines up against the sharp edges of the pulley wall. Both sides had collapsed so I think they may have been on the way out for a while but I hadn't noticed.  Eventually decided to hand it over to Wardy for replacement as the inner core didn't look like it would last more than a session.

I finally got to test the 14m today and it performed better than I remember. The canopy remained full even with agressive turns and delivered smooth power coming off turns. I had to trim in the centre lines like my 10m, but I was contemplating doing that from a couple of performances before the bridle replacement anyway.

All set for a couple of big days if the predictions are accurate.

 

Island Jumping

The changing sands of Elliott River mouth have formed a small point in the Northern channel that gets covered over at 1/2 tide. I've been using this point for a while to use clean water on the inside of it and a boost into the (somewhat) deeper water on the other side. A few weeks ago I got a good lookback at the point just before it went under: